“Stars Wars belongs to our dark past. A long, tyrannical epoch of fear, illogic, despotism and demagoguery that our ancestors struggled desperately to overcome, and that we are at last starting to emerge from, aided by the scientific and egalitarian spirit that Lucas openly despises.” — David Brin

Brin forcefully criticizes the naïveté of George Lucas, characterizing his established universe as:

“A chance to drop back into childhood and punt your adult cares away for two hours, dwelling in a lavish universe where good and evil are vividly drawn, without all the inconvenient counterpoint distinctions that clutter daily life. When the chief feature distinguishing “good” from “evil” is how pretty the characters are, it’s a clue that maybe the whole saga deserves a second look.”

The values inherent to the StarWars universe imparted by George Lucas are morally odious, according to Brin. Values such as:

Elites have an inherent right to arbitrary rule; common citizens needn’t be consulted. They may only choose which elite to follow.

“Good” elites should act on their subjective whims, without evidence, argument or accountability.

Any amount of sin can be forgiven if you are important enough.

True leaders are born. It’s genetic.

The right to rule is inherited. Justified human emotions can turn a good person evil.

Central to Brin’s critique of Lucas’s naïve moralizing is the so-called redemption story of Anakin Skywalker, whom Lucas has always considered to be the entire focus of the movies:

“I get asked all the time, ‘What happens after “Return of the Jedi”?,’ and there really is no answer for that,” he said. “The movies were the story of Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker, and when Luke saves the galaxy and redeems his father, that’s where that story ends.”

Lucas further confirms this in the New Yorker piece Letter from Skywalker Ranch:

The scripts for the prequel, which Lucas is finishing now, make it clear that Star Wars, taken as a whole story and viewed in chronological order, is not really the story of Luke at all but the story of Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker, and how he, a Jedi Knight, was corrupted by the dark side of the Force and became Darth Vader. When I asked Lucas what Star Wars was ultimately about, he said, “Redemption.”

There is no ambiguity in how Brin feels about Lucas’ ideas regarding the redemption of Anakin Skywalker:

To put it in perspective, let’s imagine that the United States and its allies managed to capture Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War, putting him on trial for war crimes. The prosecution spends months listing all the horrors done at his behest. Then it is the turn of Hitler’s defense attorney, who rises and utters just one sentence: “But, your honors … Adolf did save the life of his own son!” Gasp! The prosecutors blanch in chagrin. “We didn’t know that! Of course all charges should be dismissed at once!” The allies then throw a big parade for Hitler, down the avenues of Nuremberg. It may sound silly, but that’s exactly the lesson taught by “Return of the Jedi,” wherein Darth Vader is forgiven all his sins, because he saved the life of his own son. To his credit, Lucas does not try to excuse this macabre joke by saying, “It’s only a movie.” Rather, he holds up his saga like an agonized Greek tragedy worthy of “Oedipus” — an epic tale of a fallen hero, trapped by hubris and fate. But if that were true, wouldn’t “Star Wars” by now have given us a better-than-caricature view of the Dark Side? Heroes and villains would not be distinguished by mere prettiness; the moral quandaries would not come from a comic book.

This is why I think The Last Jedi comes from a very different science fiction tradition than the one exemplified by Lucas’s and Abrams’s treatments of the franchise before it. A tradition that seeks to undermine the entire edifice propped up by George, whose own tradition:

“Revels in elites, while the other rebels against them. In the genuine science-fiction worldview, demigods aren’t easily forgiven lies and murder. Contempt for the masses is passi. There may be heroes — even great ones — but in the long run we’ll improve together, or not at all.”

This is the Luke Skywalker that we see in The Last Jedi. The Luke Skywalker that seeks to shatter the illusion of his own legend. The Luke Skywalker that sarcastically asks Rey what it is she thinks he can do against the entire army of the New Order. This is not the Luke Skywalker of Return of the Jedi. This is Luke Skywalker, the failed hero. Luke failed his nephew and student Ben Solo when, in a moment of weakness, he ignited his lightsaber, ready to kill him in his sleep. He failed Ben by succumbing to his own fear, a fear grounded in a force vision Luke took to be fixed and inevitable. By failing Ben, Luke failed the galaxy he had once saved from darkness. Ben’s fall to the dark side destroyed the new Jedi order. Luke failed, as a teacher, mentor, and as a jedi.

Star Wars fans seem to take it for granted that once Luke overcame the temptation of the dark side in his battle against the Emperor, his character arc was complete. And yet we all know temptation does not work this way. Overcoming vices or the pull to the dark side is a lifelong process, not a single event.

The Last Jedi undermines the idea that the galaxy can be saved, if only the proper hero would emerge. The small grain of optimism we find in this movie is found only at the end, with the birth of a new rebellion from the ashes of the New Republic. The symbol of hope for the galaxy is not that of the Jedi Order, but of the rebellion.

A grassroots resistance by the people.