When it comes to mega-myths and long-standing pop culture phenomenons, endings are one of the most impossible things to get right. The Rise of Skywalker already had a tough act to beat by following The Last Jedi—easily the most narratively and thematically complex film that Star Wars has ever churned out. But it’s doubtful that Episode IX ever intended to outdo its predecessor, and what we have for a coda has much more in common with an oft-maligned chapter of the Skywalker Saga: Return of the Jedi.
For all the good and bad that brings.
[Non-spoiler review]
Machinations are grandiose and sometimes utterly ridiculous in Episode IX. It’s easy to grouse over how unrealistic many of those plot twists are, but this is Star Wars we’re talking about—the film franchise that has always built its conflicts on bigger ways to blow stuff up and bigger bads to fell in exceedingly dramatic ways, for exceedingly dramatic reasons. While it may be a bug rather than a feature, it’s consistent. If The Rise of Skywalker disappoints you, it’s likely to be for the silliness of those grander schemes, or for the fact that it doesn’t use much of The Last Jedi as groundwork for its conclusion (which is a genuine shame at points). A similar structure holds true for Return of the Jedi, and in that regard, The Rise of Skywalker has many of its same strengths; namely, it’s genuinely fun, at times achingly eager, and prioritizes character development and emotional turmoil.
The third Star Wars trilogy has been a sleeker exercise by far than the other two, which means that even when it’s a little sappy and overwrought, a lot of those moments work by the sheer will of its talent. Seeing the bonds between Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), and Poe (Oscar Isaac) grow as they navigate all the terror the galaxy throws at them is beautiful to behold. All the people who hold the Resistance together, who come to its aid, from familiar and beloved faces like Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) and Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) to newcomers like Jannah (Naomi Ackie), make the movie brighter and power the story via endless charisma and knowhow. It’s sad to know that this is likely the last we’ll see of any of them on screen, after growing so instantly attached to them all.
There is an absence in this film that cannot be understated. The loss of Carrie Fisher after The Last Jedi finished production meant that all of her scenes in The Rise of Skywalker were cobbled together from unused footage in The Force Awakens. It’s truly impressive how well her presence works and how painstakingly her scenes have been knit into the narrative, but there are clear beats that are missing without her, and it’s easy to tell how much space she was originally going to take up in the story had she not passed away. It’s difficult not to miss her, even when you’re staring right at her, not to mourn the journey we all deserved to see for our beloved General.
Her final bow is bittersweet, but there are many others that don’t hurt quite so badly. Listening to John Williams’s score pay him back in a million little ways as he ties together decades worth of symphonic storytelling is an utter joy to bear witness to. He has a cameo in the film to watch out for, a fitting glimpse of a person who is perhaps more responsible for Star Wars than anyone who ever worked on it, creator George Lucas included. The soundtrack of Star Wars is Star Wars, and nowhere is it more evident than in his very last installment.
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Network Effect
The Rise of Skywalker isn’t big on explaining things, so if you’re expecting a lot of intimate details on how major plots points come to be, there won’t be much to save you. It’s also fascinating to see how much of the film relies on knowledge from the prequels and the television series’ that have materialized thus far, from Clone Wars to Rebels to The Mandalorian. It doesn’t mean that the audience will be totally at sea without reference points, but it absolutely enriches the viewing experience (especially when it comes to Sith history and character cameos). It’s likely that this was always going to be a problem for Rise of Skywalker, as it has the unenviable job of tying up the majority of a story that Star Wars has been telling over the past forty-odd years. Even if we never see specific references to events of the Clone Wars or the struggles of the Mandalorian people, all of these elements still have to work in concert. Some of those places where the film pulls those decades of history together (both in universe and out) are flat-out gorgeous.
The plot starts us off with a jaunty scavenger hunt vibe that serves the film well before the messier arcs take over and everything gets complicated. There is also one major reversal from The Last Jedi that feels a lot like cheating on writer-director JJ Abrams’s part, though it’s not surprising to see him assert his original vision for the trilogy over other avenues that Rian Johnson’s Episode VIII tried to explore. To his credit, the one place the film never skimps is on its characters, the only reason most of us were charmed into caring about the third Star Wars trilogy in the first place. We see Rey, Poe, and (really, especially) Finn figure out who they want to be, and how the coming events will shape their futures. The same is true for Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who is finally given some nuance and history to play with, and he makes use of every second he’s given on screen.
