《最后的绝地武士》：拥抱魔力与神秘

Evil is ascendant. The Resistance — an intrepid, multi-everything group whose leaders include a battle-tested woman warrior — has been fighting the good fight for years but is outnumbered and occasionally outmaneuvered. Yes, the latest “Star Wars” installment is here, and, lo, it is a satisfying, at times transporting entertainment. Remarkably, it has visual wit and a human touch, no small achievement for a seemingly indestructible machine that revved up 40 years ago and shows no signs of sputtering out (ever).

邪恶势力在抬头。抵抗军——一个由各种人物组成的英勇组织，领导人中有一位久经沙场的女战士——多年来一直在为正义而战，但是敌众我寡，有时在谋略上也稍逊一筹。是的，《星球大战》(Star Wars)的最新一集来了，哎呀，它还挺让人满意的，有时还很娱乐。特别是，它既有精彩的视觉效果，也不失人情味，这可以说是很高的成就了，要知道，这个系列如同一台坚不可摧的机器，已经运转了40年，而且(永远)没有停止的迹象。

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” picks up where the story left off two years ago in “The Force Awakens,” the leadoff of the series’ newest trilogy. Keeping track of where each “Star Wars” title fits into the overall scheme of things can be brain-numbing (the movies weren’t made in story-chronological order), but the strongest ones work as stand-alones and let you just go with the onscreen flow. The writer-director of “The Last Jedi,” Rian Johnson, frontloads the critical back story intel — who’s fighting who and the like — in the opening crawl. And then he gets down to the difficult business of putting his fingerprints on a franchise that deliberately resists individual authorship.

两年前的《星球大战7：原力觉醒》(The Force Awakens)是这个系列最新三部曲中的第一部，《星球大战8：最后的绝地武士》(Star Wars: The Last Jedi)就从它结束的地方开始。理清《星球大战》每一部在整体情节中处于什么位置会让人头晕(电影并不是按照故事的时间顺序排列的)，但是系列中最精彩的几部影片可以独立成章，你只要跟着银幕上的情节走就是了。在开片滚动字幕中，《最后的绝地武士》的编剧兼导演莱恩·约翰逊(Rian Johnson)预先透露了一些关键的背景信息——影片是关于谁和谁的战斗等等。然后，他就下定决心开展这项艰辛的任务——在这样一部刻意抵制个人作者色彩的系列影片中留下自己特有的印记。

Mr. Johnson largely succeeds despite having inherited an elaborate ecosystem with a Manichaean worldview divided between heroes (a.k.a. the Resistance) and villains (the First Order). That’s about all you need to know to follow this movie, which charts the franchise’s future while continuing to pass the baton from its first holy trinity — Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill — to a new trio, introduced in “The Force Awakens.” Mr. Ford’s character, Han Solo, exited the series in that movie. As Leia, Ms. Fisher plays a critical role in this new one, but her death last December (after production ended) imparts real melancholy to a series that from its start has been defined — if not always comfortably — by loss.

约翰逊在很大程度上做到了，尽管他接手的是一个精密复杂的生态系统，有着摩尼教式的世界观，分为英雄(即抵抗军)和恶人(即第一秩序)两大阵营。要欣赏这部影片，知道这些背景就够了。它为这个系列的未来绘制了蓝图，同时继续将第一代神圣三位一体——凯丽·费雪(Carrie Fisher)、哈里森·福特(Harrison Ford)和马克·哈米尔(Mark Hamill)——的接力棒传递给新的三人组，在《原力觉醒》中，福特饰演的角色韩·索罗(Han Solo)退出了这部系列。饰演蕾娅的费雪在新片中扮演着重要的角色，但是她已于去年12月去世(在拍摄结束之后)，这个系列本来从一开始就奠定了——尽管有些别扭——忧郁的基调，失去她更是为之蒙上一层真正的哀伤色彩。

And so, once upon a time yet again, peace remains elusive and weapons are locked, loaded and often firing. Here, the fight continues with Leia searching for her absent brother, Luke Skywalker (Mr. Hamill), while leading the Resistance against the First Order, the dark-side successor to the dictatorial Empire (Darth Vader’s cohort). The old Imperial evildoers have been replaced by the suitably cartoonish-sounding Snoke (created by the hard-working Andy Serkis and digital effects), a wormy, towering ghoul with vivid scars and an insinuating sneer. He commands the usual stormtroopers along with the impetuous Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), a charismatic villain who has closely fashioned himself after Vader.

