The Last Jedi (Singular/Plural/Only A Callback)

January 27, 2017 2:13 PM

With only about 323 days until the next Star Wars theatrical release, Lucasfilm has announced the title of Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. As to be expected, rampant discussion followed as to who or whom the title referred to, including a bold attempt by the fearless Josh Gad to get answers from Daisey Ridley.

This is not the first use of the title, The Last Jedi, as The Hollywood Reporter notes its previous use in the Star Wars universe, and at the same time, celebrates the possibility that perhaps it indicates the end of the Jedi.

posted by Atreides (71 comments total)

Isn't Jedi also plural? The Jedi are a people, not a person.
posted by Brockles at 2:16 PM on January 27, 2017 [17 favorites]

Wait, do we have enough star wars films planned to get us through the entire Trump administration?
posted by dinty_moore at 2:17 PM on January 27, 2017 [6 favorites]

The Last Jedi is you.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:19 PM on January 27, 2017 [13 favorites]

I've seen an image that goes something like "THE FORCE AWAKENS / THE LAST JEDI / FROM HIS NAP".

Spoiler: Episode 9 is Kyle Katarn and Mara Jade waking up pissed that everyone forgot about them.
posted by lmfsilva at 2:24 PM on January 27, 2017 [48 favorites]

Perhaps the real Last Jedi was the friends we made along the way.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:24 PM on January 27, 2017 [57 favorites]

The Force Awakens The Last Jedi [insert Episode IX title here].

Whatever it is they're kind of backed into the corner for something silly.

Also, technically, since we threw out the entire EU canon, Luke is the last remaining Jedi.
posted by Talez at 2:24 PM on January 27, 2017

Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens
Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi
Star Wars IX: To Vote In The Midterms

Yeah, it's a coded message from Hollywood.
posted by Wordshore at 2:26 PM on January 27, 2017 [27 favorites]

Here's the image.

Also I want to hear this song right now.
posted by rewil at 2:26 PM on January 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm pretty sure there could be remaining Jedi even in the new canon, based on the new canon novels and Star Wars Rebels.

It seems like an okay title, since it was clear Luke was going to be a big mover in Episode VIII. Still leaves a lot unknown and I'm fairly cautiously optimistic that Rian Johnson could pull off an actually inventive and good Star Wars movie even at this point. I'm trying to not think too hard about what the title means and possible plots for this and the next episode though. causouslly
posted by skynxnex at 2:30 PM on January 27, 2017

One for the "This is why we can't have nice things" files: Unfortunately, Ridley shut down her [Instagram] account last year because she couldn’t take the horrible people on the internet leaving mean comments.
Damnit, people!
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:34 PM on January 27, 2017 [7 favorites]

STAR
Oh Actually There Was This Other Jedi-ish Guy
WARS
posted by Kabanos at 2:39 PM on January 27, 2017 [9 favorites]

My name is Last Jedi
And wen its nite,
or wen death star
is shiyning brite
and all the troopers
haf gon to bed
I stay up late
I kill them ded.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 2:41 PM on January 27, 2017 [57 favorites]

Soundtracked by the Mountain Goats!
posted by JoeBlubaugh at 2:44 PM on January 27, 2017 [4 favorites]

"Hey, maybe there are no Jedi. Maybe it's one of them, um, metaphorical things."
"Oh, yeah, yeah. Like maybe the "Jedi" are the place inside each of us, created by our goodwill and teamwork."
"Oh.... Nah, they said there'd be sandwiches."
posted by Guy Smiley at 2:51 PM on January 27, 2017 [10 favorites]

The Last Dollars You Will Ever Extract From My Pocket If It Isn't Superior...
posted by jim in austin at 3:09 PM on January 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

The last Jedi will perform a mind-meld destroying the ultimate-dual-deathstar and transform into the first Cylon.
posted by sammyo at 3:11 PM on January 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

...R2-D2, surely.

Although I'm betting on C-3PO.
posted by thomas j wise at 3:13 PM on January 27, 2017

I like to imagine the subtitle as a question: "The Last Jedi?"
posted by Huffy Puffy at 3:15 PM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

STAR WARS: The Last Series
posted by straight at 3:15 PM on January 27, 2017

Wait, do we have enough star wars films planned to get us through the entire Trump administration?

