So stuck in lockdown we’ve been doing a Star Wars rewatch. My thoughts of the films…
The Phantom Menace:
The Good:
Thematically, the film builds on who is good and who is evil. We know Padme and the Jedi are on the side of good even though here they represent the government and the established authority rather than the rebellion.
On the other hand, the Trade Alliance therefore must be evil which is underscored by their being led behind the scenes by the duplicitous Senator Palpatine who is aided by the Sith.
The set-pieces are great – the lightsaber fight between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Darth Maul in particular.
The performances by most of the cast are solid, if unremarkable. Liam Neeson carries the film as the central character and Senator Palpatine is compelling as the known villain hiding as a good guy.
The Bad:
Narratively, the choices are horrendous for the story that these prequels are meant to tell and for the film as a single entity. On the former, they are supposed to be the explanation for why and how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. This first story should have set up a number of threads which it fails to do.
The first mistake in my view is to centre the story around Qui-Gon. The Jedi Master has no previous relationship with the story. It would have made much more sense to have centred this story around Obi-Wan finding Anakin on Tatooine, believing him to the Chosen One, and taking him on as an apprentice. However, Obi-Wan is side-lined in the story to the ship, ostensibly looking after the ‘Queen’ when in reality he’s guarding her double.
Instead, Qui-Gon is the one to find Anakin, the one to believe in him and to insist on training him. Obi-Wan even expresses doubt about Anakin, about training him. In the end Obi-Wan only takes Anakin on because it is his Master’s dying wish – and Obi-Wan is still an apprentice during the story, albeit one ready for the trials to confirm he is fully trained and a Jedi.
The second mistake is to immediately seed the distrust of Anakin in the Jedi Council. To express concerns about training Anakin at an older age, yes; to wonder if he really is the Chosen One, yes; to hint at his being untrustworthy and deny him training at this point, no. It would have been more powerful for the Jedi Council to have, if not believed in Anakin as the Chosen One, welcomed him as an apprentice.
The third mistake I feel is to pretend the story isn’t about finding Anakin and to make it about protecting the Queen and freeing Naboo from its invasion by the Trade Alliance. Admittedly, there needed to be a frame in which Anakin is found, and a damsel in peril with a microcosm fight of good versus evil on a single planet does provide a frame, and that might have worked if it had been used as a frame and not as the central story. Frankly, it’s not that interesting; we’re not invested in Naboo, or in Padme. The only interesting note in the whole thing is that Anakin is the one to save the day – except he doesn’t do it by choice or by intent, he does it by accident.
The final mistake is in Anakin’s age especially in relationship to his friendship with a teenage Padme. It would have been much better to either have had the two the same young age or to have had both be teenagers. That would have set up a more equal friendship and connection between the pair which would have then organically grown into a romance later. I can appreciate that at the time people were assuming that the film was going to target a young/child audience, but children don’t necessarily need to see a child hero to get excited about a film – the first Star Wars films should have proven that.
The Ugly:
It’s really not Jar-Jar Binks’ fault that as a character he represents a vast screw up by the writers, producers and directors. Both the character and his society are too drawn from racial stereotypes and tropes of black, slave and ethnic cultures. Perhaps the intent was to provide the message ‘we all depend on each other and need to work together’ or to offer a ‘white apology’ delivered by Queen Padme as she begs for their help, but in making Jar-Jar inept and all of his successes accidental rather than intentional, it’s too problematic, offensive and is such a stunning example of white privilege blindness that it jars, and as a viewer I then cannot get lost in the narrative of the film.
Overall:
It’s a bad film. There are moments of entertainment and enjoyment, but really it lacks narrative and relationship building where it mattered most in respect of the overall arc, the prequels and within the coherency of the film itself.
Attack of the Clones
The Good:
Ewan McGregor and Iain McDermott both put in good performances as Obi-Wan and the Senate leader Palpatine. McGregor starts to inhabit the role of Obi-Wan, but there are times in the scenes with Anakin where the dialogue doesn’t serve him well.
Narratively, Anakin’s dreams of his mother and the eventual reveal of her abduction and death is good. It’s a good set-up to show then how his anger and temper can get the better of him, and his revenge killing demonstrates he isn’t able to hold to the Jedi principles all of the time. It is the beginning of his slide to the dark side.
