'Last Jedi' Puts The Smarts — And The Heart — Back Into The 'Star Wars' Franchise

Copyright 2017 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air . TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. Film critic David Edelstein has a review of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi." It features actors who showed up in the third cycle of Star Wars films that began in 2015 with "The Force Awakens," in which classic characters like Han Solo, Chewbacca and Leia were mixed in with new ones played by Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver and John Boyega. "The Last Jedi" features those actors as well as the late Carrie Fisher who died last December. DAVID EDELSTEIN, BYLINE: Blow me down. "Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi" is terrific. I'm shocked because I had largely given up on Star Wars since, well, 1983 when the "Return Of The Jedi" turned out to be campy dreck and when George Lucas's subsequent trilogy suffered from stiff filmmaking and Medusa dialogue - meaning lines that turned actors to stone. In 2015, "The Force Awakens" relaunched the saga without Lucas, who'd been bought off by Disney for the GDP of a