Maybe I’m still coming down from the high of seeing a Star Wars film in theaters (will the visual of that opening crawl projected against the infinity of space ever get old?) but I believe that The Last Jedi is the Star Wars film the world has been waiting for. And it’s the one that the world needs.

Star Wars is a world of hope. Luke, a poor farm boy with a life of nothing but sand ahead of him, has hope that someday he’ll leave Tatooine and see the world (beautifully shown in one of the most iconic shots in the franchise as he looks out into a vast Tatooinian sunset). Leia, a captured rebel princess, survives on the hope that Obi Wan will help her save her people. Han Solo hopes…well…Han hopes that he can still look good at age 70 (and you do Harrison, you do).

Hope is found in the lowest places of the world. It belongs to the meek and poor. That’s why The Last Jedi succeeds. It takes us back to the poor and broken.

With all of the problems that the prequels have, one of the things that people don’t talk about enough is the lack of hope. Or the lack of need of hope. The characters are…fine. They have money, weapons and more Jedi than you can count (in fairness, an arena fight is something I wouldn’t trade for the world), but the films miss the hope.

The prequels find our protagonists in positions of power in the galaxy. They are in opposition but not outgunned. It is only the looming presence of Darth Sidious that allows the viewer to feel apprehension. Not hope. The prequels miss the importance of giving hope to the hopeless.

The Force Awakens, while a wonderful jump-start for this new trilogy, has glimmers of hope, but not on the level of the original trilogy. Sure Rey, like Luke, hopes for a life outside of Jakku, but Rey’s hope feels like the only morsel of hope that we truly see. The Resistance is a group of well-trained, fully armed warriors with bases and ships galore.

Smash cut to The Last Jedi. Rey is on her own on an isolated rock with a moody Jedi that doesn’t want to be a Jedi. Leia is unconscious. Poe is stuck, consequently, in space with a Star Destroyer closing in. The heroes in The Last Jedi could use some hope. And they know it.

The Last Jedi is proud to boost its theme of hope, calling back to the roots of Star Wars itself. Leia seems to be synonymous with hope, as characters look to her for signs that everything’s going to be okay. Laura Dern’s Vice Admiral Haldo quotes Leia saying, “Hope is like the sun. If you only believe it when you see it, you’ll never make it through the night.” This wonderful line maintains the beautiful reality that hope is always there.

In this way, hope exists in the Star Wars universe in the same way The Force does. Luke and Rey’s conversations about The Force are so brilliantly similar to Leia and Poe’s conversations about hope, that you could exchange the words and the conversations would be the same. The Force and hope exist as a constant presence that drives the world forward. Leia believes in hope, Luke believes in The Force.

The Last Jedi brings Star Wars back to the mysticism and spiritually that originally made the universe so spectacular and unique. There are no “midi-chlorians” that control the goings on of the universe (or maybe there are, but let’s just leave that to Qui-Gon), but the universe is dictated by choice. By the force. By hope.

In the third act of the film, what’s left of The Resistance is trapped in a cave with seemingly no way out. They send out a distress signal that is ignored, and The First Order’s full might is just outside the cave, ready to blast through. Hope seems to be lost, but there is someone who could save them.

Luke is taught to hope by Rey after being low — so low that we see him living in isolation, drinking the milk from a grazing creature, rejecting the Jedi and rejecting the world around him.

So even Luke Skywalker, the innocent farm boy and original protagonist of Star Wars, loses hope along the way and needs to be shown the power it has. It brings him to forgive himself for who he has become, and helps him stand as a beacon in front of The First Order while The Resistance escapes after they fear hope is lost.

Kylo Ren unloads laser after laser at Luke, causing the ground to erupt and the dust to swirl around the spot where Luke stands. The dust clears, and Luke is there. The dust clears, and hope stands resolute.

The Last Jedi takes its characters to moments of distress and doom. They loose hope, but the film reminds us that hope is never lost. There is always a new hope.