There are themes at work here that feel particularly timely and relevant to the era in which we find ourselves. Among those are the acknowledgement that fascism and evil can only flourish by making us feel isolated from one another, making us forget that we have friends, networks, supports in place to keep us from faltering. But perhaps more essential is a piece of wisdom given to us by a trusted veteran—that no one knows what they’re doing. Good work isn’t about having battle plans and thorough organization and going in knowing exactly how you’re going to win the day. And all the people who seem like they’ve got it together? They don’t. Essentially, Imposter Syndrome is real, even for leaders and great hopes of the galaxy. The only way you manage is by letting it go, and moving forward.
Imperfect as it is, The Rise of Skywalker often feels like being wrapped up in a warm blanket. It’s not a risky venture, but it has enough heart to power a galaxy. And that makes for a fitting ending in my book.
[Please note: the comments section may contain spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker, so proceed with caution!]
Emmet Asher-Perrin loves Return of the Jedi, for the record. In case you were wondering where they landed on this one. You can bug him on Twitter, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
Is calling The Last Jedi the most thematically complex episode a nice way of saying it was a hot mess? Because it came off as muddled and outright contradictory to this viewer.
”Rian Johnson’s Episode XIII”? You are either prescient or need to check your Roman numerals :-)
@1 Well, there may be enough in this film for two films, and it suffers a little as a result, but I don’t disagree with the general thrust of the article. Ultimately, it is successful in communicating a great deal of energy, in bringing the series to a conclusion and being quintessentially a Star Wars movie.
My thoughts more generally (not in response to the first post) are that there are flaws, unevenness, and other issues, but if you could watch and enjoy Return of the Jedi then this should be little different. As a fair warning though, the first twenty minutes are pretty fast paced and intense, even for a Star Wars film and its something probably worth noting to those expecting a more momentous or ponderous start.
[I white-texted a few spoilery things. Highlight to see them.]
Abrams seemed to think he was making an Uncharted game for part of it.
I’m not sure how much of the weakness of the film is due to his inherent issues as a filmmaker, and how much is due to wrapping the story around what footage they had left of Fisher. Shades of How I Met Your Mother ending so poorly in part because the showrunners couldn’t bear to rethink their story instead of abandoning the old footage they had to work with.
And Abrams loves to tease actual consequences while actually not delivering any. He keeps killing characters to get an emotional reaction, then puling it back. The only one who actually stayed dead took three tries for it to stick.
It’s nice Maz was around, but would have been nicer if she wasn’t basically set dressing. The medal was possibly the most fanservicey thing I’ve ever seen. And the kiss. Ugggh.
I feel like there’s a good chance I only watch this one time, like Revenge of the Sith.
There were some great Star Wars moments. Ben’s vision after Rey abandons him (and he does what I’d been mentally screaming that she should have already done with his lightsaber; made me okay with her leaving it laying there, even though she obviously should have done it herself). Finding the other deserters. Rey’s training. Rey’s claiming the name and finally building her own damn lightsaber (another thing I’d spent the whole movie mentally grumbling should have happened). The name in particular is great, and a denial of the lineage thing that’s been such an issue throughout the films since ANH, though I really could have done without the Force ghosts/visions there for it. You don’t have to spell it out that literally, JJ.
It ended exactly where it should have, but did so many bad things along the way. I was trying not to audibly negatively react so I wouldn’t mess it up for anyone else enjoying it, but did audibly groan once.
@2 – Fixed, thanks!
Also, the pacing was just bad, which Abrams definitely knows how to do better. And I found Leia here more distracting than Leia or Tarkin in Rogue One.
It’s like he was so afraid of making anyone hate it, like a noisy contingent did TLJ, he also made a movie nobody could actually love.
It’s funny. I’ve been reading all of these spoiler-free reviews for the past couple of days, getting increasingly agitated, before reminding myself that Emmet Asher-Perrin’s review would be the one I trust the most.
Sure enough, here it is, and it’s put me at ease. Seeing the movie Saturday night, and looking forward to it.
