History Tearjerker / TheLastJedi

* A downplayed one, but the fact Mark Hamill himself had [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0biqMZrxJ0&t=180s some]] [[CreatorBacklash mixed]] feelings towards the script and is at times very openly cynical about the movie left nary a fan untouched. Thankfully, [[https://twitter.com/HamillHimself/status/945784443964309505 he changed his mind after seeing the movie and voiced his approval.]]

** In the same scene, Poe calling out to him over the comm when he realizes what Finn is about to do, going so far as to pull rank and try to ''order'' him to pull back.]] Regardless of how one reads [[HeterosexualLifePartners their]] [[HoYay relationship]], Poe is clearly anguished at the thought of losing any more of his people.

** When do we last see Kylo Ren? Standing triumphantly at the head of his new army? Nope. He's kneeling on the floor, staring hollowly at his father's dice. He's gotten what he wanted, [[PyrrhicVictory but it doesn't seem like it was worth it]].]] This is only emphasized by the fact that the dice fade away in his hand, since they weren't truly there.

** Bittersweet: When the film premiered, one of Fisher's assistants brought Fisher's dog Gary to see it. Apparently, his ears perked up every time Carrie was on the screen.

** Bittersweet: When the film premiered, one of Fisher's assistants brought Fisher's dog Gary to see it. Apparently, his ears perked up every time his deceased owner was on the screen.

* While it might be more of a bittersweet kind of tears than most of the entries on this page, it's impossible not to get choked up when Leia uses the Force to pull herself back to the bridge of the ''Raddus'' after being blown out into space. It's an incredibly emotional moment, not just because we're finally getting to see Leia using the Force, but because [[AuthorExistenceFailure Carrie Fisher's death]] ensures that she never will again. One last [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome grand hurrah for our Princess. [[SincerityMode We'll miss you.]]

* Despite several instances where it seemed Kylo might pull himself back to the Light, he ultimately falls even more to the Dark Side when he [[TheStarscream betrays Snoke]] and [[KlingonPromotion assumes leadership of the First Order]]. With Luke now having become one with the Force, this leaves Kylo and an aging Leia as the sole surviving members of Anakin's legacy. Barring an increasingly unlikely chance that Kylo will redeem himself ''and'' survive the events of Episode IX, the Skywalker line seems destined to die out upon the conclusion of the trilogy. Although it does end on a hopeful note, as shown when Kylo picks up the dice that Luke had given to Leia when he says "No one is ever truly gone."]]

* Finn is still in stasis, recovering from his fight with Kylo Ren in the previous film. [[spoiler:When he wakes up, he screams, "Rey!"]]
** And the first thing he asks Poe when he wakes up? [[spoiler:"Where's Rey?" This is especially prominent because the last time Finn saw Rey, she'd been sent flying thirty feet in the air and knocked unconscious against a tree by Kylo Ren. How ''worried'' he is about her really says a lot.]]

* In the second trailer, there's a brief sequence where Kylo flies towards Leia's command ship, fully intending to [[spoiler:kill his own mother to further his journey towards the Dark Side]]. The sad part comes in when you see the look on his face, which betrays the fact that he clearly doesn't want to do this, but feels he must in order to become as strong as [[spoiler:his grandfather]].

* Paige's [[spoiler:sacrifice]] at the climax of that counter-attack, especially the close-up of her face as she knowingly awaits the end. We see her bravery and resolve as she saves hundreds of lives, and [[spoiler:then she's gone.]]

** Special mention to the shot of her touching her necklace. Her sister Rose is seen to be wearing the other half of the necklace, likely meaning that [[spoiler: in her last moments, Paige was thinking of Rose, dying with the knowledge she did all she could to protect her sister]].

* As Rey and Kylo Force wrestle, [[spoiler: the Skywalker lightsaber is destroyed. It's only snapped in half, so repairs may not be impossible, but there's a chance the most iconic lightsaber ever is truly gone for good.]]
* A brief one, but there is a shot of Luke's X-wing that he used throughout the entire original trilogy submerged and encrusted with sea creatures. Seeing one of the most iconic movie spaceships like this is sad in and of itself but it's also a rather poetic metaphor for how Luke considers himself done with being a hero. [[spoiler:And thanks to his death, it will stay there forever, as a memorial.]]