于是，很久很久以前的故事再一次展开，和平仍然难以实现，子弹上膛、拉枪栓、频频开火。在这部影片里，战斗继续的同时，蕾娅依然在寻找她失踪的哥哥天行者卢克(哈米尔饰)，同时率领抵抗军反抗独裁帝国(达斯·维达[Darth Vader]那伙人)的黑暗继承者——第一秩序。古老帝国的邪恶分子已经恰如其分地被有卡通式声音的斯努克取代，这个角色由辛勤的安迪·瑟金斯(Andy Serkis)饰演，结合了数字效果，是一个高大的、蠕虫一般的怪物，有着栩栩如生的伤疤，面带意味深长的冷笑。他和鲁莽的凯洛·伦(亚当·德赖弗[Adam Driver]饰)一起指挥着熟悉的风暴兵，后者是一个颇有领袖魅力的反派，总在模仿维德的作风。

The story is a tangle, but its complications are mitigated by Mr. Johnson’s quick pace and the appealing performers. Like most contemporary action flicks, this one more or less plays out as a succession of fights, chases and time outs (for chatting, scheming or lonely musing) across two or more plot lines. Having joined together in “The Force Awakens,” the story’s latest dream team — Rey (Daisy Ridley), a scavenger turned warrior; Finn (John Boyega), a First Order deserter turned resister; and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), a Resistance fighter pilot — now often spends time apart. Poe spins in Leia’s orbit while Rey pesters Luke, and Finn finds a winning ally (Kelly Marie Tran).

这是一个混乱的故事，但约翰逊的快节奏和迷人的演员们缓解了它的复杂性。和大多数当代动作大片一样，该片多少会有一连串的战斗、追逐和中间的缓解时段(聊天、密谋或孤独的沉思)，在两条或两条以上的情节线中进行。蕾伊(黛西·雷德利[Daisy Ridley]饰)原本是拾荒者，后来成了战士;芬恩(约翰·博耶加[John Boyega]饰)，是第一秩序的逃兵，后来成了抵抗者;波·达摩龙(奥斯卡·艾萨克[Oscar Isaac]饰)则是抵抗军的战斗机飞行员，他们是《原力觉醒》中加入这个故事的最新梦之队，在本片中，他们经常分开行动。波活跃在蕾娅那条线之中，蕾伊缠着卢克，芬恩则找到了一个迷人的盟友(凯莉·玛丽·陈[Kelly Marie Tran]饰)。

An early heroic death sets the sober mood and stakes while gently re-establishing the franchise’s new commitment to diversifying the overall picture. As in “The Force Awakens,” this inclusion feels natural, a vision of the future you can recognize. About the only time it feels as if Mr. Johnson is checking “Star Wars” boxes is in some of the fights, especially during an impasse that turns into a slow-moving game of space chess. He may be checking off some of those boxes in an ode to George Lucas; whatever the case, Mr. Johnson only infrequently comes across as dutiful or as overtly brand-expanding (as with a troika of calculatingly cute tykes who unnervingly suggest this series really will go on forever).

影片开始不久就有一场英勇牺牲的戏，为影片奠定了黯淡的气氛以及目标，同时渐渐为整个系列重新确立让画面整体更多样化的新追求。就像在《原力觉醒》中一样，这种融合感觉很自然，描绘了一个让人可以感同身受的未来。约翰逊只是在一些战斗中，才显得像是在《星球大战》的存货中寻找灵感，特别是在一场僵局演化为慢动作太空国际象棋游戏的时候。他使用这些旧手段可能是在向乔治·卢卡斯(George Lucas)献上一曲颂歌;不管怎样，约翰逊只是偶尔才会忠于前作，或者带上明显的扩展品牌目的(比如片中那个诡计多端的淘气鬼三人组，他们令人不安地暗示着这个系列真的会永远延续下去)。

One of the truisms of the “Star Wars” series is that its battle between good and bad has always uneasily and sometimes openly mirrored the attendant struggle between good and bad filmmaking. Mr. Lucas’s 1977 foundational movie mostly transcends its flaws with slick looks, hooky effects, old-school heroics and loads of marketable material that helped turn fan love into an ecumenical cult. The second trilogy, entirely directed by Mr. Lucas, began in 1999 with “The Phantom Menace” (infamous for the minor scandal called Jar Jar Binks) and is pretty much a drag outside of some fleet light-saber duels and the arresting black-and-red patterning that distinguishes one villain.