Well, this one doesn't come out until December, so I'm personally hoping we won't get any new Star Wars movies during the entirety of the Trump administration.
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:17 PM on January 27, 2017 [36 favorites]

Rogue One :(
posted by saturday_morning at 3:26 PM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

That’s my last Jedi painted on the wall,
Looking as if he were alive.
posted by kyrademon at 3:37 PM on January 27, 2017 [4 favorites]

Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi... to leave Tatooine please turn off all the suns.
posted by GuyZero at 3:42 PM on January 27, 2017 [5 favorites]

I have solved the mystery and divined the name of the movie's villain through the power of anagrams

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
rearranges to
LET'S RESIST DARTH JAWA
posted by saturday_morning at 3:51 PM on January 27, 2017 [25 favorites]

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I'm the last Jedi
I'm the last hope
I'm the last Jedi
Will I kill you, dad?
Nope!

Flew a little pod
Fought a little war
Killed some little kids
Did you?
Had to get your girl
Had to break your vow
Had to get your wish
Didn't matter how;
Anyway, it doesn't matter now.

Heed the last Jedi --
Throw him down,
Splat!
Soon he will be past Jedis,
Down the shaft and smashed flat!

Goodbye, father, then.
(Lost your hand again!)
When you die you'll hang out with Ben!
There's a ship so I'll race
Far away from this place,
And I'll zoom
From this tomb
Going boom,
To spaaaace!
posted by kyrademon at 4:00 PM on January 27, 2017 [6 favorites]

GREETINGS JEDI. YOU HAVE BEEN RECRUITED TO DEFEND THE GALAXY AGAINST KYLO REN AND THE FIRST ORDER.
posted by condour75 at 4:14 PM on January 27, 2017 [19 favorites]

Makes me think of The Last Samurai, where many people incorrectly assumed the title referred to Cruise's character rather than the, you know, samurai who represented the last of the samurai in the Satsuma Rebellion (the movie had many problems, but the title made sense at least).

I'm pretty sure Jedi is being used as plural here, but we'll see.
posted by thefoxgod at 4:36 PM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

my wife noted that as soon as they translate the title into languages with gendered articles, like Portuguese or Spanish, we will have a pretty good idea who the last Jedi is.

Or they could just translate it into something incredibly stupid.
posted by Glibpaxman at 4:39 PM on January 27, 2017 [4 favorites]

I really hope they mean last in the sense of previous, just to be stinkers.
posted by The Gaffer at 4:40 PM on January 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

We'll get more Star Wars Movies under Trump than any other administration yet. IX will be in 2019, so the trilogy of trilogies will be completed during the Trump years. There's also a planned Han Solo spin-off, scheduled for 2018. You knew Disney didn't spend a billion dollars not to milk the hell out of the franchise, so there'll probably be another for 2020. Id be pretty surprised if they put out any less than 1 a year from now until people stop seeing them, which judging from Marvel superhero movies, might be around 2048.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:48 PM on January 27, 2017

The big question is: what kind of planet-killing superweapon will a plucky group of rebels have to destroy?
posted by isthmus at 4:54 PM on January 27, 2017 [10 favorites]

Ewan McGregor is up for more Obi-Wan Kenobi stories set between Eps 3 & 4. (So am I.)
posted by Guy Smiley at 5:05 PM on January 27, 2017 [9 favorites]

Blah, bad title. I was hoping for "Episode VIII: Sith Happens."
posted by Zack_Replica at 5:08 PM on January 27, 2017 [7 favorites]

Appropos of nothing, I'd like to see another filler movie like Rogue One but this time a war POV film that takes place in near real time (maybe some character flashbacks, a departure for Star Wars) entirely on and around an Imperial AT-AT battle group during some horrible battle for the side plot moon.

Das Boot with AT-ATs.

Let's do it.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:20 PM on January 27, 2017 [16 favorites]

Das Boot with AT-ATs.

Fuck yes.
posted by 256 at 5:28 PM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

I know the Young Solo film is gonna take place before ANH and probably be super boring, but wouldn't it be awesome if instead we got General Solo doing a Kelly's Heroes thing? It's after the Battle of Endor, and the Rebellion is mopping up the last Imperial holdouts. Han gets wind of a stockpile of credit chips and assembles a ragtag squad of misfits to go grab it. Tell me that wouldn't be an awesome movie.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:29 PM on January 27, 2017 [17 favorites]

Why does it have to mean the end of the Jedi? Right now, Luke is the last Jedi. But he could train more Jedi. #truefromacertainpointofview
posted by PlusDistance at 5:30 PM on January 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Or they could just translate it into something incredibly stupid.

Wait, how can that link not lead to (the classic) Star War: Backstroke of the West?
posted by steady-state strawberry at 5:34 PM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

(Or to this, which is the same thing, just in better definition.)
posted by steady-state strawberry at 5:36 PM on January 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

ok, so the Force Awakens, right? And it's a little bleary eyed, stumbles into the kitchen, and reaches out and discovers it's down to its last Jedi.