* At the end of the movie, [[spoiler:Luke passes away from the tremendous effort it took him to maintain the Force illusion on Crait while he was still on Ahch-To. Only Chewbacca and Leia are left from the old guard]]. Not completely unexpected, but still, [[spoiler:'''''Luke Skywalker is dead'''''. It's much less tragic than it was with Han Solo, as he's now one with the Force and may return as a Force Ghost, but it won't be the same. Another hero of many people's childhoods is gone.]]
** [[spoiler: As he dies, full of "peace and purpose", the last thing he sees--with tears in his eyes--is a [[CallBack beautiful twin sunset]], a memory of the days when he was a simple farmboy dreaming of adventure on Tatooine.]]
*** [[spoiler:The final reprise of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2PWvzU2JUU 'Binary Sunset']], often considered Luke's theme from the iconic scene in ''A New Hope'', is almost ''guaranteed'' to bring tears to your eyes.]]
* Some may have missed it because it happens quite unceremoniously and the character is only quickly mentioned afterwards, but [[spoiler:the Mon Calamari on Leia's command deck is indeed Admiral Ackbar, and with the exception of Leia, he's killed with all the other officials. The old Expanded Universe had him die peacefully of old age; no such luck for him in the new canon.]]
* Seeing as the fleeing Resistance members are gradually killed during their desperate escape ([[spoiler:by the end of the movie there are so few of them left, they all fit into the Millennium Falcon]]) can be very painful. ''Star Wars'' has made us used to see entire spaceships explode, often forgetting there are hundreds if not thousands of people inside. Here, the writers have used the simple "trick" of having some numbers stated now and then to remember the stakes; it's very effective.
** To this end, [[spoiler:watching Poe's face as he sees the few pilots remaining during his attempt at a sally on Crait getting shot down in front of his eyes. It finally hits him how reckless he's been with his flight squadrons - they all trust him dearly and his skills are an inspiration to all of them - but too many are getting killed for it. It comes full circle when ''he's'' the one trying to order Finn to back off of his suicide run, just as Leia tried to get him to fall back from his dreadnought counterstrike back at the start of the film.]]
* [[spoiler:Admiral Holdo's HeroicSacrifice, and her emotional farewell with Leia. At first Holdo is be set up as a foil to Leia and by proxy, Dameron. Seemingly passive to Leia's active response, Dameron denounces her as a coward. Then not only did Holdo prove him wrong by not only having a plan to ensure the survival of the remaining Resistance members, she also stayed behind to pilot the main ship to provide a distraction for the First Order. Then she managed to wreck Snoke's private ship by ramming into it while accelerating to ''lightspeed'' in one of the most badass suicide takedowns in film history, thus saving them all.]]
* With [[spoiler:Snoke dead]], Kylo Ren tells Rey his plans, he extends his hand to her and tells her that WeCanRuleTogether now, ending his speech with a shaky "Please". The words he uses are similar to Anakin's when he tried to get Padme to join him after he had fallen to the dark side, but the look on his face and his body language are completely different.

** Kylo Ren's justification of why Rey and he should let everything from the past burn is simple and yet poignant. They've both been let down by everyone in their past: Rey's parents [[spoiler:sold her in exchange for alcohol]], and Luke was [[spoiler:so afraid of young Ben's powers and inner darkness that he tried to kill him in his sleep]]. They can't count on anyone but themselves, but that would change if she'd accepted his offer.
* Rey [[spoiler:admitting that her parents were ''never'' going to come back for her. All those years she spent in Jakku waiting for them was just her lying to herself, burying the fact that they were a pair of junk-rats who sold their own daughter for booze money, and eventually got themselves killed, buried in unmarked graves she will never find under the sands of Jakku.]]
** When combined with her Force-vision underneath the island, this revelation becomes absolutely ''devastating'' for Rey. [[spoiler: For the last two movies, Rey has been desperately searching for meaning to her life, looking for a place to belong. She looks to legends like Han, Leia and Luke, asking them to tell her where she belongs. Rey might well have been expecting some grand revelation to come from the Mirror vision. For her, finding out she was a chosen one or special based on her heritage would be a ''good'' thing, because then at least she could believe she was fitting into some grand plan. But she's not. Luke has no answers for Rey. Her Force-vision shows nothing but herself. She ''isn't'' TheChosenOne like Anakin or the child of TheChosenOne like Luke or Kylo. She's ''not'' part of some HeroicLineage. [[TheUnchosenOne She's just a girl from nowhere]].]]