I guess now that the trilogy is over, my one big complaint is that we know absolutely nothing about the state of the galaxy as a whole. What was the new republic? Why didn’t they have a military? How did the first order take over so quickly? What was the galaxy like under their control? It didn’t feel like a large-scale galaxy-wide conflict, it felt like two tiny groups fighting a tiny battle with no real consequences. I just really wish we got a more fleshed out universe with all this.
@8/markmaverik: Did we really get much sense of the larger universe in the original trilogy, though? The only civilized places we really saw aside from Imperial and Rebel bases were Tatooine and Cloud City, not counting the glimpses of other worlds added to the Special Edition of ROTJ. For all their faults, the prequels did a better job of showing the galactic community, and one thing I like about TLJ was that it took the time to go to Canto Bight and show us what life is like for ordinary people and how they’re victimized by the First Order and inspired by the Resistance. (Some people say the sequence is a pointless digression, but it is the point, because it illustrates what the heroes are fighting for.)
Anyway, you can flesh out a universe far better in a TV, novel, or comics series than in a movie trilogy, so it’s good we have so many of those in Star Wars now.
@8
So many of the questions you have are answered, just not in the movies. Others, were just less explicitly answered. For example, we learned somewhere along the line that the New Republic HAD a military, but that they were all stationed in the Hosnian System and so were destroyed by the Starkiller Base.
I recommend checking out Bloodline by Claudia Gray for info on the New Republic and hints of the rise of the First Order, as well as the Aftermath Trilogy for an overview of the immediate… well, aftermath of RotJ. (It’s NOT the best writing ever, but still enjoyable enough and informative.) Lost Stars in another good entry by Claudia Gray. Also, I’ve heard good things about the show Resistance and how it ties into the new trilogy.
In other words, this is Star Wars and explaining all the details has never really been their thing. That gets fleshed out in other media.
I have not seen it, but I have read most of the spoilers, and I am not in a rush to see it. If the spoilers are correct, JJA almost immediately reverses course on the only two concepts in The Last Jedi that I liked unreservedly.
@10, yeah, speaking of the Aftermath Trilogy…with Rise‘s revelations about the First Order’s true origins — and the bigwigs at Lucasfilm admitting they didn’t even plan out the Sequel Trilogy before shooting — I expect the Lucasfilm Story Group’s going to be very busy in the coming years trying to reconcile these reveals with what Wendig, Gray, and other writers spent the last 4 years establishing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they bring back James Luceno given this kinda challenge is his specialty thanks to past projects like Darth Plagues or Catalyst.
Some of the changes seemed pointless; could have told the same story without them. And some of the plot points seemed deus ex machina squared. And the mechanics of certain things just mystified me.
But, all in all, it did seem like a replication of Return of the Jedi.
@12/Mr. Magic: Yeah, I always figured that the whole “all the tie-ins are canonical now” business would be thrown out the moment a moviemaker decided to do something different. After all, the same thing happened with the previous iteration of supposedly “canonical” tie-ins. Nobody is ever going to restrict the creative freedom of the maker of a multigazillion-dollar tentpole feature film because of details from a novel or comic read by only one or two percent of the potential audience.
Indeed, from what I’ve read online, I gather that The Mandalorian is sort of ignoring what the animated shows established about Mandalorian culture — for instance, claiming they never take off their helmets in public even though the Mandalorian characters in The Clone Wars and Rebels did so all the time.
@13 / gwangung:
But, all in all, it did seem like a replication of Return of the Jedi.
I mean, I can forgive that to an extent. Repetition with variation has been a cornerstone of the Saga since the Prequel Trilogy.
And as a multi-generational story, I do like the basic idea of the cycle repeating and each generation going through similar scenarios and reacting differently.
Revenge is a good example. You had a massive fleet battle, a Skywalker fighting a Sith Lord with Palpatine watching from a throne, said Skywalker cutting off said duelist’s hand(s) and making a choice to intervene in a Force Lightning attack, etc. Same basic setup Luke would encounter 23 years later, but reacted completely differently because he isn’t his father.
But from what I’m hearing, it sounds like Rise hews too closely to Return rather than taking that basic setup and at least trying to do a different enough spin.
