(Warning: this article
contains SPOILERS for Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.)
At an end, the Sequel
Trilogy is. And not short enough, it was.
Star Wars is
perhaps the most beloved fictional property of the past 40+ years and
while only time will tell if Episodes VII, VIII, and IX are the last
films we'll see in this franchise (I kind of doubt it) we'll at least
be left with these recent three to contemplate for the foreseeable
future. So I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss my thoughts
on the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (2015-19).
But first let me give
you a little background on my personal history with Star Wars
movies. In the 1990's I grew up in the lingering cultural wake of the
original films. Without having watched the Original Trilogy I already
knew the main characters, some of the lore, and the basic gist of the
story. And then The Phantom Menace came out and just like that
the whole world was awash in hype, nostalgia, and toys; my brothers
and I had so many Star Wars toys we didn't know what to do
with them all. We all thought Episode I was awesome and we watched it
dozens of times on VHS. When Attack of the Clones came out I
was conflicted; I liked the world-building and the stories it told
but I thought the film itself was mostly boring. In spite of this, I
was hyped for Episode III and when it
came out I was not disappointed. Revenge of the Sith
completely blew me away and from that moment on I was hooked on Star
Wars. I read dozens of Star
Wars novels, played every video
game I could get my hands on, and of course I went back and finally
watched the Original Trilogy which I found easy to admire. Sure, my
opinions on various Star Wars
movies have changed over time – see articles published July 2017 –
but what hasn't changed is my fondness for the series as a whole.
And
then I heard that a whole new trilogy was being made. I was skeptical
at first – Hollywood has a well-deserved reputation for doing
ill-advised things just because it can – but when I heard that
talented people were being put in charge (not to mention that the
special effects would be as practical as possible) I kept an open
mind and saw the series' latest entry on opening night.
The Force Awakens
Since
that night in December 2015 I've rewatched The Force
Awakens only once. That pretty
much sums up how I feel about it: it was only once, but I did want to
rewatch it. The review I wrote for it ended in a four-out-of-five
score which in retrospect seems rather generous. Maybe I was caught
up in the hype or I was so relieved that it wasn't a bad movie.
Episode VII was and still is respectable. The action is thrilling
enough, Kylo Ren was a decent villain (even if his temper tantrums
made him hard to take seriously at times), and the music was well
done. But on the other hand most of the new characters didn't have
much going for them, the effects were mostly CGI just like every
other movie these days, and the world-building is lacking; there's
not much to fill audiences in on what's happened to the galaxy since
Return of the Jedi.
What is the First Order and where did it come from? Who is Snoke and
where did he come from? Does the New Republic rule the whole galaxy
or does it share it with the First Order? Is the New Republic at war
with the First Order? If so then why is it making a Resistance
movement fight them? Why did it allow the First Order to make the
superweapon, Starkiller Base?
What
bothered me more than Episode VII's lack of background was the fact
that 90% of the movie is simply a remake of A New Hope;
the plot is more or less the same, even a bunch of the scenes are
similar. Regardless, I was willing to forgive most of these
shortcomings at the time. Cramming in all the details and interesting
arcs of a trilogy into the first film is a tall order. The filmmakers
will have more freedom next time for crafting a truly great Star
Wars film with Episode VIII,
right?
The Last Jedi
Oh,
I'm afraid the suckage was quite operational when my friends and I
arrived at the cinemas in December 2017. The Last Jedi was
both a transparent ripoff of The Empire Strikes Back and also
a heavily Disney-fied snoozefest. It's bad enough that the film was
loaded with cutesy humour, little details explained in very
dumbed-down terms, and a not-so-subtle political slant (a whole
subplot about war profiteering and animal rights in a Star Wars
film? Really?) but could they have bothered to make the premise
exciting? The film is about the Resistance leadership – which many
characters now refer to as “the Rebels” – in a handful of ships
on the run from a First Order fleet. Why can't the Resistance ships
hyperspace jump away? Because this. Why don't the First Order ships
open fire on them? Because that. Why doesn't the First Order fleet
attack with bombers and more than just a handful of fighters? Because
this. Why don't the First Order ships make a small hyperspace jump to
close the distance between the two fleets? Because they lack
imagination. Why doesn't (sigh) vice admiral Holdo tell her officers
her plan for escape? Because that. This isn't a plot that's fun or
exciting. This is a plot made up of excuses! Sure, the majority of
Episode V was about trying to escape an Imperial fleet too but it
involved a variety of neat tactics and manoeuvres that made you
appreciate the ingenuity of the main characters. The other half of
The Last Jedi has Finn and some boring chick named Rose go and
find a hacker who can help the Resistance in their flight from the
First Order fleet, and this whole subplot – I'd say at least 35
minutes of the film – leads nowhere and is pointless.
As
for the rest of the film, what isn't lazily ripping off Episode V is
basically turning everything upside down and discarding all the new
trilogy's intriguing possibilities that could've developed further.
Luke Skywalker is a sad loser who scarcely resembles the optimistic
Jedi he was at the end of Episode VI. Snoke is killed off before
we've learned much of anything about him. Princess Leia is now
Superman apparently. Captain Phasma is killed off unceremoniously;
they said she would be this trilogy's Boba Fett which she indeed
turned out to be... in the most disappointing way. Also, hyperspace
jumping one capital ship into another can apparently destroy half a
fleet: so why haven't we seen this done in Star Wars before or
since? It sure looked cool and it sounds to me like a way more
effective attack than going through the trouble of building a
superweapon (that will inevitably be destroyed).
