A lot of breathless, eye-grabbing headlines are out there proclaiming the death of Star Wars at the hands of the evil Rian Johnson. After all, The Last Jedi upset a certain corner of fandom, so any way to reel in the anger and outrage of that very vocal, very online-all-the-time crowd is a safe bet. And besides, the film pulled down $220 million domestically its first weekend and then plunged harder than any film ever had before it for its second weekend, nabbing just over $68 million before Christmas---the first motion picture to fall over $150 million in its first two weekends.
In the weeks since The Last Jedi’s premiere, much has been made about how the film turns the Force from the province of a particular family (high midi-chloriansor not) to something available to anyone—even a nobody from the desert planet of Jakku like Rey. But in some ways this turn of events is hardly surprising: If many religious narratives are bound up in anticipating a chosen one, others teach that spiritual leadership can emerge from the least likely of places.
There may yet be a day when Disney's Star Wars movies cease to become events. Maybe it'll be Solo, maybe it'll be the first installment of the next trilogy, or maybe it'll be well into the future. But that The Last Jedi isn't pulling in the numbers of The Force Awakens or the legs of The Phantom Menace is no reason to argue that the franchise is in any real peril. In this case, very good is still good enough.
