There’s one surprise in “The Last Jedi” that probably caught even the biggest “Star Wars” fan off guard.
LUCASFILM
[This post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi]
The scripts for Game of Thrones season seven were leaked online months in advance. It’s big news when a major death on The Walking Dead isn’t ruined. A “this post contains spoilers” is now a near-obligatory introduction to any article (see: this article) written about Marvel. Or DC. Or especially Star Wars.
But to the immense credit of Disney, and the millions they spent on anti-drone drones and the jacked Eastern European bodyguards who flew them, little about The Last Jedi was spoiled in advance. Think about it: how much do you actually know about the movie? Do you know who Rey’s parents are? Do you know anything about Supreme Leader Snoke, other than his height? What the heck is that porg screaming about? If you avoided the trailers, and fast-forward through commercials (so: everyone), you could come into The Last Jedi cold turkey.
But even if you read all the fan theories and devoured every nugget of pre-release information like a rancor eating a Gamorrean guard, there’s one surprise in the movie that, based on my theater experience, made you gasp.
It happens near the end of the second act, after Rey departs Ahch-To to join the fight against the First Order, leaving Luke Skywalker alone and broken. The self-loathing Jedi tries to burn the tomes of his “hokey religion,” in order to rid the world of the Jedi for good, but stops himself at the last moment. (Much like he did in killing Kylo in his sleep during a flashback.) However, Luke is surprised to learn he’s not the only one there. For the first time since declaring his self-imposed exile at the end of Revenge of the Sith (or, in episodic order, ghosting with Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Return of the Jedi), Master Yoda appears! He’s not the wise Yoda of the prequels, either, but the rascally Yoda who steals Luke’s food and bashes R2-D2 with his stick. I missed that guy.
