How much you enjoy “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” may hinge on how seriously you take this franchise, and that’s good news for those of us who are casual users and not religious adherents. Writer-director Rian Johnson steps into this ongoing saga with an eye seemingly more aimed at the “Flash Gordon” serials that originally inspired George Lucas than at the terminal self-seriousness that so many fans inflict upon the material.
If having pure fun at a “Star Wars” movie is wrong, I don’t want to be right. So for me, “The Last Jedi” falls right behind “The Empire Strikes Back” and maybe the original film in providing the thrills and the heartbreak, the heroism and villainy, and the romance and betrayal that makes these films such a treat even for those of us who can’t name all the planets or the alien species or even the Empire’s flunkies.