But the Force is going to need some get up and go, so it makes a mental note to pick up some more Jedi on the way home, so that it has plenty for the next morning.
posted by nubs at 6:03 PM on January 27, 2017 [19 favorites]

Because the best part of waking up is Jedi in your cup!
posted by nubs at 6:05 PM on January 27, 2017 [5 favorites]

FORCE: HONEY! WE'RE OUT OF JEDI

MRS. FORCE (from upstairs): You were supposed to pick some up yesterday!

FORCE (quietly): Godammit.

FORCE: ARE YOU FINISHED UP THERE, I NEED TO HAVE A DISTURBANCE
posted by Kabanos at 6:30 PM on January 27, 2017 [32 favorites]

That looks more like The Last Jed 1 to me.
posted by Etrigan at 6:36 PM on January 27, 2017

Das Boot with AT-ATs

"Many Bothans died to bring us this information" is a one line throwaway, but I bet that the way the Bothans tell that story is an epic saga of heroism and sacrifice.

Tarantino had the idea that the Bond franchise could be a proving ground for new directors; OK, you've got an interesting style, you've got some interesting ideas, so here's an existing framework and some existing characters and IP, here's a moderate budget, show us what you've got.

CGI is good enough now, I'd love to see something like that, Babylon 5 style, done for the stories at the margins of the Rebellion.
posted by mhoye at 6:37 PM on January 27, 2017 [11 favorites]

Soundtracked by the Mountain Goats!

The Twitter thread that led to this made my day.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:40 PM on January 27, 2017 [4 favorites]

Anyways, I'll tell you what it means: it means a lot of bloggers have a new, juicy tidbit to obsess over.

More seriously, I'm thinking it might mean a reveal of knowledge Luke has gained from his sojourn and that what we think of as "Jedi" isn't the same anymore, and that he has been communing with the Last "true" Jedi
posted by nubs at 7:52 PM on January 27, 2017

The big question is: what kind of planet-killing superweapon will a plucky group of rebels have to destroy?

Twitter
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:55 PM on January 27, 2017 [8 favorites]

Fifty comments and no one has thought to say, "No. There is another." ?

I am disappoint.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:37 PM on January 27, 2017 [7 favorites]

It's a typo and should be "The Least Jedi," as in "the least Jedi was the best little Jedi of all."

Or possibly the "Fast Jedi," because a crossover between Star Wars and The Fast and the Furious would be, honestly, amazing.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:06 AM on January 28, 2017 [2 favorites]

So Tom Cruise stumbles upon a hidden Jedi village, got it.
posted by ckape at 2:22 AM on January 28, 2017

Maybe The Last Jedi's a Shoemaker, not a Skywalker
posted by chavenet at 4:17 AM on January 28, 2017 [5 favorites]

Wasn't there a whole book series called 'Jedi Academy' written some time after the Thrawn set? Didn't they say that leia's kid was one of them? Is Disney going to invite George Lucas back to make Episode 6.5: Jedi Academy - the Kylo Ren Years? Save any hatred for that property cash-in.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:47 AM on January 28, 2017

There's a bunch of stuff in Rebels and Clone Wars about how force users may not necessarily be Jedi or Sith.

So a reveal of Luke deciding that the ways of the Jedi caused this whole mess and it should fade into history to be replaced by a more inclusive creed would be a decent theme for this trilogy of films.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:19 AM on January 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Last Jedi was the friends we made along the way.
posted by killdevil at 6:24 AM on January 28, 2017

Noun: last ‎(plural lasts) 1. A tool for shaping or preserving the shape of shoes.

*Force-shoe-stretch* I have stretched your shoes. Pray I do not stretch them any further.
posted by XMLicious at 7:10 AM on January 28, 2017 [4 favorites]

Just this guy, y'know: "There's a bunch of stuff in Rebels and Clone Wars about how force users may not necessarily be Jedi or Sith.

So a reveal of Luke deciding that the ways of the Jedi caused this whole mess and it should fade into history to be replaced by a more inclusive creed would be a decent theme for this trilogy of films."

Gray Jedi. It is sad I know this, but Gray Jedi.

(Hi, I am Samizdata and I am a wikiwalking addict.)
posted by Samizdata at 7:31 AM on January 28, 2017 [3 favorites]

Nanukthedog: "Wasn't there a whole book series called 'Jedi Academy' written some time after the Thrawn set? Didn't they say that leia's kid was one of them? Is Disney going to invite George Lucas back to make Episode 6.5: Jedi Academy - the Kylo Ren Years? Save any hatred for that property cash-in."

There was also a rather fun video game.

