Thread by @relasine

1/ I want to talk about #TheLastJedi and the arcs of the characters in this film and many exist as reflections of each other, and that those reflections and the characters' understanding of them so often act as catalysts for their decisions.

2/ There's a really interesting chain of relationships created by @rianjohnson between Lando, DJ, Finn, Rose, and the audience that is super-fascinating to me. DJ is a mirror image of Lando.

3/ Both are competent, high-level operators who wish to stay out of the galaxy-sprawling conflicts between these large and powerful factions. They exist as grey characters in a setting that is largely defined as being about a battle between those at the poles of moral behavior.

4/ But where Lando is silver-tongued and smooth as f'ing silk, DJ is visually a mess and speaks with a stutter. Their character arcs are also literally the opposite. Lando starts Empire betraying the protagonists and ends the film rescuing them.

5/ DJ starts by rescuing the protagonists and ends the film betraying them. There isn't a lot of time to develop DJ's character, so this is, I think, a really smart kind of short-hand way of going about it, similar to how @RianJohnson created characters in Brick.

6/ DJ is also a projection of Finn. He's all the parts of Finn's personality that Finn hates about himself. Finn sees DJ's cynical view of the universe and the factions at play within it and finally his betrayal and it disgusts him.

7/ It acts as the catalyst for his decision to dedicate himself to something bigger than himself.

8/ Then there's Rose. I love Rose. She is the avatar of my youth and all the things I felt about Star Wars as a young person. She is 100%-ideologically committed to the idea of the Resistance as being a force for good in the galaxy.

9/ She, at the beginning of the film, sees Finn as an avatar of the Resistance. When she happens him trying to jump ship, it quietly crushes her.

10/ At the end of the film, when Finn reaches the zenith of his arc and decides to not only dedicate himself to the Resistance but to sacrifice his life so that it might have a chance to survive, he becomes the hero that Rose saw him as at the beginning of the film.

11/ And what does she do? She stops him. She stops him because she realizes that losing the ones that we love for ideological causes might not be worth the cost, something we know that she has already recently paid with the loss of her sister during the film's first act.

12/ It is all so beautifully conceptualized, I love it so much, and it makes me sad that so many people see that part of the film as not being of any consequence.