How the women of 'The Last Jedi' make 'Star Wars' a Force

This post discusses mild plot and character details from 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi.'

There seemingly aren’t enough superlatives to describe the experience of seeing Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Elated, shocked and ultimately thirsty for more, I felt the wide range of my emotions while watching this weird, risky and fantastic film unfold before me.

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But as a longtime female fan of the franchise, what made seeing Rian Johnson’s film, the second of the modern trilogy, just a little bit sweeter was the multitude of different women who populated the screen.

The film (in theaters Thursday evening) is packed with images of Princess-turned-General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher, in her final performance) in command of a blaster, new heroine Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) making daring escapes, and Rey (Daisy Ridley), the Jedi I always wanted to see, wielding a lightsaber alongside Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). The galaxy is, at long last, populated by women who are complicated, strong, weak, loyal, daring, young, old and everything in between. It’s hard to miss them — they’re everywhere, from the nameless X-wing pilots and First Order officers to the most important heroes of the day.

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The Last Jedi isn't the first Star Wars film to give its female characters a chance to take the spotlight: The Force Awakens opened with a bang when it gave its lead role to Rey, turned Leia into a general and included Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), a female commander on the dark side. The standalone prequel Rogue One starred Felicity Jones as the Han Solo-esque Jyn Erso.

But what The Last Jedi does, and what it is uniquely positioned to do as the middle chapter of the new trilogy, is take something that felt revolutionary two years ago and make it feel happily average, just another part of the saga we love.

The moment when Rey grabbed the lightsaber at the end of The Force Awakens was powerful and emotional, not unlike the No Man's Land sequence in Wonder Woman this year that brought female viewers to tears. And The Last Jedi is the natural step forward Hollywood should be taking with its representation, telling stories about its women that don't have to be the single defining narrative for the franchise. In doing so, the film finds room, alongside Rey’s epic hero’s journey, for subplots about the bonds of sisterhood or female authority figures dealing with hot-headed male underlings. It just scratches the surface of the stories these films can tell.

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Although Leia has long been a feminist icon, Star Wars hasn’t always had the best track record with its portrayal of women. Both its original and prequel trilogies had few speaking female roles and only one female lead each. Those female roles were often overly sexualized (like Leia in the metal bikini) or criminally underdeveloped (that Natalie Portman's Padmé dies of a “broken heart” at the end of Revenge of the Sith is a sin on par with Jar Jar Binks). Both women could hold their own on the battlefield, sure, but one woman among dozens of male characters is limiting at best and outright tokenism at worst.

The Last Jedi understands that the experience of seeing a female hero onscreen isn't enough. The women of the film embody a spectrum of femininity, and they can be a part of the saga in long dresses or a maintenance uniform or with a lightsaber.

The most surprising form this takes in The Last Jedi is in the relationship between new character Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), which is inevitably a story about a young, brash male employee who can’t quite follow the instructions of an older female boss. It's such a specific story with real-world implications that I never thought I’d see something like it in a Star Wars film. But The Last Jedi includes that plot thread more effortlessly than, say, its merchandising-mandated cute animals, the porgs. Holdo's role suggests that The Last Jedi endeavors not just to tell stories about women, but about womanhood.

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That expands to Rose Tico, a character type the franchise has had little time for in the past. Not only is she a woman of color (and, unlike Lupita Nyong'o's motion-capture performance as Maz Kanata, audiences can see her) but she is a rather unremarkable person in the galaxy, not a chosen one nor a storied smuggler nor royalty. Still, Rose's unique perspective and Tran's innate charm make her a worthy part of the story, and she teams up with Finn (John Boyega) for a side adventure that offers a slightly political point of view about economic inequality. 

The list of moments, big and small, that express the depth of the film's female characters goes on. They aren't defined by stereotypes or by how well they hew to the male point of view. It's worth noting that the film does so well with its women because it makes time for all of its characters, from a briefly seen female Resistance fighter to discovering new depths in Luke Skywalker. It feels like a big moment because this treatment isn't always afforded to multiple female characters, especially in big-budget action franchises. Wonder Woman may have won our hearts in her solo movie, but she was still the only woman in the Justice League. 

Representation in film is a process, and The Last Jedi made some great leaps forward, especially with Rose. But there’s always room for improvement, and the onscreen franchise still lacks any LGBTQ characters (although a spinoff book series does). There's more to explore, and The Last Jedi helped open that door. The galaxy is limitless, and the fact that Star Wars is sticking around for many future films (and that Johnson is helming his own new trilogy) is encouraging.

And in the meantime, it's still pretty thrilling to see Rey with that lightsaber.