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THE HOUSE OF THE RISING SKYWALKER
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is playing at a theatre near you. And me. I have seen it. I will assume you haven't as I prattle on about it (meaning it’s reasonably spoiler-free). I will take your imaginary questions now.
1. How was it?
I liked it …
2. … But?
But it does have problems.
3. Describe them.
To avoid spoilers, I’ll break this into two basic complaints:
4. About that – I’ve heard TROS is a deliberate walkback from TLJ to mollify all the fans who complained about that film. Is that true?
I don’t know how deliberate it was – especially in terms of responding to fanboy complaints over TLJ – but it’s definitely a walkback. To be fair, Abrams only stepped in because Colin Treverrow was sacked, so I don’t think he was trying to right wrongs so much as resume telling the story his way, and his way is to deliver as much fan service as he can get away with.
And that might not have been so bad if Abrams and writer Chris Terrio had come up with a story that explains why they reversed course on some plot points. For the most part, they don’t, if only because there was no room for it with all the other stuff they were cramming in. Either way, it's hard not to come away with the impression that Abrams/Terrio not only declined to accept TLJ’s open invitation to come up with something original to close off the trilogy, but intentionally retconned it to suit their purpose (i.e. nostalgic fan service).
5. Like Rose Tico getting sidelined?
Yeah. Terrio has said it wasn’t intentional – they’d decided to use Carrie Fisher’s outtakes from TFA to put her in the film, and they paired up Rose with Leia for some of those scenes, but in the end too many scenes just didn’t work as well as Abrams had hoped.
And, you know, that sounds convincing on the surface – certainly the scenes they kept of Leia with Rey seem a bit odd at times. But it doesn’t explain why they also essentially ignored the build-up of Rose’s storyline in TLJ and her budding relationship with Finn. In TROS, it's like they barely know each other.
And I find it hard to believe that the situation wasn’t reversible in terms of giving Rose a more prominent role, but I guess that depends how deep into production they were when they finally realized the Rose/Leia scenes weren’t working. I suspect Abrams was so bent on making sure Leia played a big enough role that he refused to give up on those scenes until it was too late for reshoots.
And, look, anyone in charge of making EP9 would have faced the impossible challenge of giving Leia’s tale a proper ending without Carrie Fisher, and a CGI Leia probably wouldn't have worked no matter how good they made it look, so I don’t begrudge Abrams for trying. And admittedly retrospect is easy, but he should have hedged his bets and taken a chance with a less established or even all new character – Dominic Monaghan’s Beaumont Kin, say – instead of a character that frankly could have used the director’s firm backing after all the crap that toxic fanboys piled on her.
6. Do you think Disney caved to the toxic fanboys who chased Kelly Marie Tran off Instagram and complained about Luke’s development?
I don’t know. For all the fanboy backlash, TLJ did well enough financially that I can’t imagine Disney applied too much pressure on Abrams to cave in to their demands. All I can say for sure is that I’m sure the fanboys who wanted TLJ stricken from the canon are probably very happy with the TROS retcons, if not the film as a whole.
7. And despite all that, you say you liked TROS?
I did. There’s a lot to like – it’s a fun space adventure, and for the most part, what loose ends do get wrapped up at least make sense technically, even if I’m not happy with some of them.
Also, while I’m disappointed that the film doesn’t capitalize on the opportunities presented by TLJ, I’m not all that surprised. I didn't really expect whoever helmed TROS to take too many chances, if only because the third film of any franchise trilogy tends to be overstuffed with Big Action and Epic Battle Finales to leave much room for any kind of story innovation.
So TROS met my expectations in the sense that I wasn’t expecting much in the first place beyond a reasonably good time.
That said, I feel the same way about TROS that I feel about Return Of The Jedi – it’s fun, entertaining and a decent wrap-up, but it’s also not as good as the first two films in the trilogy (of which I rank TLJ as the best). Hey, it’s better than the Lucas prequels, anyway.
And since we can reasonably assume that this is by no means the last Star Wars film ever – simply the end of the three Skywalker trilogies that George Lucas more or less promised us – let’s hope that future Star Wars films finally capitalize on the rich storytelling promise of the Star Wars universe and come up with something new that doesn’t follow the same story template.
Sure, we'll probably get more prequels and origin stories of established characters and stuff. But maybe we'll get a few more TLJs as well.
War is over (if you want it),
This is dF
1. How was it?
I liked it …
2. … But?
But it does have problems.
3. Describe them.
To avoid spoilers, I’ll break this into two basic complaints:
(1) JJ Abrams tried to jam way too much into the allotted running time. Consequently, while the film doesn’t drag, it whizzes by so fast that almost everything in the film is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. A number of characters and plot twists seem to come out of nowhere, and we’re not given time to process any of them before we’re suddenly moving to the next scene. At 142 minutes, the final cut is already pretty long, but an additional 15 or 20 minutes would have helped develop some key points enough to give them more emotional impact (I mean, The Last Jedi was ten minutes longer, so it’s not like we haven’t sat through longer Star Wars films).