The other thing they do well is to continue the good versus bad theme. We see the flip of the situation in the first three films; the ‘good’ side seeds the beginning of the Empire by using the clones (the proto-storm-troopers) to defeat the separatists; there is a gifting of executive power to Palpatine who is the real power behind the ‘war.’ That is a good narrative thread and works – we see the beginning of the slide of the current democracy into tyranny, and the beginning of some of the characters questioning if they are on the right side.
Some of the action set pieces are also done well. It’s great to see Yoda in action and enjoyable to see Padme also getting in on the battle in the end sequence.
R2D2 is the most intelligent being in the entire film.
The Bad:
Once again, narrative choice is just weird given we know where the arc needs to go and what needs to be done.
The mistake is not making the entire thread of the story an adventure which Obi-Wan and Anakin go on together. To be fair they are together at the beginning and end. But all we do is hear of their training together, Anakin tells us that he considers Obi-Wan to be a father to him, but we see no real closeness in their interactions. Anakin spends most of his time either whining to Obi-Wan about Padme, about the Jedi Council, about how ready he is to move away from apprenticeship, or he’s disobeying Obi-Wan and doing his own thing. There is little to show them working as a cohesive team, never mind to have the friendship Obi-Wan spoke about in A New Hope. Indeed Obi-Wan spends most of his time investigating alone while Anakin goes off to ‘protect’ Padme.
There is not enough relationship building either between Palpatine and Anakin. There is no real seduction to the dark side here.
The Ugly:
The Anakin and Padme romance narrative is just badly, badly done. While I accept that we had to see Anakin establish a romantic relationship with Padme which leads to Luke and Leia, this was the worst way to do it.
It starts off with them admitting they haven’t spoken/seen each other since the first film, has Anakin bemoaning Padme not thinking about him in the intervening years (although he was 9 years old in the last movie) and admits he was fantasising about her all the time, and then has the cringiest, most cliched ‘falling in love’ montage complete with rolls in grassy meadows.
The narrative is compounded by the poor writing and lack of chemistry between the leads. Poor Christensen; the dialogue and scenes here are excruciating and any actor would struggle with them. This is also compounded by the dialogue he’s given in his scenes with Obi-Wan.
Ultimately though it’s not a believable relationship and because of that it fails in its duty in the third film to be the emotive reason for Anakin going to the dark side.
Overall:
Unfortunately, the film spends too much time explaining Padme and Anakin to the detriment of the rest of the relationship building and story arcs. The good gets massively overshadowed by the bad and the ugly because the ugly is just so, so, so ugly.
Revenge of the Sith
The Good:
Great action sequences both at the beginning (saving the Chancellor), the middle (Obi-Wan’s fight with the Droid Sith and the clones turning on the Jedi), and the end with Anakin and Obi-Wan’s fight.
The final fight scene between Obi-Wan and Anakin is very well done with the betrayal that both feel for each other palpable and emotive. Given that the only real relationship building of a true and solid friendship we’ve had is in this movie, it says a lot that both actors are able to evoke that emotion in this scene.
Acting in general is much, much better quality than in the other prequels. Everyone gives either a solid or good performance. Ewan McGregor is a great Obi-Wan in this film. Christensen is believable as a Jedi seduced to the dark side. Yoda really shows why he’s the ultimate Jedi Master.
The core idea of the film of Anakin wanting to save Padme and being seduced to the dark side by Palpatine to do so is solid; the distrust Palpatine seeds between Anakin and the Jedi Council by casting the Jedi Council into the role of usurpers of the rightful government is well done.
The Bad:
It feels rushed. Perhaps had the previous two films really established Obi-Wan and Anakin’s relationship, had they seeded more between Palpatine and Anakin…maybe this wouldn’t have felt like two movies crammed into one.
The other issue with the film is the lingering one from the second movie: the relationship between Padme and Anakin is just unbelievable. The denouement of it isn’t emotionally wrenching then in the climax as Anakin loses Padme to his bad temper and descent into darkness – she won’t follow him into advocating the Empire.
The Ugly:
Unfortunately, it is Padme.
The role of Padme in the third film is wasted. She becomes a passive simpering character, comforting Anakin and being a sounding board to his trust in Palpatine and mistrust of the Council, but without ever truly having an agency in events herself.
