I Like to Watch | Star Wars (like, 90% of it...)
In preparation for the upcoming Star Wars finale (the closing chapter of nine) I, like so many, decided to watch as much of the saga in order as I could bear. I anticipated that the prequels would still kind of blow, that the original trilogy would rock (except for the closing shot of Return of the Jedi) and that the last two would be good if not perfunctory. I also added some Clone Wars and both Solo and Rogue One as well as The Mandalorian.
Full Star Wars infusion, right?
Keep in mind, I’m the original Star Wars kid. Mom, Vicki, and I were living in Phoenix, AZ in 1977. I was eleven years old. That summer, I had fuckall to do because, as we had just moved there, I had no friends, didn’t really know the landscape, and had a ridiculous crush on Kate Jackson (the smart one of Charlie’s angels) that left me all piney and emotional and listening to Alan O’Day’s “Undercover Angel” obsessively. No one was hanging out with that fucking kid.
Then there was this movie. Robots. Twin moons. Space battles. Incredible music. I was hooked. For the months of June and July, I went to the movie theater two miles from our apartment and dropped my $2.50 to see Luke, Leia, and Hantwenty-five times. George Lucas made this movie for me (at least that’s how I saw things). I loved the idea of The Force, Wookies, Darth Vader. Fuck. I was transfixed and as I came to understand that there were hordes of rabid fans just like me that summer, I somehow felt like I was a part of something culturally bigger than my tiny corner of Phoenix.
Jump to forty-two years later. In preparation for the final installment of the Skywalker saga, I went online and watched the entire canon (or at least 90 percent of it) to relive those moments in the context of the most recent chapters and discovered a few things that left me thirsty for The Rise of Skywalker.
First, the prequels aren’t as bad as I remembered. Yes, Lucas kind of fucked a few things up with the most egregious being the casting of Hayden Christiansen as Anakin Skywalker. The dude sucks up the energy on screen like a Sham Wow soaks up spilled Hi-C punch. The self-seriousness of the prequels is a contrast to the swashbuckling fun of the middle trilogy but one has to remember that when Lucas was making the first three, he was just making Star Wars not STAR WARS.
Is Jake Lloyd any good? No but he’s a kid and how good can a kid be acting against green screen shit? Brie Larson is an Oscar winner but her performance in Captain Marvel isn’t much better than Lloyd’s in The Phantom Menace so calm down, fanboys. Is Jar Jar Binks annoying? Yeah, but he’s not in the film that much and is there for comic relief.
My discovery is that these prequels, while focusing on the origins of Darth Vader, are much more about the development and growth of Obi Wan Kenobi and setting the stage for A New Hope. When seen in that frame, they’re actually pretty good especially in scenes between Anakin and Kenobi in Revenge of the Sith.
I truly dig The Force Awakens. I love Rey, I love Finn, I love Poe. Great characters, and the search for Luke is a fabulous storyline to pursue. Yes, it’s a straight up reboot of the very first film but I believe that was a good call on Abrams’ part and it basically followed the story arc Lucas had envisioned with some tweaks here and there. It gave Han Solo an epic death and set the stage for Rey to become the new generation of Jedi.
Initially, I enjoyed The Last Jedi as well. Upon the revisit in prep for the final movie in the triple trilogy, I found myself enjoying it less so. The humor is more slapstick than character-driven, the choices to be more woke feel more “Lookie here, GenZ!” than simply a part of an ever-expanding universe. While I understood the disaffected and bitter Luke Skywalker, the decision to effectively sideline the character leaves me cold. I like Adam Driver but not Kylo Ren and the focus on the connection between he and Rey seems forced like the killing of Snoke. If Rey doesn’t need Luke why does she need some sort of romantic tie to another conflicted dude?
Still, plenty to like about Rian Johnson’s entry. Finn was much more interesting as was Poe. The forced economics lesson embedded actually worked with the final shot and the promise of more Force-sensitive individuals out there in the galaxy. Luke’s Force Ghost-like fight at the end was remarkable. Unfortunately, Johnson sought to demystify and de-platform most of the best loved tropes of the earlier films, which didn’t leave Abrams much to work with in his final follow up.
Time for Rise of Skywalker.
On the surface, it has everything a Star Wars junkie could want: great space battles, amazing lightsaber duels, bizarre new characters, callbacks to the previous eight chapters. I cried a few times, I laughed some, and I enjoyed the ride.
While I appreciated the use of Carrie Fisher to cap that character like Episode 7 did for Han Solo and Episode 8 did for Luke, it felt awkward in that, if one didn’t know she had passed away before filming, it looks like she was just directed to look sad and detached (hardly the Princess/General we love).
I’ll admit to digging this wrap-up despite Abrams’s requirement to pack as much into every second to answer both long unanswered questions as well as rectify some of Johnson’s departures from the core of the seven episodes that came before. Is it the perfect ending? No. The passing of the Skywalker torch is essential but I wanted more Skywalker than Palpatine (whose bizarre resurrection is poorly explained and seems a bit of a stretch). For the wrap-up of a storyline about Darth Vader and his children, a bit more connection to all three would have been nice.
It seems in hindsight that Abrams tried to reboot the thing by effectively aping A New Hope, Johnson tried to completely subvert the thing by tossing out expectations (TFA Big Moment: handing Luke his lightsaber turns into him tossing it away like garbage; TFA Big Question: Who are Rey’s parents turns into nobody) with The Last Jedi, and Abrams, in turn, ignored most of Johnson’s changes.
In some ways, the interconnectiveness of the Marvel films has spoiled me. The clarity of purpose over the course of years of storytelling is more intentional than a final three films written by fans rather than Lucas. On its own, The Rise of Skywalker is a grand adventure. As the final episode of a nine-part story, it falls a bit short.
Such are these sorts of things because it’s goddamned hard to capture magic that was so unexpected in 1977. Lucas tried to recreate it with the prequels, Abrams tried to recreate it with the sequels but the Star Wars that is cemented in my GenX mind will forever be those first three films sandwiched now in the middle.
Now, those were magical.
