Healing and Deepening our Relationship to Star Wars, One Unsolicited Opinion Article At a Time
SUBJECT: The Sequel Trilogy
So. that’s a wrap.
Episodes VII,VIII, and IX have been completed.
They exist now.
It’s real.
It’s canon, whether we like it or not. And many people are frustrated or even downright angry about what we have received. However, I’m hoping to show that it doesn’t have to be all bad, or even mostly bad. I believe there is a way to accept these movies for what they are and still be excited about what other information could be revealed to add to this storyline in the future.
First off, let me say this: To undertake the creation of a new Star Wars movie has to be one of the most daunting and challenging things a person can possibly take on.
Think of it this way: If you make this movie: Someone, somewhere, is guaranteed to HATE YOUR GUTS!! Despise you. Even want you dead.
Yes, the overreaching Star Wars fan is a special brand of asshole; One that, in many ways, I believe, helped cause many of the problems we now face, but that’s a different article for a different time.
So: The Sequel Trilogy. It’s here. What do we do with it now? How do we make peace with this Cinematic behemoth that didn’t always deliver on our deepest hopes for these characters that we all know and love?
Before I get too deep into this article, Let me establish my Star Wars credentials, lest some of you think I might be just another self important casual fan looking to score some quick recognition.
No.
I am a die hard Star Wars fanatic.
I think the universe is fascinating.
I have expanded way beyond the movies.
I have the comics.
I have the novels.
I have spent many hours doing a research crawl on the Star Wars Wikia page (which is very affectionately called “Wookiepedia.”) <—- (( I love that shit. I’m jealous I didn’t think of it first.))
I cringed when I learned that Palpatine’s first name was SHEEV, possibly one of the weakest first names a person could be given. And I learned this little tidbit YEARS AGO from a digital card collecting app that I’ve been a patron of for several years.
I know that Bossk is a Trandoshan, and that his ship is called the Hound’s Tooth.
I played the Star Wars collectible card game that came out in the 90’s.
I know that Ahsoka Tano is an absolute fan favorite character. I love her too. (For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, did you KNOW that Anakin Skywalker had an apprentice? If you didn’t know that, you may want to look into it. It’s a fascinating storyline…..)
So, now that I’ve established my Star Wars fandom credentials, I can continue.
Now: Episodes 7-9. Where do I begin?
First off I think the following needs to be said even if you don’t want to hear it:
These guys that made these movies-
They did their best.
They really did.
And there are many fine qualities to each of the movies, even the deeply controversial chapter VIII, The Last Jedi.
Inevitably, when someone makes one of these movies, we’re gonna be disappointed in some way. We didn’t get everything we wanted, and that feels extra unfair given our level of emotional investment in this epic saga.
But the movies are what they are, and I think our best course of action is finding a way to make peace with them; And, dare I say: Even ENJOY them.
Each one of these producers did their very best to make their vision come to life.
Episode VII is full of fan service
Episode VIII is full of fan service DENIAL. This was done on purpose (we can discuss this later).
And Episode IX takes on the near impossible task of drawing it all together.
First off, let’s just admit this: Having multiple directors for this storyline was not a good idea. Each director was supposed to hand off the series after their contribution, only to be given a completely new voice that feels jarring and disorienting.
It doesn’t feel consistent.
It CAN’T
Different personalities are plastered all over these movies. You can feel it.
The task of closing the Skywalker Saga should never have been allowed to be fragmented and disjointed in this way. But it was.
It could also be said that nobody should have been allowed to write the end of the Skywalker saga that wasn’t George Lucas. This was his baby. Inevitably, if we have someone else present the stories to us, they’re going to be disappointing in some way. The best scenario (arguably) would have been George Lucas’s scripts directed and edited by the respected directors, with him consulting the entire time. This probably would have felt like a more accurate end to the Skywalker story.
As much of a bummer as all this may seem, I think we can work with what we’ve been handed. And we have to, because the damn things are done and we have to accept and work with it now.
We can’t exactly ask Carrie Fisher to reshoot a new movie, so we gots what we gots.
So, what do we do?
Let’s begin by acknowledging some difficult truths about these movies.
Many people are angry, or downright furious, at Luke Skywalker’s treatment, especially in ‘The Last Jedi.’ They feel that the name of the great master Jedi Luke Skywalker has been tainted. Profaned. Completely spat upon.
I understand why it feels this way.
I also don’t think this needs to be completely true.
Or at least, the story doesn’t need to end there….
The hard realization that has to be made is this:
The MOMENT the writers put Luke Skywalker on a distant, isolated planet, hiding himself from everything and everyone, Rian Johnson was left with VERY few choices of how to progress his storyline.
Many of us wanted Rey to find Luke and bring him back to face down the First Order in that spectacular Skywalker fashion we’ve grown to love.
Take them all on.
Beat them all.
Show everyone just how powerful Luke had become.
But we pretty much got the complete opposite of that. The Luke Skywalker we find is a broken shell of a man.
Destroyed.
Tossing a lightsaber away that meant everything to us.
Never wanting to be found or bothered with this shit ever again.
(And honestly, I think there is a TON of backstory that can still be added to the already existing canon to make this storyline far more interesting and multi-dimensional, but I digress).
When we find Luke as a brooding, broken, almost pouting man, we feel slapped in the face.