The one proactive move – to go after Anakin to find out the truth of what has happened, is a manipulation by Obi-Wan to find him, and Padme suffers for it by Anakin believing momentarily that she has betrayed him and attacking her.
Portman’s acting, while not bad, is also too low key and not dramatic or emotive enough to fully stand up against the grand drama of events around her (and the less said the better about her run to Anakin at the end which seems to forget she is heavily pregnant).
Overall:
It’s an entertaining film and it does reach its inevitable narrative conclusion; we get a justifiable reason why Anakin was seduced; we see his good intentions even if they are paving the way to hell. We see Palpatine’s manipulation and seduction of him. We see Obi-Wan losing his friend and the betrayal he feels. We see Luke and Leia born and the decision to separate them and keep them hidden.
Solo
The Good
It’s a solid origin story which picks up most of the key questions: how did Chewie and Han meet, how did Han get the Millennium Falcon from Lando, how did Han become Han Solo.
The buddy-buddy relationship between Han and Chewie is excellent seeded – Han rescuing Chewie, Chewie rescuing Han, the two of them working together…that’s all brilliant.
The set-up of Han’s character is well done enough; we can see how he evolves to Harrison Ford’s Han Solo; we see the seeds of the cocky smuggler with a heart of gold, who is one of the good guys for all he wants to pretend he’s only in it for the money.
It’s a nice nod to have the grass-roots side of the rebellion emerge from the story too. And we see thematically the who is good, who is evil debate continue through the story with the ‘bad guys’ who ruin Beckett’s original heist turning out to be the rebels on the side of good; Beckett himself never pretending to be anything other than a bad guy.
The acting throughout is solid; everyone does a good enough job with the characters. While Alden Ehrenreich isn’t Harrison Ford and isn’t as charismatic, he’s cute, watchable and does a good enough job that if Solo turned into a TV series I’d be interested in watching it.
I like that they left Kira ambiguous at the end; we don’t know if she’s really a good guy or a bad guy.
The Bad:
The relationship with Han and Kira is OK when they are escaping their home planet but does not work when they are together for the heists later on. They have more chemistry than Padme/Anakin but they don’t have enough chemistry – and of course the audience is more invested in Han/Leia. It may have been better to have dumped the romance part of the narrative and have made Kira his sister with Lando as her romantic interest.
L3 is also over-played/over-acted/over-the-top. In the same way Jar-Jar Binks serves as an exaggerated stereo-type to provide comic relief which is misjudged, I think so is L3. It’s less offensive than with Jar-Jar, and I don’t mind it as much but I take on board why others find her jarring.
Moreover, for me there is just one too many heists; the film tries to do too much. I think if they’d started the story from Han rescuing Chewie and perhaps had Han be an established part of Beckett’s team from the get-go…it might have made for a tighter story. The reveal of Kira could have come naturally in the scene where they meet up again on the yacht.
The Ugly:
The casting of Emilia Clarke as Kira. I like Emilia Clarke and she did a very good job on Game of Thrones. But it’s clear that she’s struggling to accurately portray Kira without giving away the ambiguous note that the film wants to strike with the character.
Overall:
It’s a decent enough film and entertaining in parts. I was much more entertained though in the cinema on the first viewing than in re-watching at home.
Rogue One
The Good:
I really enjoy Rogue One as a story. It’s well done from the strong narrative arc which focuses on how the rebels got the Death Star plans which featured so heavily in the original Star Wars movie, to the acting and the set pieces.
Thematically, it keeps up the question of how is a bad guy and who is a good guy that have peppered the prequels and the stand alone stories. Here, we see characters doing bad things in the name of the rebellion ‘the good side’ and we see characters on the ‘bad side’ coerced but doing the right thing, trying to escape and do the right thing. Jyn and Cassian both struggle with what the right thing to do is, but ultimately sacrifice their lives to enable the rebellion to have a chance at defeating the Empire.
All of the acting is great; nobody overacts or outshines anyone else. There is a real ensemble feel to the piece. Both Felicity Jones and Diego Luna to a great job with their characters. The droid is good comic relief but also its sacrifice is also well done.
At the time I said that the ending, the fact that they all die was a brave and bold decision for Star Wars. I stand by that. Narratively this makes the events so much more powerful.
