The Last Jedi
This title is memorable, but like ROTJ I don’t think it represents the film. Luke is only one part, not the driving focus (if say the Resistance were praying for Luke’s help, it might have worked).They weren’t? News to me.
Holdo had a plan. Evacuate the transports down to Crait. The entire Resistance plot line was riding on that. Luke, the last Jedi which the film is supposedly about, only shows up to effect the story at the very end.
For a short while, they do pray for help. But not specifically Luke, and when he arrives they are just happy he can be with them “in the end”. The last Jedi is not the focus on the resistance plot line.
There’s effectively four stories happening at once during the Last Jedi (Luke, Poe, Finn, Kylo) and the title only refers to one, with the rest only partially interfering at the end.
But at the very end, Luke says he will not be the Last Jedi. This is really annoying to me. And I get it. Subversion of expectations! But a title is more or less a promise that something will happen.
That’s an oddly stringent way of looking at it. The title is about the idea of Luke being the last Jedi, and whether he will fulfill that title or not. Not to mention, he’s referred to by that title twice in TFA, and it’s not an inaccurate descriptor of him in TLJ itself - looking at it another way, he’s “the last Jedi” left, or worded differently “the last” of the “Jedi.” So really the title is a question (not a promise), saying “he’s the last Jedi now, will he be the last Jedi forever?”
Otherwise I agree with your rundown (except for maybe TPM).
That is an interesting way to look at it. This might meander into opinions towards the film, but I personally think if this was the case they should of spent more time developing Luke and his successor (Rey). Without much of a reason for Rey to be a Jedi, it falls a bit flat for me. If the movie was about “will the Jedi end here?”, it should of spent more time exploring what if means to be a Jedi. Basically more of the second lesson.
For me, I kept wondering in the theater when Luke was going to show up. It frames the resistance in peril, which sets up the arrival of the “last Jedi”. So perhaps if the focus of the story was somewhere else I would interpret the title otherwise.