So
yeah, The Last Jedi pissed a lot of people off, and I was one
of them; I've not rewatched it since nor do I particularly want to.
At this point I was starting to lose hope in this franchise and my
expectations for part three weren't great. I knew I was going to
watch Episode IX not out of a sense of anticipation, but rather a
sense of obligation. The only thing about the marketing that
intrigued me was that Palpatine was back – now that got my
attention.
The Rise of Skywalker
According
to The Rise of Skywalker's opening text crawl, a message from
Palpatine was broadcast across the galaxy and everybody is scrambling
to find its source. Now let me ask: why was this world-shaking event
relegated to the opening text? Imagine how cool it would have been to
see everyone's reaction upon hearing a surprise message from the
Emperor, a powerful and evil Sith who's been thought to be dead for
the past 30 or so years! That would've made for one hell of a
cliffhanger ending for The Last Jedi, wouldn't you say?
Now
you're not going to believe me, but get a load of this: Episode IX is
an approximate remake of Episode VI. The laziness – err, I mean
pattern continues and it makes the film kind of predictable. We see
an evil empire armed with planet-exploding weapons headed by
Palpatine who is confronted face to face with a lone Jedi who is
aided by a former Sith who sacrifices himself. The only thing missing
is the Ewoks... oh wait, never mind. There actually are Ewoks in
Episode IX. In fact there are a ton of little incidental things you
may remember from other, more creative Star Wars movies
because the best that this one has to offer is an overabundance of
fan service, cameos, and rehashed dialogue.
What
The Rise of Skywalker does bring to the table is a bunch of
fake-out deaths, a rather dull explanation for Snoke, and a brand new
giant fleet of Star Destroyers called the Final Order that Palpatine
has been building in secret. The only downside is that this Final
Order fleet doesn't really do anything, has a massive weakness, and
is defeated easily as it floats helplessly in one spot. It makes me
wonder if this fleet is even staffed by living people or just remote
controlled. Are the personnel of its command ship clones? Where did
they come from? Also, remember the whole
Finn-might-be-in-love-with-Rey subplot? It's left unresolved, totally
abandoned even though it was hinted at in all three films. What they
did remember to tell us is Rey's origin: turns out she's Palpatine's
paternal granddaughter. This raises several questions, such as who is
Rey's dad then? And when/with whom was Palpatine bumping uglies? Who
was he R2-Doing and when did he Darth Invader?
I
will say that The Rise of Skywalker is a better movie than The
Last Jedi. It shares all the things I liked about the latter film
– the fights, the effects, Kylo Ren, the music – and it has less
of the things I hated like the childish humour, heavy-handed liberal
politics, and boring plot lines. But it seems like it was written as
a damage-control type of film meant to undo the mistakes of the
previous two. As a result there's a lot of stuff that happens in just
Episode IX, suggesting that this trilogy wasn't plotted out in
advance as a smoothly flowing and proper story arc like the other two
trilogies were. If you wanted to get the gist, the bare-bones story
of the Sequel Trilogy you could arguably skip Episodes VII and VIII
and be fine with watching IX on its own.
Conclusion
Just
to be clear, I don't think the Sequel Trilogy films are bad per se.
They're an OK-to-average bunch of films that I kind of despise. It
really says something when one of the only characters I sympathize
with was Chewbacca; even though the poor fella can't talk I felt bad
that he has to watch his old friends die over and over again. Luke
and Han were brought back only to turn out as grumpy old losers. I
thought the main character, Rey, was flat and uninteresting and most
of the other new characters weren't much better.
If
you couldn't tell already, one of this trilogy's biggest flaws is the
stunning lack of imagination on the part of both the writers and the
artists involved. We should have been given a more detailed
explanation of what the galaxy was like in the 30 years following
Episode VI. There should have been superweapons that do something
else besides blowing up a planet. The Final Order fleet should have
fought back. Star fleets shouldn't still be using TIE fighters and
X-wings. (Though to be fair the TIE fighters in Episode IX now have
hyperspace drives, which they didn't before. That's something, I
guess.) And we shouldn't be seeing battles and plots we've seen
before. This is Star Wars, dangit, the series that takes place
a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Get creative with it!
But
perhaps my biggest gripe with the Sequel Trilogy is that it
diminishes the events and characters of the previous films. The first
six episodes cover the life of Anakin Skywalker, his origin, his rise
to power, his turn to the dark side, and ultimately his redemption.
With his death he fulfilled his destiny as the Chosen One and
destroyed the Sith once and for all. But with these new films, I
guess none of that mattered. Anakin wasn't the Chosen One after all.
It's stuff like this that makes we wish the Sequel Trilogy never
happened.
But
at the end of the day, I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. No, my
childhood isn't ruined by these new films. My childhood is in the
past, therefore nothing can ruin it. To me, Star Wars is a
series that never needed more than six parts and that's how I'll
choose to remember it: the series that concluded with an Ewok
festival on Endor.