The fight sequences are great; lots of action and tension; the effects are good too.
The Bad:
Narratively there is a disconnect between the voice of Hayden Christensen and Darth Vader; there is disconnect physically between the two although that could be handwaved away with the artificiality of Vader’s body. But you can tell this isn’t the same actor as Anakin Skywalker.
The other thing which I don’t think worked well is the CGI reuse/de-aging on Peter Cushing and Leia. For Cushing they do use it sparingly and where they do use it, it fits although jarring. The end scene with Leia though, they should have kept the back shot of her because on the small screen that front shot just doesn’t work.
The Ugly:
Nothing ugly!
Overall:
It’s a good film; a very good prologue to the original movie.
Star Wars (A New Hope)
The Good:
The original Star Wars movie delivers what it sets out to do; a cowboys and Indians in space adventure; an epic Space opera with themes of good and evil.
Narratively, the story is a solid arc from the initial set-up with the droids escaping with the plans, to Obi-Wan’s and Luke’s involvement, to getting Han involved, to the end climax of defeating the Death Star.
It’s actually fairly hard-hitting which I hadn’t remembered; a planet is completely destroyed, the Skywalkers are brutally killed. But this really helps to sell the ‘evil’ quality of the Empire.
It’s in the original movie where the concept of the good guys and bad guys is set out so very explicitly; the rebellion is ‘good’ and the Empire is ‘evil.’ There is no real discussion or debate about this in this movie. The only grey character is Han who is a rogue and a smuggler; he’s not a ‘good’ guy being in it for monetary reward until the end where he comes back and saves Luke…but that makes him the most interesting character.
However, the whole cast is well cast and give really good solid performances which sell the unbelievable.
The Bad:
Firstly, the CGI has been remastered and is OK but some of the early stuff which remains in the film can be seen to be clunky in comparison with modern day effects.
Secondly, the narrative disconnect between the 3 early prequels and this movie are very apparent. The age of the characters isn’t right; the sound of them isn’t right; the physicality of them isn’t quite right. There are things which just don’t fit like Obi-Wan apparently not knowing R2. Given the canon is known the prequels should have ensured a smooth transition. For all that Han is different Solo did at least do a good job in establishing Chewie and Han, and the physicality of the actors is not so different to cause a disconnect (rather it’s Harrison Ford’s charisma that does it).
The Ugly:
Whiny!Luke. Honestly this brings back memories of Whiny!Anakin in a not good way.
And overall, Han’s relationship with both Luke and Leia is very confrontational and spiky rather than friendship building. It doesn’t make the end denouement of Han coming to the rescue and Leia hugging them both very believable.
Overall:
It’s still a good film and taken in isolation stands on its own.
The Empire Strikes Back
The Good:
It’s a good continuation of the first film while narratively holding its own. There is still a solid arc – Vader hunting down the Rebellion, Luke going to the rescue of his friends despite not finishing his training, and the loss of Han Solo, and the defeat that the rebellion have suffered.
The hard-hitting quality of the Empire is continually shown in the way they attack Hoth, their takeover of Cloud, and even Vader’s killing off each commander who displeases him. There is a real sense of danger.
There still is a very distinct rebellion and Jedi are good; Empire is bad motif. But the shades of grey are beginning to blur – Lando betrays them but comes good in the end, and of course there is the key denouement in the reveal that Vader is Luke’s father, that he was once Anakin Skywalker. That scene still resonates.
The cast continue to be extremely solid in their performances and the chemistry between them all is good. Han and Leia’s romance is well executed within the story with their tension, attraction and increasing affection and care for each other culminating in the admissions of love. But there is also a believable friendships between Leia, Han and Luke here; Han goes to rescue Luke from the cold, Luke returns to rescue his friends, Leia and Luke sense each other and she rescues him.
Weirdly the kiss between Luke and Leia which in isolation feels icky when its revealed she’s his sister, doesn’t come across as that on viewing as there is more the reality that Leia only kisses Luke to piss off Han.
Also R2D2 once again proves in the final battles that he’s the only one with any sense.
The Bad:
The introduction of Yoda and the return of Whiny!Luke on the planet when he’s training. I’d forgotten just how annoying Yoda makes himself in that first few scenes. Also the puppetry is so in contrast to the previous CGI.
