What have The Last Jedi and Jeremy Corbyn got in common? There’s the penchant for silly hats, and a love of cuddly critters – but that goes for any of the series’ previous entries too. No, what the new Star Wars film and the Labour leader really have in common is that they’re both as red as Kylo Ren’s lightsaber.

Whether you’re a fan of the latest instalment or not – it’s impossible to deny that it’s a revolutionary entry into Star Wars canon. And not just because it’s the first of the series to pass the Bechdel test. If its predecessor, A Force Awakens, shook things up with a female lead, a black co-star and a Latin-American heartthrob, this film takes it to a whole new level of progressive fantasy, taking aim at capitalism, the Trump regime, and the very notion of heroes.

There’s a delicious irony to the fact that director Rian Johnson, funded by corporate behemoth Disney, has used this most capitalistic, money-grabbing of platforms to plant the seeds of anti-fascist, anti-capitalist egalitarianism in the minds of the world’s young. It’s not a subtle message, either. There’s a whole sequence set in an intergalactic casino where the only thing of any import we learn is about the evils of unfettered capitalism – only the wicked get rich, and it’s by selling arms to both sides. Ring any bells?

In the age of Trump, Brexit and general hopelessness, waiting around for a hero to fix the world simply won’t do

The shape of our stories has ramifications far beyond the boundaries of their fictional universes. Disney must take its share of the blame for the princess obsession, just as Star Wars feeds into our innate desire for hero narratives. But not any more. The Last Jedi has a clear message: anybody can be a hero, so there’s no excuse not to get involved in the fight. The very last shot of the film (again, spoiler alert) has a young boy, enslaved by that malevolent casino, casually using the force to whisk a broom into his hand before staring up at the stars. It’s a direct echo of Luke Skywalker gazing up at the dual sunset in the 1977 original – but unless the boy turns out to be a long lost clone of Darth Vader, it’s a radical shift.

No longer do the Skywalker clan hold the hopes of the galaxy in their perpetually unreliable grip. Now it’s down to all of us, even the most lowly stable boy, to rise up against the evil empire. And who heads up that evil empire? A white man of course. But he’s also the spawn of the galaxy’s most famous family, and the son of a princess. It’s the danger of over-privilege writ large.

If the original trilogy was about waiting for a hero to rescue the world from a tyrannical, authoritarian regime, and the prequels were an (albeit hamfisted) attempt to examine how democracy can easily mutate in to dictatorship, then this new trilogy had looked set to simply repeat what came before. After Episode VII all the questions were about the parentage of our new hero, Rey. She’s a Skywalker, surely? Or a least a Kenobi. Perhaps there’s a little Yoda in there somewhere?

‘We can all be the hero, we just have to believe we can be the change we want to see in this world, as well as a galaxy far, far away.’ Photograph: Jonathan Olley/AP

But no. And by shrugging off that mystery, and revealing her parents as galactic wastrels of no import, who sold her off for booze money, Johnson’s entry has rooted the future of the series in a populist framework of how to defeat tyranny through community. Not only are dynasties over, they’re actively dangerous. After all, this isn’t the first of the Skywalker clan to wreak death and destruction, and the last of that bloodline has become, apparently, an irredeemable villain.

In the age of Trump, Brexit and general hopelessness, this is something we need to hear more than ever – waiting around for a hero to fix the world simply won’t do. We all have the responsibility, and capability, to improve things – no matter where we are from. The only way the resistance will win this time is if we work together and recognise the talents and potential of all people.

It’s a message we need on both sides of the Atlantic. Donald Trump is an obvious villain, embarking upon a journey of obviously fascistic behaviour. The wave of mass protests already seems to have woken liberal America from any complacency that might have existed before the 2016 election. But it’s a lesson we need in the UK too – we can’t rely on somebody to rescue us from this Conservative government if we won’t put the effort in ourselves. Too much of the Labour party has been stuck in the thinking of the 70s original, waiting for A New Hope to lead them in to the light – whether it’s David Miliband to the right, or Jez to the left. But it’s in the grassroots that the future for both Labour and Star Wars lies. We can all be the hero, we just have to believe we can be the change we want to see in this world, as well as a galaxy far, far away.

No matter what we’ve been told, in countless hero narratives over the centuries, we’re all capable of weighing in and playing our part. Whatever you may think of the Last Jedi, that’s a good message to send kids home with for Christmas.

• Toby Moses is assistant editor on Guardian Opinion