(2) The fan service is even more gratuitous than it was The Force Awakens. If that movie was a rehash of A New Hope, TROS is a rehash of Return Of The Jedi, with some gratuitous callouts to The Empire Strikes Back, as though Abrams is trying to compensate for the fact that The Last Jedi didn’t supply sufficient ESB fan service.
(2) The fan service is even more gratuitous than it was The Force Awakens. If that movie was a rehash of A New Hope, TROS is a rehash of Return Of The Jedi, with some gratuitous callouts to The Empire Strikes Back, as though Abrams is trying to compensate for the fact that The Last Jedi didn’t supply sufficient ESB fan service.
4. About that – I’ve heard TROS is a deliberate walkback from TLJ to mollify all the fans who complained about that film. Is that true?
I don’t know how deliberate it was – especially in terms of responding to fanboy complaints over TLJ – but it’s definitely a walkback. To be fair, Abrams only stepped in because Colin Treverrow was sacked, so I don’t think he was trying to right wrongs so much as resume telling the story his way, and his way is to deliver as much fan service as he can get away with.
And that might not have been so bad if Abrams and writer Chris Terrio had come up with a story that explains why they reversed course on some plot points. For the most part, they don’t, if only because there was no room for it with all the other stuff they were cramming in. Either way, it's hard not to come away with the impression that Abrams/Terrio not only declined to accept TLJ’s open invitation to come up with something original to close off the trilogy, but intentionally retconned it to suit their purpose (i.e. nostalgic fan service).
5. Like Rose Tico getting sidelined?
Yeah. Terrio has said it wasn’t intentional – they’d decided to use Carrie Fisher’s outtakes from TFA to put her in the film, and they paired up Rose with Leia for some of those scenes, but in the end too many scenes just didn’t work as well as Abrams had hoped.
And, you know, that sounds convincing on the surface – certainly the scenes they kept of Leia with Rey seem a bit odd at times. But it doesn’t explain why they also essentially ignored the build-up of Rose’s storyline in TLJ and her budding relationship with Finn. In TROS, it's like they barely know each other.
And I find it hard to believe that the situation wasn’t reversible in terms of giving Rose a more prominent role, but I guess that depends how deep into production they were when they finally realized the Rose/Leia scenes weren’t working. I suspect Abrams was so bent on making sure Leia played a big enough role that he refused to give up on those scenes until it was too late for reshoots.
And, look, anyone in charge of making EP9 would have faced the impossible challenge of giving Leia’s tale a proper ending without Carrie Fisher, and a CGI Leia probably wouldn't have worked no matter how good they made it look, so I don’t begrudge Abrams for trying. And admittedly retrospect is easy, but he should have hedged his bets and taken a chance with a less established or even all new character – Dominic Monaghan’s Beaumont Kin, say – instead of a character that frankly could have used the director’s firm backing after all the crap that toxic fanboys piled on her.
6. Do you think Disney caved to the toxic fanboys who chased Kelly Marie Tran off Instagram and complained about Luke’s development?
I don’t know. For all the fanboy backlash, TLJ did well enough financially that I can’t imagine Disney applied too much pressure on Abrams to cave in to their demands. All I can say for sure is that I’m sure the fanboys who wanted TLJ stricken from the canon are probably very happy with the TROS retcons, if not the film as a whole.
7. And despite all that, you say you liked TROS?
I did. There’s a lot to like – it’s a fun space adventure, and for the most part, what loose ends do get wrapped up at least make sense technically, even if I’m not happy with some of them.
Also, while I’m disappointed that the film doesn’t capitalize on the opportunities presented by TLJ, I’m not all that surprised. I didn't really expect whoever helmed TROS to take too many chances, if only because the third film of any franchise trilogy tends to be overstuffed with Big Action and Epic Battle Finales to leave much room for any kind of story innovation.
So TROS met my expectations in the sense that I wasn’t expecting much in the first place beyond a reasonably good time.
That said, I feel the same way about TROS that I feel about Return Of The Jedi – it’s fun, entertaining and a decent wrap-up, but it’s also not as good as the first two films in the trilogy (of which I rank TLJ as the best). Hey, it’s better than the Lucas prequels, anyway.
And since we can reasonably assume that this is by no means the last Star Wars film ever – simply the end of the three Skywalker trilogies that George Lucas more or less promised us – let’s hope that future Star Wars films finally capitalize on the rich storytelling promise of the Star Wars universe and come up with something new that doesn’t follow the same story template.
Sure, we'll probably get more prequels and origin stories of established characters and stuff. But maybe we'll get a few more TLJs as well.
War is over (if you want it),
This is dF