《星球大战》系列中的善恶之争始终充满动荡，有时明显反映出随电影拍摄好坏而来的斗争，这是该系列中不证自明的真理之一。卢卡斯1977年奠定基础的首部影片在很大程度上超越了自身的缺陷，有着华丽的外观、迷人的特效、老派的英雄气概和大量适合营销的素材，令影迷的爱变成一种宗教式的崇拜。其后的续作——第二个三部曲——完全由卢卡斯执导，以1999年上映的《幽灵的威胁》(The Phantom Menace)为开端(该片以小丑角加·加·宾克斯[Jar Jar Binks]著称)。除了一些光剑对决，以及一个反派迷人的黑红脸谱，这部影片非常乏味。

Part of what has already made the new trilogy more successful is that its directors, J.J. Abrams (“The Force Awakens”) and Mr. Johnson, are technically adept, commercially savvy “Star Wars” true believers who came of age in the post-Lucas blockbuster era. Each has had to navigate the intricacies of Mr. Lucas’s sprawling fiction while handling the deep imprint created by Darth Vader’s heavy-breathing menace, R2-D2’s amusing beeps, Mr. Ford’s insouciance, Mr. Hamill’s earnestness, and Ms. Fisher’s smarts and latter-day screwball charm. Unlike Mr. Lucas, though, Mr. Abrams and Mr. Johnson don’t feel burdened by that legacy; they’re into it, charged up, despite the pressures of such an industrial enterprise. They’re resolving their cinematic father issues with a sense of fun.

这个新三部曲更成功的一个原因在于，《原力觉醒》的导演J·J·艾布拉姆斯(J.J. Abrams)和约翰逊是在后卢卡斯的商业大片时代成长起来的《星球大战》忠实信徒，都是技术高手，而且有商业头脑。在理清卢卡斯庞大虚构故事复杂情节的同时，他们还需要处理角色和演员为影片留下的深刻印记，比如达斯·维达低沉的威胁声、R2-D2搞笑的哔哔声、福特的无忧无虑、哈米尔的热情，还有费雪的聪明，以及她后来怪里怪气的魅力。不过，与卢卡斯不同的是，艾布拉姆斯和约翰逊似乎并没有受到这些遗产的束缚，尽管承受着这样一部业界大片的压力，他们还是充满活力地投入进去。他们带着玩乐的心态解决在电影方面的恋父情结问题。

Mr. Johnson can make you forget about those issues as well as the franchise’s insistent obligations; it also seems like he had a good time at work. He brings lightness to his banter, visual flair (not simply bleeding-edge special effects) to the design, and narrative savvy to Rey and Kylo Ren’s relationship. Mr. Johnson’s use of deep red is characteristic of how he turns ideas into images, most vividly with a set that looks like something Vincente Minnelli might have dreamed up for a Flash Gordon musical with Gene Kelly. When that set becomes the backdrop to a viscerally exciting fight, all the red abruptly evokes the spilled blood that this otherwise squeaky clean series insistently elides.

约翰逊可以让你忘记那些情结，以及这个系列一直以来的义务感，而且他似乎工作得很开心。他让自己的戏谑充满轻松感，让设计充满视觉魅力(不只是最前沿的特效)，用娴熟的叙事手段讲述蕾伊和凯洛·伦的恋情。约翰逊对深红色的使用是他将想法转变成形象的典型方式，这尤为鲜明地体现在一个布景中，如果文森特·明奈利(Vincente Minnelli)梦想过由金·凯利(Gene Kelly)主演音乐剧《飞侠哥顿》(Flash Gordon)，那么他可能就会使用这样的布景。而当它为一场激动人心的打斗充当背景时，那些红色便会突然让人联想到飞溅的鲜血——这个干净得有些怪异的系列一直避免呈现鲜血。

Like “The Force Awakens,” “The Last Jedi” engages with the first “Star Wars” movie less as a fetish than as a necessary point of departure. And, like Alec Guinness’s Obi-Wan Kenobi once did, Luke comes off as a brooding monastic loner. With a hooded robe, beard and inexplicable moodiness, he has retreated to an eerily lovely, isolated island where imaginatively designed critters roam and trill. The cutest (right in time for Christmas tie-ins) are Porgs, saucer-eyed mewling creatures with plump, puffin-like bodies that are mainly on hand for easy laughs. The creature design throughout is so inventive — there are less-fuzzy whatsits on the island, too — that you wish more had been added.

