Joseph Gordon-Levitt has written a 2,000 word essay defending 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The 36-year-old actor voiced alien Slowen Lo in the eighth instalment of the sci-fi saga - which was helmed by his close friend Rian Johnson - however, the highly anticipated movie received rave reviews from the majority of critics but split opinion amongst fans and was even pulled from cinemas in China due to lack of audiences.

But in a Medium post, Gordon-Levitt made an impassioned defence of the movie and in particular why Jedi Master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) had to be portrayed as a grizzled hermit.

He wrote: "We all get older, and those of us who are lucky enough to survive our youth all face the joys, the terrors, the puzzles, the pitfalls, the surprises, and the inevitabilities that come along with doing so.

"Re-meeting our beloved protagonist decades after we last saw him, only to learn that the passing years have changed some of his most fundamental qualities, I'll admit it, it's almost hard to see. But in that glaring contrast between the Luke of old and the new Old Luke, 'The Last Jedi' offers a uniquely fascinating portrayal of a man's life marching inescapably forward. A flawed main character is one of the main distinctions between a story with substance and a gratuitous spectacle. It's often through a character overcoming their flaws that a movie can really say something."

Although the film has received criticism about more than just Luke's change in personality, Joseph decided to focus his writing solely on the iconic character "in the interest of brevity".

The 'Inception' star - who recently welcomed his second son with wife Tasha McCauley - also said it took him a while to see the latest instalment in the franchise because he has babies, but was "intrigued" at the reception it got.

He said: "Anyway, getting home from the cinema, I was curious to see what people were saying about the movie, and what I discovered surprised me While most critics and many fans loved it as much as I did, there was also a passionate contingent who decidedly didn't. I was intrigued. A lot of my favourite movies polarise audiences. Many, many voices had much to say, and I only got through reading a tiny speck of it, but right away, I noticed a recurring theme in the various objections."

Tagged in