* For a brief few minutes we don't just see a path to redemption for Kylo Ren, we get a glimpse of the hero he could have been. Rey might well believe that her vision could come true. And then [[spoiler: she discovers just how deeply he's tied to his ideology, and he's willing to let the resistance die along with the rest of the things from the past. ]]
** When Rey realises his intentions, [[spoiler: after she had grown to care for and even love him she just looks at him in utter sadness, begging him in a quiet, choked voice not to do this. It reminded several viewers of the equally emotional scene in ''Revenge of the Sith'' when Padme futilely pleaded with Anakin to come back to the light]].

* [[spoiler: Despite several instances where it seemed Kylo might pull himself back to the Light, he ultimately falls even more to the Dark Side when he [[TheStarscream betrays Snoke]] and [[KlingonPromotion assumes leadership of the First Order]]. With Luke now having become one with the Force, this leaves Kylo and an aging Leia as the sole surviving members of Anakin's legacy. Barring an increasingly unlikely chance that Kylo will redeem himself ''and'' survive the events of Episode IX, the Skywalker line seems destined to die out upon the conclusion of the trilogy. Although it does end on a hopeful note, as shown when Kylo picks up the dice that Luke had given to Leia when he says "No one is ever truly gone."]]
** [[spoiler: To drive this in further, for all his inner turmoil, his actions may have finally even gotten his ''mother'' to seemingly let go of her son. Leia, who so strongly believed that Han could bring him back seems to acknowledge that her son may be too far gone. Though as mentioned above, Luke tries to encourage her otherwise.]]
** [[spoiler:Kylo tries one last time to reach out to Rey through their Force Bond, and gets a silent, hard, and disappointed look in return. Judging from the expression on his face, even he seems to know how much he deserves it.]]
** When do we last see [[spoiler:Kylo Ren? Standing triumphantly at the head of his new army? Nope. He's kneeling on the floor, staring hollowly at his father's dice. He's gotten what he wanted, [[PyrrhicVictory but it doesn't seem like it was worth it]].]] This is only emphasized by the fact that [[spoiler:the dice fade away in his hand, since they weren't truly there]].
* The final meeting between [[spoiler:Luke and Leia. In particular is his line "Nobody is ever truly gone," which just seems extra meaningful given who he's saying it to.]]

** Another tragicomedic Chewie scene later is dampened when Luke sneaks onboard the Falcon, clearly happy to see the old girl one last time. What makes this worse is that the last time Luke himself was seen in the Falcon's cockpit or the Falcon at all, it was all the way back in Empire, and him physically and psychologically battered and broken after his duel with Vader. [[spoiler: And that moment itself is the last time he'll ever be on the Falcon ever again]].
* When Finn and Rose are looking for their master hacker on a luxury gambling planet, Finn is visibly dazzled by all the wealth and glamour after his regimented life as a Stormtrooper, but Rose tells him to look closer and reveals to him the dark exploitative underside that makes all that glamour and luxury possible. The fathiers appear to be a local species and the owners of the gambling planet have effectively enslaved them for use in an equivalent to horse racing -- we see these huge, graceful animals being brutalized and their ''child slave stable hands'' being beaten when they try to protect the animals they care for from being cut and burned. It's like an incredibly dark and tragic call-back to the in-universe fun and thrilling pod races of Episode One. [[spoiler:When Rose and Finn free the fathiers en masse and they realize they're free and escape into the wilderness this turns into happy tears, however.]]

