The first trailer for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” has appeared and it doesn’t show anything about the next movie that we don’t already expect/
Luke Skywalker is going to train his maybe-daughter Rey in the ways of the force, which involve her being able to make gravel shake and being able to see the light, darkness, and the extent of the balance between the two.
Kylo Ren, the ultimate cry bully Millennial, very much wants to wipe out the Jedi and somehow connect with his great idol, Darth Vader, perhaps unaware that he turned away from the dark side at the end of “Return of the Jedi.”
Finn, the reformed Stormtrooper, and Poe get to fly hot spacecraft in eye-popping CGI space and air battles between the Resistance and the First Order.
Though she doesn’t show up in the trailer, we know that the late Carrie Fisher’s scenes as General Leia Organa so she will appear in the movie as well. We have also been informed that the character will show up in Episode 9 thanks to archival footage and clever editing and no doubt CGI.
What else is going to happen with “The Last Jedi?” Who knows? Who cares? We’re all going to see the movie unless North Korea manages to nuke us or ISIS doesn’t let loose with a mass Sarin gas attack.
Who would have thought in 1977, when the first movie came out at the beginning of the Great Carter Malaise, that 40 years later the world would still be breathlessly anticipating yet another “Star Wars” film? Most movie franchises run out of gas around the second or third sequels.
“Star Wars” has had eight movies and a number of TV spinoffs, including last year’s stand-alone “Rogue One.” Not even the horrible “Phantom Menace” was able to kill the series. It just keeps going on and one, with no end in sight. Ever since Disney took over the franchise, it has seen it as a means to print as much money as it wants.
Only “Star Trek,” ironically another space adventure series, has been as successful.
It could come to pass that no living human will be able to see all of the “Star Wars” films from first to last as they come out. Someone who was 20 and in college when we first went to that galaxy far, far away is now 60 and thinking of retirement.
It could well be that we will not see the end of the series until interstellar travel arrives at the real universe from the imagination of science fiction. Then the real adventures among the stars will begin that may be more epic than anything imagined on the big or small screen.
