Another pleasurable experience in a galaxy far, far away. Very clever ( )

The fallout from the First Order’s destruction of the New Republic’s capital and the Resistance’s destruction of her enemy’s superweapon even as they look to bring Luke Skywalker back in William Shakespeare’s Jedi the Last by Ian Doescher. Beginning almost immediately after the previous film, the middle installment of the sequel trilogy finds the First Order looking to takeout the remnant of their opponents only this adaptation is not on screen or a book but on the stage in Elizabethan prose as Shakespeare would have written.

Adapting The Last Jedi was definitely the hardest Star Wars film that Doescher had to deal with because of the how awful the Rian Johnson written-direction film is. There is only so much Doescher could do to make this adaptation to make it readable, unlike The Phantom of Menace in which he only had to develop Jar Jar Binks. He had to salvage so many poorly written characters, including those long established like Leia and Luke as those newly introduced, that to even have this published in a timely manner meant he could only polish them so much. Since this is a review of the adaptation and not the film, I will applaud the excellent work Doescher did in making the at times bad dialogue into some more passable, the continuation of footnoting translations of Chewbecca’s few lines, and great narratives for the fight scenes. However I must also commend Doescher for the wonderful easter eggs in reference to James Bond, Rogue One, and yes the sly acknowledgements that Johnson underdeveloped or ruined so many characters in particular Rey.

Jedi the Last is the most controversial film of the franchise and Ian Doescher did the best job he could in making it into a passable stage play in the style of William Shakespeare. As a result my rating is celebration of Doescher’s hardwork and like the rest of the Star Wars fandom we look for to what he must deal with in Episode IX. ( )

"And this the worst of all thy rank offenses.
Methought thou'dst be the one to snuff it out.
For shame, thou art no Vader, but a child –
A child who hides beneath a silly mask." (pp28-29)

Ian Doescher again tries to bring a bit of worth and storytelling nous to the Star Wars movies, but it is increasingly a case of diminishing returns as the series – creatively speaking, if not financially – circles the drain. It no longer deserves the words spent on it; the franchise's latest incarnation is now merely a third-rate superhero movie, with ridiculous scenarios (I laughed out loud at Leia's spacewalk), trite Hallmark-card dialogue about 'hope', and diuretic new characters like Vice-Admiral Holdo and Rose Tico, who join Rey in plumbing depths which even Jar-Jar Binks could not find.

The best thing about Doescher's earlier William Shakespeare/Star Wars mash-ups was the recognition of the common storytelling heritage that links the two and connects engrossed audiences through the ages. But now that Disney is just flinging star-speckled shit at the walls and counting their money, there's only so much Doescher can do for repair. There is some clever wordplay and inventive tricks of language, though you can count on one hand the killer lines. It is to Doescher's great credit that there are indeed some good moments, but he has much lower-grade source material to work with than he has enjoyed previously. He does his remarkable best to polish up a turd, but there's nothing much he can do about the lingering smell.

Indeed, the most fun I had from Jedi the Last came from wondering whether Doescher knows this is what he is now doing. He says all the 'right' things when talking about the new films, and always writes with enthusiasm, but I do wonder if – like all dedicated and long-suffering fans – he secretly knows the emperor is wearing no clothes. When he refers to "a canon batt'ring ram" on page 144, I wonder: is this a typo, or is Doescher being cleverer than his Disney-approved copy-editor? I may be wrong about him, and Doescher is certainly game, but if you look at the Disney Star Wars films in light of what came before (yes, even the prequels), and move beyond the Lucas-built reputation of the brand, you see that the new pretenders are woeful. "If thou wouldst take away the pow'r of myth, To look upon their deeds, and those alone, 'Tis clear their legacy is utter failure." (pg. 76) ( )

In William Shakespeare’s Jedi The Last: Star Wars Part the Eighth, Ian Doescher continues what is quite possibly the greatest metatextual analysis of the Star Wars franchise, telling the story of The Last Jedi while drawing upon the traditions of Shakespearean drama and other theatrical elements. Of particular note in this version are Kylo Ren channeling the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in describing his wounds (pg. 27), Luke drawing upon Obi-Wan’s description of “a certain point of view” (pg. 33), and references to Rogue One (pg. 57). and Hamilton (pg. 61). In one particularly nice sequence, Doescher gives the Master Codebreaker a soliloquy that names every James Bond film in a manner befitting Maz Kanata’s description of him (pg. 73-74). Doescher also explores the connection between Rey and Kylo Ren, using asides to show their hopes for each other (pg. 94). Additionally, he focuses on Poe actually reflecting on the consequences of his actions in order to become a better leader in future (pg. 120). While director Rian Johnson tweeted on 19 January 2018 to explain that Luke’s Force-projection abilities were based on Daniel Wallace’s The Jedi Path, Doescher references these abilities in-text with a conversation between two First Order troopers (pg. 121). In a nice parallel, Kylo Ren’s speech at the end begins to echo the patterns of Snoke, demonstrating his loss to the Dark Side as the new Supreme Leader (pg. 162). Those who enjoy Doescher’s work will find this one of his best as he fully delves into the themes of Johnson’s The Last Jedi in true Shakespearean fashion! ( )