The Ugly:
In re-watching, the scenes of Vader killing the commanders when they displease him and their fear suffers from the many parodies that have happened over the years since.
Also could happily have thrown C3PO out of a window several times during the film – his grating personality, Doomsday view is just too much in places.
Overall:
Just like it’s predecessor, a solid film that works well as a continuation from Star Wars.
The Return of the Jedi
The Good:
Narratively, it’s a very good continuation and denouement to the story and to the arc from the prequels.
Luke saves his father from the Dark Side and returns him to the Light – and the moment where the audience just has the shot of Vader watching the Emperor killing Luke and the tension before he cracks and saves his son…still amazing.
The rescue of Han at the beginning is well done, the trap of the Death Star neatly executed narratively although the length of time between the trap being sprung, the shield coming down and the final climax is too unbelievable – the Empire could have defeated the Rebellion ships in that time.
The Emperor also takes centre stage once again as the real villain of the piece which works incredibly well. There is a sense in the dialogue and the exchange with Anakin and Luke that Anakin knows that he failed to stand up and resist the Emperor; that he was weak and conceded to the Emperor’s will – rather than embracing the Dark Side for its own sake. It’s Luke’s defiance that eventually breaks through – his son would rather die than concede and Anakin finds his own strength.
The cast is solid with all the relationships feeling feel. Han and Leia’s romance continues to work from the initial rescue to the end; Luke and Leia’s discovery that they are siblings is well done. Lando works well from his previous introduction.
The Bad:
As cute as the Ewoks are, the initial character who clearly is a precursor for Jar Jar is very annoying, and again the tribal aspect of the Ewoks is a little too on the nose of emulating the Native Americans versus invading white foreigners; the ‘bows and arrows’ capabilities taking down the more sophisticated weaponry – not to mention the unlikelihood of all these traps and set-ups already being there just able to be used.
The story is very small for such an epic climax. They spend a lot of time running around on a planet than in space.
There is little use of the actual Death Star as a location.
The Ugly:
Oh God, the CGI just does not stand up; the speeder scenes are just terrible.
Overall:
It’s a solid film, and singularly not as good as its predecessors, even though it is a good end to the arcs.
The Force Awakens
The Good:
The Force Awakens does a good job of introducing Finn and Rey, and an OK job at introducing Poe. There’s some decent scenes between Finn and Rey as they build up a great friendship through adversity and getting dragged into the Resistance mission. Finn and Poe also have good scenes and great chemistry.
I like the new characters in the main: Finn as the former stormtrooper turned traitor, trying to get away from the First Order but finding he cannot leave the people he comes to care about in trouble. I also like Poe as the hotshot pilot who can fly anything but who is committed to the mission and getting things done. I like Hux as the First Order General committed to the cause.
In the main, I also like Rey, the scavenger who is kind-hearted and brave, and Kylo Ren as the Sith apprentice trying to emulate his grandfather’s Vader legacy, yet still too young to be fully into his powers, moody and emotional. This is a version of Whiny!Character I can get behind.
I love BB8 who is the best character in it.
It’s great to see the old characters in the main even if with Luke it’s momentary – the search for the map to find him though is the whole arc of the movie. I love Leia and Han’s scenes; there is a sense of nostalgia; shared pain; love. They still adore each other.
I also love Chewie and Han’s scenes; they are the epitome of old friends who know each other very well; true brothers in arms. The scene where Han dies, Chewie’s pain feels real in that moment.
The whole cast knocks it out the park.
I also like that the series picks up the thread from Rogue One with Finn’s betrayal of the First Order; who is the bad guy really? However it doesn’t pose the opposite question though of who is the good guy.
I also like a lot of the call backs; Han and Chewie on the Millennium Falcon, the sand of Jakku a nod to Tattooine, C3PO being annoying, R2D2 carrying the key message, the droid with the important message, the Kessel run, Han and Leia, etc.
I will say as I did for Rogue One that the fight sequences are great; lots of action and tension; the effects are good too.
The Bad:
Character wise, Rey and Kylo Ren are both problematic. One is over-powered to the detriment of the other.
In order to make Rey’s Force powers surprising and epic, they make her stronger than Kylo Ren. She wins their mental battle and the lightsabre battle.