* Finn and Rose are truly rocked when [[spoiler:DJ sells them out to the First Order. They had come to like this guy and convinced themselves he was a gambler with a heart of gold but instead, at the first opportunity, he not only betrays them but allows the First Order to track the fleeing Rebels. Rose cries and Finn is stunned that the man really was all about himself and "just business," not caring about the lives he's costing.]]
* R2-D2 plays Leia's old message from ''Film/ANewHope''. [[spoiler: Luke looks so sad and ashamed of himself when he hears, "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope." once more. This is what finally motivates him to train Rey, likely to honor his old mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi one last time.]] It's also a TearJerker in the meta sense of course, thanks to Carrie Fisher's passing (and, for that matter, Leia's final moments in ''Film/RogueOne'').
** Right before that, when R2 activates, and Luke turns around, wide-eyed, and disbelievingly says "R2???" He sounds just like the 19-year-old farmboy from the original trilogy again, if just for a second. Then he laughs, so happy to see who was probably his closest companion among the original trilogy cast [[spoiler: but there's so much pain in it. He knows that things can never be the same as they were because of everything he's been through and lost]].
* The reason that Luke fled and cut himself off from everything. [[spoiler: He's ashamed that he failed Ben Solo, and that the brief moment he contemplated killing him was the moment that pushed Ben over the edge and turned him into Kylo Ren.]]
* [[spoiler:By the end of the film, Leia has lost many people dear to her (including her husband, her brother and close friends), the New Republic that she spent decades rebuilding has collapsed, her army has been reduced to a mere dozen and her son is apparently beyond redemption, all in the span of a few days]].
** Remember how earlier [[spoiler:Kylo couldn't go through with killing her, in the end? The audience knows that. [[FridgeHorror Does she]]? It's very possible she may think the shots came from him, not his wingmen.]]
* Finn [[spoiler:attempting to pull a HeroicSacrifice by flying his speeder into the First Order's cannon. Sure, Rose saves him, but the expression on his face, the music, watching his speeder slowly fall apart as he tries to push on... It creates a tense, emotional moment where you honestly think the film's writers just might go through with it.]]
** In the same scene, Poe [[spoiler: calling out to him over the comm when he realizes what Finn is about to do, going so far as to pull rank and try to ''order'' him to pull back.]] Regardless of how one reads [[HeterosexualLifePartners their]] [[HoYay relationship]], [[spoiler: Poe is clearly anguished at the thought of losing any more of his people.]]
* While it might be more of a bittersweet kind of tears than most of the entries on this page, it's impossible not to get choked up when Leia [[spoiler: uses the Force to pull herself back to the bridge of the ''Raddus'' after being blown out into space]]. It's an incredibly emotional moment, not just because we're finally getting to see [[spoiler: Leia using the Force]], but because Carrie Fisher's death ensures that she never will again. One last [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome grand hurrah]] for our Princess. [[SincerityMode We'll miss you.]]
* Kylo's order to aim every gun available and fire on [[spoiler: Luke, followed by his pure, unbalanced rage displayed when he confronted him on the ground. Nothing else the viewer has seen up to this point has made him that angry for so long. It's clear that Kylo once truly respected, trusted and looked up to Luke, and the rage displayed comes from terrible pain over Luke's betrayal. In this light, that betrayal, however momentary, seems to be very likely what turned him to the dark side more than Snoke's manipulations. When Hux commands their forces to stop, while it's due to the fact that they're concentrating an excess amount of artillery on a single human, he also sounds like [[EvenEvilHasStandards he's doing so because their shelling has turned into straight-up cruelty]].]]

* Poe's reaction when he hears [[spoiler:Finn and Rose being captured over the radio. They were so close to their goal, and then he's ForcedToWatch that he may have sent them to their deaths. It makes his relief that they managed to get into the Crait base all the more heartwarming.]]

* While Leia is angry at Poe for not being practical, she's still very motherly, perhaps treating him as a ReplacementGoldfish for Kylo Ren. Her expressions throughout the film while talking to and about him range from "I'm too old for this" to "You're such a child". [[spoiler:At the end she admits that she may not be able to save her son, who will murder them all, and orders everyone to follow Poe when he decides to evacuate the base.]]
* Holdo, for all her abrasive responses to Poe, actually doesn't hate him. When [[spoiler:Leia tases Poe and brings him aboard an escape pod, Holdo strokes his hair and she and Leia have a laugh about how Poe is so reckless. Poe never knew that Holdo actually cared.]]

* When Kylo confronts [[spoiler: Luke]] on Crait, he mockingly asks him if he’s going to “beg for my forgiveness” or try to “save my soul”. Standard villain stuff…only the way Kylo ''spits'' the lines, every word laced with pure hatred and bitterness, as well as his generally unstable demeanor, is a real gut-punch. [[spoiler: This is the first time uncle and nephew have seen each other since that fateful night when Luke’s temple burned. Kylo’s clearly still deeply hurt by Luke’s betrayal of him and Luke…pretty much acknowledges it. He never raises his voice to Kylo or tries to rebut him. He simply honestly states he’s not here to save him, because he knows he can’t, but that he’s sorry anyway. This, coupled with Luke’s earlier assertion to Leia that “no one is ever truly gone” carries the implication that Luke still loves his nephew and believes he could still potentially be redeemed, but he knows that ''he'' can not, and will not be the one to do it]].
* The scene when [[spoiler: Leia and Luke meet]] begins with Leia joking that she [[CallBack "changed [her] hair."]] Hilarious when you see the movie, but when you crack open the visual dictionary, you find out WHY Leia changed her hairstyle between movies... [[FunnyAneurysmMoment She's in mourning for Han.]]

