This is a very good summary, especially with regards to the prequels - they also had a huge an dedicated number of followers, just ask Lego. And it’s only fitting that TROS doesn’t wash its hands off a generation that came to Star Wars with THE PHANTOM MENACE, whatever older fans like me think of it.
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Hi!
TROS soooooooooo knows this. People who’ve seen it know why I say this…
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Now it’s all said and done I’d like to share some thoughts on Rise of Skywalker, the new trilogy and Star Wars in general.
Overall I enjoyed ROS despite some frustrating details. I felt like they were trying to walk back the big ideas of Last Jedi and deliver something ‘safe’ in it’s place. I really could have done without the return of the Emperor, yet another planet destroying superweaoon and that reveal (which I’m not going to spoil here). On the other hand there was a stuff I liked too, I still enjoy the new cast, Richard E Grant’s General Pryde was a fun villain and the finale was pretty cool. It gets a 6/10 from me.
In the end I feel this as been a 6/10 trilogy. Fore Awakens introduced some good characters but got dragged down with too many homages and repeated plot points. Last Jedi played with some really interesting ideas but unfortunately the whole Canto Bight sequence didn’t really work for me (I get it’s thematic purpose, it was the execution I had a problem with). I would say though that Last Jedi was my favourite of the new trilogy as it had more ambition that the other two. Rogue One however remains my favourite film of the Disney-era Star Wars.
If I could sum up my feelings towards Star Wars as a whole right now it would be frustration. In addition to what I said about the the new trilogy I wish they could have done more with the stand alone films. When this was first announced I thought it was a really cool idea, they could expand the Star Wars Universe on screen while experimenting with different genres. Rogue One was a decent start, a boots on the ground war movie felt fresh and original despite being in the familiar territory narrative-wise. Then they followed it up with Solo, an uninspired backstory to a character that didn’t need one.
They seem to have fizzled out now which I do think is a shame. With the right creative team I still believe that Star Wars stand-alones could be great.
On the streaming front things are looking more positive. The first season on the Mandalorian has just wrapped and that was pretty damn good. I look forward to more and seeing where the story goes. But then what else is on the roster for streaming? Obi-Wan and Cassian Andor. Once again it seems that seems we can’t get new Star Wars without it being explicitly tethered to something we’ve seen before.
In the end the original Star Wars did more than just tell a story; it created a universe of limitless potential. And I don’t think Disney is taking full advantage of this potential.
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I don’t think it was a big walk back, so much as making the same argument in a different way
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She may now be the granddaughter of the definition of evil, but it’s still saying, where you came from doesn’t matter, it’s what you do. It’s what I liked about TROS, despite what some think, it actually continues and expands upon the central message of TLJ, what happened in your life before is irrelevant, it’s what you do, right now. Luke’s story is the natural continuation, wanting Rey not to do what he did, and focus on what had happened, at the expense of the now.
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I think it´s the exact opposite. The universe it created was defined and rested mainly on the shoulders of the main characters. That’s why it will be extremely difficult or even impossible to tell new stories in this world which do not use topics and images and characters from the original trilogy. Heck, even THE MANDALORIAN could not help but using Yoda.
On the other hand: why tell a Star Wars story if you want to exclude the force, light sabers, Jedi knights and the whole good vs evil topic? Is it a Star Wars story if you don’t use those ideas anyway?
Any Bond film without Bond or Mi6 or stunts or terrific locations and beautiful women would not be a Bond film either.
By the way: After my initial disappointment with SOLO I have started to reappreciate it enormously. Remove expectations and the necessity of telling Han´s backstory and you end up with a very decent adventure flick which is a lot of fun.
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I disagree with your assessment
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To me the crux of the revelation from The Last Jedi was ‘you’re nobody, you came from nothing’, the idea being that she wasn’t part of a known linage. When TFA first come out one of the biggest discussions it stimulated was about the identity of Rey’s parents and the way most discussion approached this was ‘which established Star Wars character(s) are her parents?’ Was she a Skywalker, a Kenobi etc. And then the reveal came and the answer was none of them. I personally loved this, she spent her whole life wanting to believe that her parents were somebody special and that was the most devastating revelation that could have come at that moment. It was a brilliant inversion of the ‘I am your father scene’ while the ‘you are my granddaughter’ scene feels like it’s going for the same effect but just made me roll my eyes.
But a lot of fans seemed to get pissed off at the TLJ revelation. I consider it a walk back because they retroactively made her the descendant of an established character. To me part of the message of TLJ was that it’s not all about noble lineages, a force-user can come from anywhere. This was an idea reinforced by the final shot of the broom kid. Yet now Rey has a famous Grandfather.
It’s a similar thing with Snoke. People wanted to Snoke to really be some other character with Darth Plagueis being the most popular choice. In TLJ he was just Snoke but they still turned him into the Emperor’s puppet.
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But…
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Even if we go with that interpretation, Rian Johnson, purposefully, left a get out clause of Kylo Ren believes it to be true, but that doesn’t mean it is - much like Jonathan Nolan, both JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson love playing with the unspoken rule in sci-if and thriller, that people can’t just be wrong. You can hide a plot twist just by having the lead character be wrong; regardless of what the rest of the story is telling, an audience will blindly follow the leads opinion.
