I'm 'The Last Jedi.' Me. Luke. At least I'm pretty sure I am
Commentary: Movie titles can be confusing, but it's tough to argue with Yoda, an opening crawl and the film's own director.
- Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year" award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Luuuuuuke, I am your Last Jedi.
Hi Star Wars fans, Luke Skywalker here. (Fine, not really.) Jedi Mind Trick School is now in session.
Today, I'd like to talk to you about the title of my next movie, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi."
Oh, I get it. Some movie titles are really confusing.
1) "Fiddler on the Roof." Why is he on the roof, exactly?
2) "The Sound of Music." Wrong! Music has more than one sound. (Whoa, I sound like Dwight Schrute from "The Office.")
3) "Fargo." The story does not take place in Fargo.
4) "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain." I don't even know with that one.
5) "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo." Trick question. There is nothing wrong with that title. It's the greatest sequel title ever. Only "C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud" can even compete. Oh, and "When a Stranger Calls Back" too because first the stranger called, and then he called back! Screenwriting brilliance.
But my movie's title is pretty ho-hum. "The Last Jedi."
Not "Who is the Last Jedi?" or "Solve for X to Determine Who Is the Last Jedi," or "The Last Jedi Who Went Up on Alderaan and Came Down on Hoth."
And who, you may ask, is the Last Jedi? Did you even watch the crawl in "The Force Awakens"?
I wish this was revealed a long time ago...Oh wait... pic.twitter.com/Z5nxyv6VB4
— Scott S. Kramer (@scottskramer) October 10, 2017
Maybe you're old school and prefer the original Star Wars trilogy. Fine, fine, gotcha covered there too. In "Return of the Jedi," Yoda says to me, "When gone am I, the last of the Jedi will you be." Yeah, I know, backward a little Yoda talks, but the gist you get.
Some people say "Jedi" could be plural, so it could refer to me and also this Rey person. But director Rian Johnson shot that down like Han shot Greedo.
"I had never even pondered that question," he said back in April. "In my mind, (Jedi is) singular. In my mind it is."
Johnson went on to say, "As to whether Luke is the 'Last Jedi,' they say in 'The Force Awakens' he's going to find the last Jedi temple and Luke is the last Jedi."
But on Monday night, after "The Last Jedi" trailer was revealed and tickets went on sale, Johnson tried again. In response to a Vanity Fair article claiming he's being evasive, Johnson tweeted just two words:
It’s Luke.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) October 10, 2017
See? "It's Luke." Doesn't get any simpler than that! It's me. I'm the last Jedi, which is actually a little ominous, but I'm gonna go with it for now.
To be fair to Vanity Fair, Johnson does vague it up in his answer to the magazine: "You do have to see the movie. It's not as simple as saying, 'It's this person -- ha-ha!' It is a little more complicated than that."
Wait, what?
Well, darn it, maybe it's not me -- or just me -- after all.
Perry.
— Eric Goldman (@TheEricGoldman) October 10, 2017
"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" hits theaters Dec. 15
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