Now she may very well be in the ultimate design, but right at that moment in the lightsaber fight, she is new to her powers; she really, really shouldn’t win. A lucky shot when she uses the Force to throw Ren back, to injure his face in a strike…yes. But to win and have him on the ground…no. And OK, it can be handwaved with Ren already being weakened by the injury he took, and the fight with Finn, but still. It would have been much better for Ren to have gained the upper hand and then Rey is saved by the ground separating them.
Moreover, as an introduction to a new triad of characters, the film doesn’t have Poe, Finn and Rey together at all during the movie. Poe and Finn or Rey and Finn but never the three of them. It would have served the arc of the trilogy better to have had all three be on Jakku and fleeing back to the resistance.
And…really the idea that the resistance is still around because the Dark Side regenerated in such a short space of time into the First Order??? What the f?! It kind of makes a complete mockery of the victory the rebels achieved in the Return of the Jedi.
The Ugly:
This is the only film with Han, Leia and Luke all alive at the beginning of the movie and it fails, fails to bring the three characters together in a scene. I think this is the greatest failing of the sequels. Even allowing for the fact that Luke was hiding – a Force projection scene with Luke turning up to talk to Han and Leia about Rey, him telling them that they should bring Rey to him when the map is completed would have been great. Alternatively, a flashback to Luke leaving, apologising for Ben’s turn to the Dark Side…something.
While clearly nothing is more tragic than a death in and of itself, there is tragedy in the lost opportunity to reunite the three friends on screen in the wake of losing Carrie Fisher.
Overall:
It’s a good enough sci-fi action movie and it does many things right in the reboot, but there are mistakes and flaws and it’s not as good as the original movie and I would place it higher than any of the sequels.
The Last Jedi
The Good:
In all honesty, there isn’t a lot of good.
I still love BB8. He’s the best thing in it.
I like the mystery of the Jedi temple and the hints of the mysticism.
Most of the special effects and the battles are well done (until the fleet and the First Order ships get into the slowest race ever in space.) The horses on the casino planet are well done.
I like the thread of who is good and who is bad is continued with the codebreaker and the casino city.
It’s great to see at least one scene with Leia and Luke, even if it is a Force projection and he’s not actually there in person. I like that they take the time for Luke to question where Han is; for him to grieve with Leia (and Chewie) about Han. I like Luke’s conversation with R2 and the replay of Leia’s message to Obi-Wan. I like that Luke plays a pivotal role in helping the rebels to freedom – I just don’t see why he had to die to make it happen!
The notion of the Force bridge and the dyad of Rey and Kylo Ren (Ben) is intriguing, and that thread is done well from their sudden ability to see and talk to each other; the reveal of why Ben Solo turned to the Dark with Luke’s betrayal; and their fighting together only for Rey to refuse to take his hand in the end because he still wants power rather than to return to the Light even if he did kill Snoke and save her.
I actually really like Hux; the performance is well done and almost understated. He’s comical but not overly so; arrogant and righteous in his evilness and yet resentful while being undermined by Kylo Ren. It’s nicely pitched.
The Bad:
The entire story.
It’s just not a great narrative, either in the sub-plots or the main plot – and the confusion of what is the main plot.
The primary plot of the first film of the sequels was where is Luke Skywalker, and Rey and Finn getting the information to the rebels.
The main plot here should then be: what happened to Luke Skywalker for him to turn into a hermit to his act of ‘redemption’ in facing Kylo Ren. It’s all clumsily done. Luke isn’t Luke for a large part of the film, even a Luke who has made a crippling mistake which was the event which turned Ben Solo to the Dark. Hamill tries his best to overcome the plot, to give a realistic Luke but it really is only in the small moments that ‘Luke’ appears; when he asks where Han is, when he talks to R2, when he speaks with Yoda about failure. It’s not the premise I have issues with but the execution – too much on the island is played for laughs (the fish nuns and Chewie eating the bird/penguin things), and too much is focused on Rey not Luke.
But isn’t it supposed to be? After all, isn’t this Rey’s story not Luke’s? Well, she’s not the one most fans have turned up for. However, the Rey and Kylo Ren story arc – who are they, will they turn to the Light or go to the Dark, their tenuous connection is a strong arc and it fights for primacy in the narrative.
