How Star Wars: The Last Jedi Beautifully Subverts The Franchise’s Take On Jedi [SPOILERS]

Disclaimer: This post contains MASSIVE spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

If you haven’t seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi yet, I highly recommend you not read this. Seriously, you will get spoiled.

SPOILER ALERT!

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There is something special in the Skywalker bloodline. That’s the lie we’ve been told for generations in the Star Wars franchise, and that’s the lie that Lucasfilm was more than happy to push while promoting this film. This main saga of movies is supposed to have the Skywalkers front-and-center, right?

If you’ve seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi, you know that isn’t the case. After two years of speculation as to Rey’s parentage, it was revealed that her parents are a couple of nobodies her sold her off and left her to rot on Jakku. Kylo Ren even broke the fourth wall slightly in this moment, telling Rey that she had “no place in this story.” And going by fan’s expectations, she really did have no place in the story.

RELATED – Spoiler-Filled Review Of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Countless fans assumed one of two things: that Rey would be revealed as a Skywalker, or that Kylo Ren would turn light, Rey would turn dark, and Kylo Ren (a Skywalker) would take the lead in the final film. Given that we’ve been conditioned to see the Skywalker clan as “special” ever since A New Hope, it makes sense we’d feel this way. Hell, even in The Phantom Menace, it was driven home that Anakin was special, and we can only assume that made his entire bloodline special.

Our former lead character, Luke Skywalker even believed this lie. Once he died, there’d be no one else left to train Jedi, and they would come to an end. But even he, with all his knowledge and experience, seemed to misunderstand what the Force is.

By the end of the film, it was not only clear that Rey had no special lineage, but that the Force will always find a way to reach people, no matter where they come from. The stableboy on Canto Bight was just as much of a nobody as Anakin first was, and the Force came to him. Contrary to what we’ve been told, the Skywalkers aren’t the only ones in the galaxy with the potential to use the Force — they’ve just been the ones positioned to capitalize on it since the Empire took hold.

So not only with the Jedi live on in one form or another, but the film almost does look to the audience and tell them that these films — despite being saga films — are not just about one family anymore. It is a beautiful subversion of expectations, a beautiful subversion of what many of us felt Jedi were, and something of a passing of the torch from the Skywalkers to Rey. Jedi aren’t just made by the knowledge they gain from teachers, but rather by their innate abilities and oneness with the Force, which does not discriminate by bloodlines.

What did you think of this subversion? Let us know down below!

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