(True story: During the beginning of the game, you choose a single sabre, dual sabre, or sabrestaff fighting style. I went sabrestaff. My SO at the time walked past as I was getting a feel for it and said "You know, you are going to die like a bitch. Darth Maul used one of those and he died like a bitch." I responded with "Oh. Really?" and went on to win the game with it. CHECKMATE, DISBELIEVER!)
posted by Samizdata at 7:34 AM on January 28, 2017 [2 favorites]

I fear "The Last Jedi" translates into "Luke trains Rey and then dies." Since TFA repeated a lot of stuff from the first movie, I'd expect Luke to pull a Yoda and die in this one with that title.

Except now that Carrie Fisher's dead and Han's killed off, I...hope they rethink this.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:25 AM on January 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

Is Disney going to invite George Lucas back to make Episode 6.5: Jedi Academy - the Kylo Ren Years?

Beverly Hills 9C3PO
posted by Kabanos at 8:41 AM on January 28, 2017 [2 favorites]

I fear "The Last Jedi" translates into "Luke trains Rey and then dies." Since TFA repeated a lot of stuff from the first movie, I'd expect Luke to pull a Yoda and die in this one with that title.

Except now that Carrie Fisher's dead and Han's killed off, I...hope they rethink this.


I bet you're right. They want to get rid of the old cast. Mark Hammill has not been exactly their best PR person. Look how little time they gave him!
posted by KaizenSoze at 9:39 AM on January 28, 2017

> ... I'd expect Luke to pull a Yoda and die in this one with that title. Except now that Carrie Fisher's dead and Han's killed off, I...hope they rethink this.

Even without that title, once Han died, it seemed pretty clear to me that they would use the three movies to send off the three carry-overs. Han, then Luke, then a state funeral for General Organa, and the new cast carries the franchise forward.

And I'm sticking to that prediction. The word was that Carrie Fisher had finished shooting for VIII, so I think Luke dies in this one, paralleling Yoda. Maybe IX opens with the state funeral though, with Leia dying offscreen.
posted by RedOrGreen at 5:44 PM on January 28, 2017 [3 favorites]

The official word (and I do believe this) is that, if TFA featured Luke, it would be about Luke.

That said, the way they got Luke out of the movie honestly makes me never want to see him again. "The Jedi are dead and we have to move on" is, IMHO, a totally reasonable response at this point.

My big concern is that this is the film they were dedicating to Luke, while the next film was going to be Leia-centered. Because if I got anything out of Bloodline, it's that we should totally have a Leia centered movie. (Which we never will now. *sob*)

Also, this thread disappoints me. It's like the election threads have sucked all the energy out of MeFi.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 8:37 AM on January 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

The gray Jedi stuff gets my vote. There were some lines about the Skywalker lineage bringing balance to the force - so whatever that means.

The force as Buddhism lite certainly supports an escape from a false binary idea.

And it would make the title a nice little egg that turns out to be true, though not in an obvious way.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 10:36 AM on January 29, 2017

I don't think Luke was ever made a full Jedi. The last Jedi was Yoda. I predict Force ghosts.
posted by WizardOfDocs at 11:23 AM on January 29, 2017

I don't think Luke was ever made a full Jedi. The last Jedi was Yoda.

If that's the case, then "Return of the Jedi" was a misnomer as well.
posted by Etrigan at 11:26 AM on January 29, 2017

I don't think Luke was ever made a full Jedi. The last Jedi was Yoda.

Luke became a Jedi the moment he steps back from Vader, casts his weapon aside, and stands in defiance of the Emperor. You don't get made a Jedi; you become one.
posted by nubs at 11:43 AM on January 29, 2017

Don't over think it. Luke is the last Jedi, by the end of the movie, Rey will be the last Jedi.

I wonder if they'll CGI young Luke's face onto his force ghost?
posted by VTX at 1:04 PM on January 29, 2017

Finn and Rey? Finn and Poe, please!
posted by nubs at 1:42 PM on January 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

So, John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats has released "The Ultimate Jedi Who Wastes All the Other Jedi and Eats Their Bones". And Rian Johnson says it's canon.
posted by skynxnex at 7:59 AM on January 30, 2017 [7 favorites]

Yay! That was worth the weekend-long wait.
posted by rewil at 9:15 AM on January 30, 2017

Star Wars: The Last Jedi—it’s definitely plural! - it turns out that in non-English translations of the title graphic they use plural articles: Star Wars: Les Derniers Jedi, Star Wars: Die Letzten Jedi, and Star Wars: Los Últimos Jedi.

Thanks funny foreign languages!
posted by GuyZero at 11:34 AM on February 17, 2017