All of which leaves the audience confused – whose story is this?
However, there is also the sub-plot(?) of the rebels fleeing the First Order and how they escape, the machinations of Poe and Finn in trying to cripple the lead ship; the call for help and only Luke who responds. And this is fraught with stupid technical constraints and stupid decisions (the tracking of the ships, the crawling chase, the fleeing transports to the moon where they then are trapped, Whiny!Poe). And the insanity of Finn and Rose’s mission to the casino planet and trying to break into the First Order ship to cripple the tracking device (the whole Rose/Finn arc is weird given the whole Finn/Rey arc). All of this is patently uninteresting for the most part with only BB8 being a star.
Also…Empire Strikes Back managed to have the rebels take a defeat without leaving them with only a handful of people and few resources. This goes too far in ‘defeat’ mode for me.
Needless to say, the sum of all this is that the narrative of this film is a mess.
The Ugly:
The CGI is so absolutely horrendous in Luke’s fight with Kylo Ren when they take the distant shots. Horrible so horrible.
Overall:
It’s a fairly flawed film with competing central plots, and very, very stupid subplot(s).
The Rise of Skywalker
The Good:
The action sequences and special effects are great throughout and there’s never really a rough moment like we see in the previous film.
The acting is mostly top-notch with stand-out performances from the main cast of Daisy Ridley, Oscar Issacs, John Boyega and Adam Driver. It’s credit to their performances that the audience feels something for the characters at all by the end of the trilogy and the moment of them reuniting means something.
It is good that they finally have all three of the main cast go on an adventure together for the first part of the story. It builds a relationship between the three and shared camaraderie which then helps give meaning to the hug they share in their relief of surviving later.
The stand-out moment is the cameo by Harrison Ford. Having been absolutely fervent about leaving Han Solo behind and being killed off in the first film to see him appear was a shock on first watching and just really a brilliant moment in rewatching. The cameo by Mark Hamill also works well to give Rey hope and to admit he got it wrong.
Narratively, the story arcs for Rey and Ben Solo are well done; whether someone likes the decision to make Rey Palpatine’s granddaughter or not, the dyad and her helping to bring Ben Solo to the light is great. Ben Solo finding his way back is also great and while I know many decry him dying in the end to save her, in many ways it was the only way his story could end as he’d committed too much evil to simply walk away without consequence.
The story arc for Poe is also well done in that he has to step up and lead – which he does. I like how he gets the nudge that he can have help and brings Finn into that.
BB8 continues to be made of win.
The Bad:
The film is trying to do too much in one film. Like the film before it has a stupidly insane deadline driving events where even the suspension of disbelief and the buy-in that it’s a different universe don’t quite enable me to make the jump to believing they can travel around and experience these events within the time window given.
Narratively, Finn’s arc is the least resolved. We see that he likely has Force powers but that’s never fully realised within the film; he jumps around from girl sidekick to girl sidekick. It’s only the charisma and performance of the actor which saved Finn as a character. Also his relationship with Rey is a little problematic – they make Finn too pining and friend-zoned and while they try to balance this with his other girlfriends, as the chemistry of those doesn’t work as well it’s just…awkward.
The use of Leia is also problematic. While I applaud the attempt to reuse footage and include Carrie Fisher to complete the story and to honour Fisher, there is too much stiffness in the interactions to completely sell it. As a result, the performance comes across as flat and I’m not certain that was the way to end such a great character or to leave Fisher’s contribution in such a place.
The whole Chewie dying but not, C3PO’s sacrifice but not…it’s just…boring and it would have had more impact if they’d just followed through on one of those.
And really, in the final narrative, there is still a sense of confusion about whose story were they telling in these sequels.
The Ugly:
The return of Palpatine. While I realise that killing Snoke created an issue, seriously?! This was the best that they could come up with?!
Overall:
It’s flawed, but it is a decent enough film to re-watch with good action and even some touching moments.
Final Order:
- Empire Strikes Back
- Rogue One
- Star Wars – A New Hope
- The Force Awakens
- The Rise of Skywalker
- Revenge of the Sith
- Solo
- Return of the Jedi
- The Last Jedi
- The Phantom Menace
- Attack of the Clones
Rambling in Rachelville 