** With [[TheCharacterDiedWithHim Leia likely dying sometime between VIII and IX]] and [[spoiler:Luke dying]], it seems ironic that in the original Legends continuity [[spoiler:Chewbacca was the only one of the Big Four to die. Now he's the only one left.]]
* After seeing the ending of the movie, there is another sad {{irony}} in the thought that [[spoiler:Han and Luke have died, but Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill are both still alive, while Leia instead survives the events of the movie, but Carrie Fisher had been dead for almost a year by the time the movie came out.]]
* As far as supporting characters go, Jimmy Vee takes over as R2-D2 from Kenny Baker, who passed away in August 2016. Erik Bauersfeld, the voice of Admiral Ackbar, died at age 93 in April 2016, [[spoiler: which may well be why TheCharacterDiedWithHim when the First Order's fighters attack his cruiser's bridge in ''The Last Jedi'']].

** This seems to be the better place to put this TearJerker realization: After finding out the truth about Rey's parents, the flashback scene in The Force Awakens showing Little Girl Rey screaming after her parents to come back turns from sad and regretful to horrifyingly heartbreaking.

** Right before that, when R2 activates, and Luke turns around, wide-eyed, and disbelievingly says "R2???" He sounds just like the 19-year-old farmboy from the original trilogy again, if just for a second. Then he laughs, so happy to see who was probably his closest companion among the original trilogy cast [[spoiler: but there's so much pain in it. He knows that things can never be the same as they were because of everything he's been through and lost]]. Goddamnit, Creator/MarkHamill.

* With Creator/CarrieFisher's passing, as mentioned above, the film's title becomes even more meaningful: With both Han and Leia gone, Luke really is TheLastOfHisKind, the last of the old guard left to pass the torch to the next generation [[note]] Aside from Chewbacca, Threepio, and R2 of course, but they're in full-body costume so it's not the same [[/note]].

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/starwarsthelastjeditearjerker.jpg]]

** Even more so, given how submerged his X-Wing is, Luke couldn't have physically pushed it in or crashed it into the water, so he used the force to put in underwater. When training with Yoda in Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack, his first piece of real training was lifting his X-Wing out of the water.

** Even more so, given how submerged his X-Wing is, Luke couldn't have physically pushed it in or crashed it into the water, so he used the force to put in underwater. When training with Yoda in TheEmpireStrikesBack, his first piece of real training was lifting his X-Wing out of the water.

** Even more so, given how submerged his X-Wing is, Luke couldn't have physically pushed it in or crashed it into the water, so he used the force to put in underwater. When training with Yoda in EmpireStrikesBack, his first piece of real training was lifting his X-Wing out of the water.

* When Kylo confronts [[spoiler: Luke]] on Crait, he mockingly asks him if he’s going to “beg for my forgiveness” or try to “save my soul”. Standard villain stuff…only the way Kylo ''spits'' the lines, every word laced with pure hatred and bitterness, as well as his generally unstable demeanor, is a real gut-punch. [[spoiler: This is the first time uncle and nephew have seen each other since that fateful night when Luke’s temple burned. Kylo’s clearly still deeply hurt by Luke’s betrayal of him and Luke…pretty much acknowledges it. He never raises his voice to Kylo or tries to rebut him. He simply honestly states he’s not here to save him, because he knows he can’t, but that he’s sorry anyway. This, coupled with Luke’s earlier assertion to Leia that “no one is ever truly gone” carries the implication that Luke still loves his nephew and believes he could still potentially be redeemed, but he knows he’s not going to be the one to do it]].

* This article [[http://fandom.wikia.com/articles/last-jedi-burns-stars-wars-builds?li_source=LI&li_medium=wikia-impactfooter here]] claims that this film is the final nail in the coffin for the idealized original version of Star Wars. What does that mean? Well... It means our idealized Star Wars is now gone for good.

* As far as supporting characters go, Jimmy Vee takes over as R2-D2 from Kenny Baker, who passed away in August 2016. Erik Bauersfeld, the voice of Admiral Ackbar, died at age 93 in April 2016, [[spoiler:which may well be why TheCharacterDiedWithHim when the First Order's fighters attack his cruiser's bridge in ''The Last Jedi'']].

** Likewise, when he sees the Millennium Falcon come to the Resistance' aid during the battle, his order to "BLOW THAT PIECE OF JUNK OUT OF THE SKY!!" is full of such rage and hatred for his father's beloved ship. He probably spent most of his childhood on that ship.