The Resistance, having enraged the leadership of the First Order by destroying Starkiller Base, is now on the run as the former Empire cuts off its supply lines and escape routes. A small flotilla of Resistance ships manages to escape, but General Hux and the First Order fleet are close behind them, pursuing at sublight speed to avoid overshooting their prey. Poe Dameron, still the most daring pilot in the Resistance, defies orders to take out the most heavily-armed dreadnought-class Star Destroyer, but his defiance – and the heavy losses incurred – cost him his rank. Kylo Ren is similarly facing the disdain of his Dark Side master, Supreme Chancellor Snoke, who chides him for not having the singular strength of will that his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, did. Ren leads a strike on the Resistance fleet that almost results in his mother’s death; Leia’s latent Force powers save her life, but she is in no shape to lead the fleet, leaving Vice Admiral Holdo to assume command of what’s left of the Resistance. Finn, losing his nerve during the First Order’s onslaught, considers abandoning ship in an escape pod until he’s dissuaded by a young technician named Rose Tico, whose sister was one of the Resistance pilots killed in Poe’s ill-advised, unauthorized strike on the dreadnought – or, more accurately, Finn is dissuaded by a laser tool Rose is carrying for the express purpose of preventing potential deserters. When the First Order demonstrates the ability to track the Resistance fleet through hyperspace, it suddenly seems that Rose’s expertise in hyperdrive and Finn’s knowledge of First Order ship layouts is a promising combination…if only they can get aboard. A hot tip from Maz points them, with BB-8 in tow, to the luxury planet Canto Bight, where a renowned codebreaker can be found gambling in the casino. But Finn and Rose and their rolling droid stand out like sore thumbs among the Canto Bight elite, and are unable to get close enough to talk to the codebreaker in question before they’re locked up. They meet a fellow prisoner who claims to have the same skills they need to breach the defense of Snoke’s command ship.
During all of this, Rey, Chewie and R2-D2 have traveled to the obscure ocean planet Ahch-To, where Luke Skywalker (and various local life forms) tend to the ruins of what’s said to be the first Jedi temple. Luke is not at all happy to be disturbed from his solitude, informing Rey rather bluntly that he has come to this planet to age and die in peace, and to keep the sacred and ancient Jedi texts with him. Rey also discovers that he has forsaken use of the Force: Luke feels that the hubris of the Jedi led to the decades of suffering that resulted from the Sith and the Empire dominating the galaxy. The days of the Jedi, Luke has decided for himself, must come to an end. But shaken by news of Han’s death, and given a reminder of his own youthful yearning to become something greater, Luke reluctantly agrees to teach Rey the ways of the Force. He discovers along the way that her ability to tap into the Force may rival that of Kylo Ren himself – Ben Solo, Luke’s former protege who turned to the Dark Side. Luke’s fears may be founded, too: Kylo Ren and Rey are able to see and speak to one another despite the vast distances between them. Rey believes Ren can be turned away from Snoke’s influence, and since her mentor refuses to return to the fight against the First Order, she sets off to recruit Ren as an ally. Enraged, Luke sets out to burn down the last remains of the Jedi temple and the texts contained within, only to discover that his own mentor has beaten him to it…and unaware that Rey has already taken the texts with her.
Chewie drops Rey off in an escape pod near the First Order flagship, where Kylo Ren awaits her arrival and introduces her to Snoke, who uses the Force to extract Luke’s whereabouts from Rey’s mind. When she continues to declare her intent to resist Snoke, he orders Ren to kill her, but Ren instead kills Snoke, and a vicious battle with Snoke’s personal retinue of bodyguards ensues, during which Rey and Ren have to fight together. But once that threat is dealt with, Ren reveals that he killed Snoke to ascend to his throne and assume his position of power, not to help the Resistance. Finn, Rose, BB-8 and their new codebreaking acquaintance also sneak aboard the flagship to disable the hyperspace tracker, only for the shifty codebreaker to sell them out to the First Order. Aboard the last surviving Resistance cruiser, Poe Dameron has grown tired of Admiral Holdo’s secretive style of command and tries to mount a mutiny, only to have that uprising personally quashed by Leia, fresh out of the medical bay, still frail, but still fiercely determined. Poe’s point of contention is that Holdo is preparing to order the entire remaining Resistance to abandon the nearly-out-of-fuel cruiser in unarmed sublight transports, which will then limp to a nearby planet and the relative safety of an abandoned Rebel base from the days of the Empire, while the First Order (hopefully) concentrates all of its attention on the cruiser. Admiral Holdo remains on the cruiser to act as a decoy, but the First Order targets the helpless transports and begins blasting them out of the sky, one by one, until Holdo suicidally jumps the cruiser to lightspeed, ramming through Snoke’s flagship. Rey, Finn, Rose and BB-8 escape and make their way to the Rebel base, where Leia has ordered a distress call to be transmitted to allies of the Resistance – a call that seems to be going unanswered as First Order forces surround the base…until Luke Skywalker, last of the Jedi, appears from nowhere, conferring briefly with Leia before going outside to personally face off against Kylo Ren. The fight does not go the way that anyone expects, and buys the Resistance time to escape…but at this point, the Resistance has been whittled down in size to the point that they all fit inside the Millennium Falcon.