Our hero, reduced to this….. squalor. This…. undignified existence.
And many people have raised a serious level of objection to the state we find Luke in.
I remember reading things like:
‘Luke would never do this. He’s all pouty and brooding and shortsighted. Luke Skywalker would NEVER do this.’
But we forget.
He HAS already done this.
In fact, this is EXACTLY how we met him: A whiny, moody, self absorbed teenager that wants to shirk his boring responsibilities and adventure the galaxy with his friends.
Obviously, the context is way different this time. Now he’s hiding himself away like a hermit, and I think that HE thinks he’s doing it for the right reasons, but there is still the distinct feeling that old pouty Luke has come to visit us one more time.
A weird thing about the emotional development of humans:
We may get older, but in some ways, we never truly grow up. Not really.
We will still respond to the trauma of our past whenever we experience it anew, or anything even remotely like it. It can (and often does) take a lifetime of vigilant self-policing to quiet some of these strong voices inside us that are objecting to the experiences of our past that we felt were unfair.
Sorry for the therapy speak. I’ll try not to use it too much. But it’s true, though. Ask anyone that knows about and practices this stuff. They’d be far more qualified to talk about it anyway.
So, fast forward to the sequel trilogy: We may not like the condition we found Luke in when we finally discover him on Octu, but in many ways, Johnson found the most realistic way to continue the storyline he’d been handed.
Face it: If Rey had found Luke, given him a quick pep-talk, and they went back and destroyed all the evil, we wouldn’t have accepted it on some level.
It would have been too easy.
That would have been lazy story writing.
And completely unconvincing, I might add.
After spending years of tortured, self imposed exile on this planet, there’s NO WAY that hero Luke coming back immediately would have felt like a plausible storyline.
Rian Johnson made the best and most compelling storyline he could with what he was given. And you can maybe hate the choices he made, but I don’t think you’d be able to make the argument that this movie was boring, or poorly constructed from a cinematic standpoint.
It’s a dark and (mostly) compelling storyline.
It’s just not the one WE WANTED.
But think about it like this:
If you are genuinely confused as to why the great Luke Skywalker would ever throw his old lightsaber away over his shoulder in utter defiance, consider this:
Luke took it upon himself to train a new generation of Jedi, no small undertaking.
His star pupil was his own nephew.
His family. His responsibility.
Ben Solo.
A Skywalker.
Luke could see the darkness growing in Ben and felt increasingly powerless to stop it.
Eventually, the star pupil of the light turned and destroyed everything in one fell swoop.
It was all gone.
And all because of that dark, rebellious Skywalker blood that runs through his veins.
Luke didn’t just hide for himself: He did it for everyone else too.
As misguided as his choice might have been, from that angle, it should make perfect sense:
The Skywalker bloodline is dangerous and not to be trusted.
He couldn’t stay and risk being turned/used for evil purposes.
He was too honorable to take his own life.
The only avenue left is self-imposed exile.
He had to give up his entire life because he was somehow convinced that it was the only viable course of action.
Saying goodbye to everything and everyone he had ever known or loved.
Furthermore, he had to shut himself off to the force;
Not only as penance for his failures, but to ensure that nobody found him;
that nobody would use him to make their dark machinations come true.
Now, along comes this young, beautiful woman with hope in her eyes.
Against all odds, she has somehow found you.
Despite doing everything possible to discourage it and disappear without a trace (mostly).
And then she hands you the lightsaber that was given to you by your very first master and mentor, Obi Wan Kenobi.
It was your father’s lightsaber.
The great, mighty Anakin Skywalker.
Darth Vader.
Everything comes flooding back.
It must have felt like a slap in the face.
Punishment from the force itself for his failures.
Given all of that: It doesn’t seem so absurd anymore that he would take it and chuck it over his shoulder.
He couldn’t permit the atrocities of history to be repeated.
In his mind, Jedi hubris needed to disappear every bit as much as Sith dominance and tyranny.
Makes a lot more sense now, doesn’t it? (I hope)
Well, in any case, now we have to find a way to make peace with this and hopefully get excited about the franchise once again.
How do we do it?
By knowing and remembering a few important truths about Star Wars:
1) For the uber fans, our fascination never stopped with just the movies.
Many of us have read the novels, comics, seen the TV series’, played the games, watched the you tube videos, and much more.
It’s important to remember that the story DOESN’T end here.
The expanded universe will step in and do what it has always done: fill in the holes and create richer context to go along with the canon material.
Now that the movies are done, that process can continue, and I think all the material we will see pop up in the future will add a tremendous amount of depth to the already existing storylines.
2) Going forward, it should be noted that Lucasfilm recently made an announcement: Most of the future material to be added to the canon universe will need to be approved or created by Star Wars mega fans Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni.
This is good news for the Star Wars community. These guys really care about preserving the original feel and continuity in the storylines of Star Wars.
They are the co-creators of The Mandalorian, which you should definitely check out if you haven’t yet.
Having creative control of the franchise in the hands of these guys definitely helps me breathe easier.
So, I personally am going to do my best to make peace with the things I didn’t like in the sequel trilogy.
Mostly because I know that there will always be more material to come and a never-ending throng of fans committed to seeing that the course of the franchise remains true, even though it may not always feel like it in the moment.
May the force be with you,
SWC