It’s in the name. Canto, a word prominently found delineating the sections of Dante’s Inferno, and Bight, a letter away from blight. The Last Jedi brings audiences to the most glamorous part of the Star Wars galaxy, next to a sign that says Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here. Rose declares they are going to a terrible place, filled with the worst people imaginable. Cut to: the very wealthy enjoying some bubbly.
Finn and Rose’s mission to Canto Bight is ostensibly to find a Master Codebreaker whose name may as well be Mah-Guff Enn. When they arrive, Finn is dazzled by the excess. Rose has a different story to tell: the glitz is funded by war-profiteers, who indulge in their games and drinks at the expense of the animals that entertain them, the children who labor for them, and the galaxy as a whole.
If Rian Johnson’s script had stopped at “not all that glitters is gold” that would have fit the narrative. (In fact, it would have been the rare occasion where Star Wars connects wealth and inequality, but that’s a subject for another day.) But The Last Jedi has other things on its mind than capitalism when it brings us to Canto Bight.
Rian Johnson doesn’t leave Rose’s perspective unchallenged. He brings in Benicio del Toro’s DJ to provide another argument. This argument is not that the wealthy are somehow not-so-bad. It’s a more seductive, prevalent and pervasive argument.
According to DJ, the not-exactly-master-codebreaker that Rose and Finn find as a consolation prize, the war is just one group blowing up another group. The Resistance and First Order are morally equivalent. Everyone buys the guns that are sold, everyone makes these gamblers rich, so why participate? It’s all a machine. They’re all the same.
This way of thinking was on wide display at the time The Last Jedi was written, shot, and released. There were quite a few people gnashing their teeth and touting this view in the US during the 2016 Presidential election. It sounded something like: “He’s an inexperienced, abusive lunatic.” “But her emails!”
It’s false moral equivalence that plagues modern political conversation. Both sides are imperfect, both sides lie, and so both sides are the same. It’s tempting to think the sane response is to opt-out. The system is rigged, as Bernie Sanders said (and Donald Trump parroted). The system is broken. Why vote?
Of course, there is a difference between the world we are living in post (hopefully) Trump and the world we would be living in post-Clinton. Our choices do matter. (We are about to learn the hard way how much choice matters, I’m afraid.) Still, the voices of those who preach opting-out can sound like reason when faced with our all-too-fallible systems.
So, why is this particular debate in Episode VIII? Is Rian Johnson taking us to the space track to preach?
He is not. He is aiming all of this information, all these arguments, at one character: Finn. The true mission in Canto Bight his maturation.
The subject of The Last Jedi is not ‘letting the past die’ as some have suggested. It’s about how mistakes bring growth. Every single character in The Last Jedi begins in one place and ends in another as a human being. Some win their battles, some lose, but they all grow, primarily by messing up.
One may become an adult by assuming the beliefs of one’s parents, or having no beliefs at all. Growing older is something we can do just by waiting. Maturing, though, is a process of gaining wisdom. Finn matures because of his sojourn on Catonica, not because he gets what he wants, but because he sees what he needs to see.
Finn’s growth seems to occur during the climatic showdown on Crait, when he aims his skim speeder down the barrel of a battering ram cannon. “I won’t let them win,” he says. For a man who was ready to run away to save just one person at the beginning of the film, it is a moment of notable resolve.
That is, though, not the moment that Finn makes his decision, that’s the decision made manifest. The change in Finn happens earlier in the picture.
When Finn and Rose are trapped in the hangar of Snoke’s Star Destroyer, awaiting execution, they discover that their amoral companion DJ has sold them out. He reiterates "that it’s just business.” That’s when we hear Finn say, very clearly, “you’re wrong.”
Up to that point, we have watched Finn consider points of view. He has tried to run, he has listened to Rose, he has seen more of the galaxy, and he has been confronted with DJ’s philosophy (summed up succinctly by his name, which stands for “Don’t Join”). He has wound up getting caught, leaving his own friends exposed to attack. He is, as far as he can tell, about to get killed by the same people that stole him from his family and forced him to be a solider. This is when we hear Finn’s decision about the matter. He rejects the the idea of passivity. It’s not just a machine to Finn.
From this point forward, the brave but selfish Finn is righteous. He battles his former captain, declaring himself “rebel scum.” He gives speeches to the rest of the Resistance about believing in Leia. He nearly sacrifices his life.
I’ve read from some (even some admirers of Episode VIII) that the mission on Canto Bight is a side-story that could be excised from the film. After all, Finn and Rose do not save the fleet, they do not find the master codebreaker, and they wind up flying right back to the Resistance base, battered and bruised with little to materially show.
To my mind, though, Canto Bight is a mission accomplished. The mission is to take Finn away from his comfort zone, from what he knows, from what he’s seen, and challenge him as a person. Finn arrives at the glittering, grimy Monte Carlo of a galaxy far, far away. He is giddy, dumbstruck, in awe. He is shown the sewers and the stables just beyond the betting tables. He is told about the costs of war and how suffering fattens pockets. Then, he is told that the war against fascism is just another game, played to make the richer richer.
Finn is left with a choice. Will he focus only on Rey, as he was ready to do when The Last Jedi begins? Will he flee? Will he assume the role of the cynic? Will he fight to make things better?
In A New Hope, Han Solo is given a similar choice. Will he take the money, pay his debts, and leave the Rebellion to fend for itself? Or will he stand with his friends? We don’t watch him make the choice, really, but when he reappears, we discover his choice and cheer.
The Last Jedi uses Canto Bight to show us how Finn’s reasons to fight emerge, evolve, and solidify. We watch him make his decision. At a casino, surrounded by games of chance, Finn learns to weigh the costs and benefits of his actions. He learns not to gamble with the lives of others. He learns not to Abandon Hope.
He learns to fight.
Sports point!