和《原力觉醒》一样，《最后的绝地武士》不是一味痴迷第一部《星球大战》，而是有一些必要的偏离。与亚历克·吉尼斯(Alec Guinness)饰演的欧比旺·克诺比(Obi-Wan Kenobi)一样，卢克变成了一个阴郁沉静的孤独修行者。他穿着带兜帽的长袍，留着胡须，阴郁莫名，隐居在一个怪异可爱、与世隔绝的小岛上，那里有虚构设计的动物四处漫步、歌唱。最可爱的当属Porg(它们跟圣诞节很搭)，长着圆圆的眼睛，喜欢嘤嘤叫，身体胖乎乎的，有点像海雀，很容易惹人大笑。整部电影中的生物设计都很有创意——岛上也有一些不那么毛茸茸的东西——真希望能有更多这样的生物。

You feel Mr. Johnson periodically reining himself in, yet the movie cuts loose when he does, as when he embraces the galaxy’s strangeness, its non-humanoid beings as well as its magic and mystery. There’s a trippy scene in which a character floats into a resurrection, an ethereal drift that borders on the surreal. It’s a fleeting bliss-out in a series that knows how to bring the weird but has too often neglected to do so amid its blaster zapping, machinations and Oedipal stressing and storming. This is, after all, a franchise in which the most indelible character remains Yoda, the wee, far-out philosophizer with the tufted pate and syntactically distinct truth telling: “Wars not make one great.”

你能感觉到约翰逊时不时地会放慢速度，他这样做的时候，影片就跟着松弛了下来，比如当他感叹银河系的奇异、它的各种非人类生物以及它的神奇与神秘之时。在一个迷幻的场景中，一个角色飘浮起来复活了，优雅脱俗到近乎怪异。这个瞬间令人陶醉;要知道，这个系列虽然知道如何创造奇异的人物和场景，但却往往被淹没在爆炸、阴谋以及弑父情节之中。毕竟，《星球大战》系列中最不可磨灭的角色依然非尤达大师莫属，这位身材矮小、目光远大的哲人头上长着绒毛，经常用独特的句法说出真理：“战争不会让人伟大。”

Wars do, however, make warehouses of money as this franchise has been affirming for decades. It’s instructive how normalized its permanent war has become, with its high body count, bloodlessness and fascist chic (the black uniforms evoking the Nazi SS). Given this, it’s notable, too, that while Mr. Johnson manages the big-canvas battles well enough, he’s better with smaller-scaled fights, in which the sweat, vulnerabilities and personal costs of violence are foregrounded. With Mr. Driver — who delivers a startlingly raw performance — Mr. Johnson delivers a potent portrait of villainy that suggests evil isn’t hard-wired, an inheritance or even enigmatic. Here, it is a choice — an act of self-creation in the service of annihilation.

不过，战争的确能赚很多钱，正如这个系列几十年来一直在证明的那样。值得深思的是，片中持续不断的战争已经变成了常态，伤亡巨大，不见血光，带有法西斯主义的意味(黑色制服让人联想到纳粹党卫军)。因此，同样值得注意的是，虽然约翰逊的大场面战斗拍得也足够好，但他的小规模战斗拍得更好，后者突显了汗水、脆弱以及暴力令个体付出的代价。约翰逊通过德赖弗(他的表演非常粗犷自然)对邪恶行为进行了生动的描绘，说明邪恶并非与生俱来，它不是遗传，甚至并不神秘。在本片中，它是一种选择，是一种旨在毁灭的自我创造行为。

Mr. Johnson has picked up the baton — notably the myth of a female Jedi — that was handed to Mr. Abrams when he signed on to revive the series with “The Force Awakens.” Mr. Johnson doesn’t have to make the important introductions; for the most part, the principals were in place, as was an overarching mythology that during some arid periods has seemed more sustained by fan faith than anything else. Even so, he has to convince you that these searching, burgeoning heroes and villains fit together emotionally, not simply on a Lucasfilm whiteboard, and that they have the requisite lightness and heaviness, the ineffable spirit and grandeur to reinvigorate a pop-cultural juggernaut. That he’s made a good movie in doing so isn’t icing; it’s the whole cake.

当艾布拉姆斯同意通过《原力觉醒》恢复这个系列之时，他便接过了《星球大战》的接力棒，如今又轮到约翰逊接下它——尤其是关于一名女绝地武士的神话更显示了传承。约翰逊不必再做重要的介绍，在大多数情况下，主要角色都已就位，影片的核心神话体系也已就位(在该系列某些特别乏味的阶段，这个体系似乎主要是依靠影迷的信念才得以延续下去)。即便如此，他还必须让你相信，这些不断探索、不断变强的英雄与反派们在情感上是联系在一起的，而不只是存在于卢卡斯影业公司(Lucasfilm)的白板上;他还必须让你相信，这些英雄和反派拥有必要的轻松和沉重，以及难以形容的精神和庄严，足以重振一个流行文化庞然大物。他在这样做的过程中拍了一部好电影，它不是锦上添花，它就是锦缎本身。