written by Rian Johnson
directed by Rian Johnson
music by John Williams
Cast: Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker / Dobbu Scay), Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa), Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), Daisy Ridley (Rey), John Boyega (Finn), Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron), Andy Serkis (Snoke), Lupita Nyong’o (Maz Kanata), Domnhall Gleeson (General Hux), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Gwendoline Christie (Captain Phasma), Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico), Laura Dern (Vice Admiral Holdo), Benicio Del Toro (DJ), Frank Oz (Yoda), Billie Lourd (Lieutenant Connix), Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca), Amanda Lawrence (Commander D’Arcy), Jimmy Vee (R2-D2), Brian Herring (BB-8), Dave Chapman (BB-8), Justin Theroux (Master Codebreaker), Tim Rose (Admiral Ackbar), Tom Kane (Admiral Ackbar), Adrian Edmondson (Captain Peavey), Mark Lewis Jones (Captain Canady), Hermione Corfield (A-Wing Pilot Tallie), Veronica Ngo (Paige Tico), Noah Segan (X-Wing Pilot Starck), Jamie Christopher (X-Wing Pilot Tubbs), Paul Casey (C’al Threnalli), Michael Coel (Resistance Monitor), Jonathan Harden (Resistance Monitor), Dan Euston (Resistance Bombardier), Priyanga Burford (Resistance Medical Officer), Navin Chowdhry (Resistance Cargo Pilot), Andrew Jack (General Ematt),
Crystal Clarke (Resistance Transport Pilot), Aki Omoshaybi (Resistance Bridge Officer), Togo Igawa (Resistance Bridge Officer), Hugh Skinner (Holdo’s First Officer), Tim Steed (Holdo’s First Officer), Simon Lowe (Resistance Hangar Captain), Joe Van Moyland (Temporary Command Center Resistance Pilot), Shauna MacDonald (Temporary Command Center Resistance Pilot), Darren Morfitt (Transport Deck Officer), Gerard Monaco (First Order Commander), Kate Dickie (Hux’s First Order Monitor), Patrick O’Kane (Hux’s First Order Officer), Paul Bazely (Hux’s First Order Officer), Orion Lee (Canady’s First Order Monitor), Amira Ghazalla (Canady’s First Order Commander), Ralph Ineson (Senior First Order Officer), Akshay Kumar (Mega-Destroyer First Order Monitor), Michael Jibson (Kylo’s Shuttle Pilot), Luke Neal (Canto Cop), Andy Nyman (Jail Guard), Temirlan Blaev (Stable Boy), Josiah Oniha (Stable Kid), Sara Heller (Stable Kid), Matthew Sharp (Resistance Trench Sergeant “Salty”), Lily Cole (Party Girl Lovey), Warwick Davis (Wodibin), Kiran Shah (Neepers Panpick), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (voice of Slowen Lo), Mike Quinn (Nien Nunb), Gareth Edwards (Resistance Trench Soldier), Jack Greenlees (Resistance Evacuation Officer), Danny Sapani (Medical Frigate Captain), Kevin Layne (Resistance Bomber Pilot #1), Ben Morris (Resistance Bomber Pilot Teene)
LogBook entry and review by Earl Green
Stardate 1709.1: Responding to distress calls from border outposts along the Neutral Zone between the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire, Kirk and the crew receive a final message from a Federation station reporting an attack from an invisible ship. Before the station is destroyed, it sends the Enterprise a brief view of the attacking vessel – a streamlined fighter which appears for a second when it fires. Hurrying to the scene, the Enterprise engages in battle with a Romulan Bird of Prey, armed with a cloaking device and commanded by a battle-scarred and tired commander whose crew is more eager to go into combat than he is. The Romulans, to the Enterprise crew’s amazement, bear a stunning resemblance to Vulcans, which arouses suspicion in some, including Lt. Styles, whose father died in a battle with the Romulans years ago. But as long as the Romulan ship can remain invisible, the Enterprise is at a disadvantage.written by Paul Schneider