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While I’m not one to venerate the entirety of the Expanded Universe I do feel that there were a number of great books and video games that gave us new character and expanded upon the mythology in interesting ways. The key to any future Star Wars is finding a balance between the old and the new, the familiar and the different. For me the balance was slightly off for the new trilogy but better in Mandalorian.
By the way, baby Yoda is awesome and I will not hear a word against him. Come to think of it, baby Yoda is a good illustration of the balance. A familiar species but keeping the mysterious origin (for now at least) and it’s role shifted from wise mentor giving lessons to innocent child that needs protecting.
Who said anything about excluding them? Any future Star Wars films would of course need to include the elements that made Star Wars unique, starting the the Force and Jedi. But that doesn’t mean that new characters, stories, genres and time periods can’t be explored.
One idea I’d love to play with is alternate groups of Force users. We’ve only seen Jedi and Sith, there has to be more out there than that.
Bond isn’t really the best analogy here. What about Star Trek? The franchise was able to grow beyond Kirk, Spock and McCoy on the Enterprise and now includes numerous film and television iteration. Each one has unique characters and stories but the franchise as a whole has unifying themes and ideas and everyone has their favourites.
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That’s a fair point. However it still feels like a move motivated by placating the fanbase rather than the best direction for the story.
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The boy at the end of TLJ was force sensitive, as is someone else in TROS. So, no walk back - just another layer to tie everything together.
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Some of the SW comics had fabulous ideas, Knights of the Old Republic and Agent of the Empire in particular. There’s still a vast well of stories aside and apart from the traditional films. I would have liked the Black Sun syndicate explored for example.
Even the very early comics, set between STAR WARS and EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, had an amusing extended cast of characters, using a unique dynamic and chemistry between alien species and humans. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY owes heavily to that particular era.
One thing they could explore is the crime syndicates. What happened after the Huttese collapsed after Return of the Jedi? How do they get around the law enforcement of the New Republic?
It seemed like Solo’s sequel was going to address this with Darth Maul and Kira.
Also, I’d like to learn more about the arms dealers from TLJ. Did they have a hand in creating the Final Order’s fleet?
So here’s a story topic that could be addressed in three separate timelines–post prequel, post original, and post sequel trilogies.
I’ve now seen Rise of Skywalker three times. I’ve seen new layers and levels with repeated viewings. Each time audiences applauded at the end, expressed shock at the reveal, and even clapped during the kiss. And now that Christmas is over, it’s soaring past TLJ in the box office after a slow start due to the holidays. Word of mouth is largely positive.
There’s a lot going on and it’s inspiring me to check out the animated series. I’m even beginning to like Rey more than Anakin and Luke as protagonists, though this may have more to due with Daisy Ridley’s performance than the character. And Adam Driver is top notch as Kylo Ren/Ben Solo.
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What surprised me was how unashamedly Abrams
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lifted large parts from the LORD OF THE RINGS, making the Sith planet effectively a Star Wars‘ Mordor with whole fleets being ‘born’ apparently fully manned (with Troll-like sith creatures?) from an ocean of liquid dark force. And how well it worked in the context of THE RISE OF SKYWALKER and Star Wars in general. This is a fantasy series set in a fantasy world and ROS fully acknowledges it at long last.
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Yes! Exactly. The series is space fantasy even more so than space opera.
Indeed. Lets not forget that the original was about a farmboy who meets a wizard and rescues a princess from a black knight/ evil sorcerer.
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It’s a technological fantasy wherein the tech is mostly used by the bad guys for evil purposes. I thought the end would have Rey teaching Broom Boy and others in a new Jedi or “Skywalker” school, so I found it only appropriate that
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instead she goes to the moisture farm at the end.
As for the crewing the new fleet, there’s a line in there about harvesting the young across the galaxy to staff the destroyers. And they mention on Kajimi that the children have been taken from the planet. So the First Order kidnaps children and makes them child soldiers, underscoring their villainy. Hux mentions these methods being more efficient than the clone troopers in The Force Awakens.
There is much symmetry in TROS bringing the sequel, and the whole nine episodes, full circle. From Rey wearing an X-wing helmet, to the lighsaber battle on water instead of lava, to Rey reflecting force lightning back onto the Emperor the way Mace Windu did.
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I’m not sure…
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…how the children recruiting efforts work within the timeframe of the film, or even the overall logic, since the best such efforts would provide was cannon fodder and hardly an operational force to man such a highly developed weapon system as the star destroyer fleet. Also, it would confront the rebel operation with a moral dilemma since they would to a large extent fight their own kids. I don’t see that working within the plot of that film, even if the whole theme dates back to Finn’s first appearance (and even to Anakin, if we follow the slave motif).
I’d prefer to think that fleet was manned by Sith acolytes, for the sake of the fairytale spirit of it all.
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Which all stems from a false flag attack with the purpose of dragging everyone into a conflict that will empower the hawks.
(See Phantom Menace)
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Also,
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There’s another line in the film once they get the spy’s message about the fleet starting their mission in “16 hours”. Or maybe it’s 60? Either way, no time for all the planet hopping they do, to say nothing about the physics of light speed travel.
Jannah and her whole group are former Storm Troopers (there’s a hinted possibility she’s Lando’s daughter.) Disney’s really upped the count on storm trooper deaths (including Mandalorian), which is easier to take if they’re all behind helmets, but it’s quite a body count.
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