14 ways ‘The Last Jedi’ is like college football

The Last Jedi has been out for one week and has already crossed $500 million at the box office, so there’s a good chance that you have already seen it. Maybe you enjoyed “the sexiest Star Wars ever.” Maybe you’re one of the bots who decided to drive down the movie’s rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Regardless, if you are a college football nut, it was probably hard for you to leave another obsession at the door when you sat down in a theater and the yellow crawl started.

Maybe you had thoughts like these ...

Perhaps the biggest applause in the theater came when Kylo Ren honored the great Sith tradition of killing his master by killing Snoke instead of Rey. As it becomes clear in his subsequent actions, this is a straight power move. He wanted to be the Supreme Leader, the chair was occupied, and he killed the guy in the chair.

Make Ren’s robe orange and he’d be Phil Fulmer, a guy who became head coach at Tennessee by giving Johnny Majors a push out the door and then became the Vols’ athletic director and quasi-coach in the same manner. Perhaps Phil should include the Sith Rule of Two when he comes up with his own version of General Neyland’s Maxims?

If ever there were a figure in the Star Wars universe who would grab his crotch, plant a flag in the middle of Ohio Stadium, or get arrested in Arkansas “unable to walk straight, having slurred speech and food covering the front of his shirt,” it would be Dameron.

If ever there were a college football player who would attack a dreadnought by himself while making a mother joke, commit a mutiny, and then ask for “permission to hop in an X-Wing and blow something up,” it would be Mayfield.

Or if you prefer, maybe Lane Kiffin would be a better fit in Poe’s X-wing, given his proclivity for causing explosions, talking trash, ignoring the rules imposed by his superiors, taking on side gigs, and still coming out OK in the end. He’s too lovable to put in the brig for mutiny.

A dark place where talented visitors dream of bigger things but get sucked into a pit to learn that they are alone in the world.

One of the criticisms of The Last Jedi has been that it’s a darker movie than what we’re used to in the Star Wars genre. Luke Skywalker transitions from the confident Jedi to a grizzled old man in Unabomber-style isolation. The Resistance is almost wiped out.

To those who were surprised, one need only ask, “Are you familiar with the director’s prior work?” Rian Johnson directed one of the most devastating hours in TV history, one in which the protagonist’s brother-in-law is shot at the outset, and that’s only about the fifth-saddest event in the show. So without Luke getting stabbed by his wife and abducting his infant daughter, The Last Jedi had a long way to go.

This is a useful reminder for Michigan fans who grumble about going 8-4. You want to complain about a season in which your team lost to the four best opponents it played? Fine, but remember you are coming out of a decade in which you: (1) lost to Appalachian State; (2) suffered through Rich Rodriguez winning 15 games in three seasons; and (3) enjoyed Brady Hoke’s four-year regression from 11 wins to five.

Though she has a backstory in print, the only time we’ll see her on the screen is The Last Jedi. In it, Laura Dern’s lavender-haired character ends up by herself, in charge of the Resistance’s main ship. She makes a hyperspace jump directly into the First Order’s biggest ship — Snoke’s cruiser — creating a spectacular explosion that allows the remaining Resistance transports to escape.

A strange transition. A depleted coaching staff. Memorable pyrotechnics. Recruits fleeing. Welcome to the Edwards years at ASU.

The Caretakers (referred to by Jackson McHenry at Vulture as the “judgmental fish nuns”) have been on Ahch-To for thousands of years. They are all one gender. They are carnivores who eat porgs. They talk via “a blubbery sort of Scottish fish-talk.” If ever there were a species that ought to be confined to Kyle Field, engaging in strange, traditional forms of communication, it’s the Caretakers.

Nobody had really heard of this character until it became suddenly powerful a couple of years ago. Will actually not contend for anything in 2018 after all.

No one knew flying like this could happen. It looks clunky and unnatural. I can’t turn away, and I’ll never forget the spectacle.

Surely Snoke was told he did not need a fancy throne room with luminescent red walls, but the donors were willing to pay for it and it would help in recruiting, so he went ahead and built an unnecessary homage to excess revenue. He’d certainly approve of Clemson’s slide, Oregon’s barbershop, and Alabama’s arcade.

If you’ve spent enough time at LSU games, you’ve been offered a meat that is not native to Earth. I assume most people in Louisiana only had issues with Chewie’s technique.

A well-known, talented actress is cast in what appears to be a major role, given a fantastic costume that implies great power, and then gets minimal screen time in which she loses a brief fight, not nearly living up to her pugilistic potential. Can’t we describe every quarterback who has started at Texas since McCoy in the same terms? A young guy gets the job, looks like the future, flames out, and is then replaced by the next hot shot prospect. Good luck, Sam Ehlinger!

“Hear me out here. We’ve never embedded crystals into the surface of our uniforms, but those crazy foxes in the new Star Wars movie have given me an idea ...”

The first six Star Wars movies created the impression that the Force was a matter of genetics and that great figures were born into their roles. The first trilogy is about the fall of Anakin Skywalker, who was conceived by Darth Plagueis manipulating the Force. (I refuse to use the m-word here.) The second trilogy is about the rise of Anakin’s children, Luke and Leia.

Based on the first seven movies, we expect Rey to have a royal lineage. Instead, it turns out that she’s a child of “filthy junk traders.” The movie ends with a stable boy on Canto Bight demonstrating Force powers and staring off into the sky, delivering the message that greatness can be found anywhere. This has led to the claim that The Last Jedi is the most populist Star Wars movie.

If you are a fan of a program that is not a traditional power, one that wins without thoroughbred recruits, you had to be nodding furiously. “See, that stable boy is just a Star Wars walk-on whom the recruiting services have ignored and whom we are going to turn into the next Le’Veon Bell or J.J. Watt.”

Rey comes to Ahch-To with big aspirations: learn from Luke, become a Jedi, turn Kylo back to the light, lead the Resistance to victory. Instead, a disillusioned Luke tells her he once thought he could restart the Jedi Order and bring peace to the galaxy, only to find that one wayward apprentice could destroy it all.

We all ought to have that quote bouncing around in our heads over the summer when we convince ourselves that our teams are going to do great things in the fall. The offseason is a time for expectations to rise; the regular season is a time for Kylo Ren to take all our recruits and burn down the temple.

* - Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State fans are excluded. You are permitted to be optimistic.