@14 / CLB:
Yeah, I always figured that the whole “all the tie-ins are canonical now” business would be thrown out the moment a moviemaker decided to do something different.
Same here. While I applaud Pablo Hidalgo and the Story Group for trying to ensure consistency this time around and to avoid the same problems the pre-Disney Expanded Universe ran into once the Prequels started, I knew it was losing battle for the reasons you outlined.
That being said…I just can’t understand why Kathleen Kennedy didn’t mandate they do forward planning for the Sequel Trilogy (or why Iger seemingly didn’t have a problem with this.)
I mean, yeah, you could argue the Indiana Jones “I’m making this up as I go’ approach has been a foundation of Star Wars since the beginning. I’ve always rolled my eyes at George’s “All this was planned out from the beginning” talk.
And even if there had been a plan, they would’ve have to rework things anyway based on unexpected production hurdles. Carrie Fisher’s death in 2016 is a perfect example. Hell, Han being frozen in Carbonite also was a necessary backup plan in the event Ford didn’t return for, heh, Return.
But even still, there’s a difference between leaving yourself verisimilitude in the story to incorporate or remove different ideas ()and not having an actual road map so you at least have some idea of where you’re going.
And this isn’t a small show or a series of books. This is one of the iconic titans of American cinema and pop culture, so I just…I don’t understand the rationale and thinking of Kennedy and Iger.
@14. Re: The Mandalorian.
In fairness, Dave Filoni was deeply involved in the animated show, especially the Mandalore stuff, and he has a significant role in the Disney+ series, too, so I imagine he’s got an explanation waiting in the wings.
I can’t decide how I feel about this one. There are a lot of great moments that I liked, even loved, but it’s such a hot mess of pacing and plot twists. You can practically feel Abrams and Kennedy screaming, “ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?” in certain scenes. I don’t know if those weaknesses outweigh the positives. I need to see it again.
All I know is this is the first Star Wars movie where I didn’t walk out of the theater grinning.
@17/Random Comments: Sure, Filoni’s involved in both, but just having the same creator involved in two different works in a franchise doesn’t guarantee that creator will choose to be consistent between them, because there can be reasons for doing otherwise — different collaborators, different target audiences, different story goals. Or just a second chance to get something right that you weren’t satisfied with the first time. Sometimes creators change their minds and don’t want to be consistent with their past ideas.
Audiences today have a mistaken impression that continuity is the single overarching priority in fiction, outweighing everything else. The opposite is true. Continuity is just one tool in the kit, a means toward the end of telling stories. What the story you’re currently telling needs is more important than whether it’s perfectly consistent with other stories.
Having the influence of the evil Emperor emerge in the trailers, without any hints at all in eps VII or VIII, was a jarring deus ex machina, even before I walked into the theater. (I don’t think it is a spoiler to mention things that show up in trailers.)
I enjoyed it a lot, although it definitely played it a bit safer than I would have liked. It was a fun ending to a fun series of movies.
It’s a JJ movie. I expect little quality as a result.
The only good thing is that at least it’s not a Tarantino or Bey garbage flick.
@14 @17 @19
In all fairness the Mandalorian helmet thing is not a big deal at all, in my opinion There are a couple factors that have to be considered in this situation.
1. The Mandalorians shown in the The Mandalorian, are clearly only a small group, and at one point they refer to themselves as the tribe (Tribe?). We can’t be sure if this is a title or just an indication of a separate group, but this is the easiest way to explain the difference between these Mandalorians and others. They are quite simply, a different subset or culture within the larger Mandalorian race.
2. The Mandalorian people and their planet seem to have been devastated. This would easily lead to a diaspora over the years since the event, which could then result in subgroups trying to restart the Mandalorian culture and reinventing themselves along the way, which could readily include norms and social expectations. A diaspora further complicates matters because it carries the implications of trauma and loss. The survivors probably weren’t all experts in Mandalorian culture and some pieces of their social norms could have been lost, hence the new ones.
In the end, regardless of what I think, trust Filoni and Favreau to know what they are doing, and that things will be explained in time.
@20, Yeah, I mean, Abrams has discussed the rationale behind bringing Palpatine back for the finale:
Some people feel like we shouldn’t revisit the idea of Palatine, and I completely understand that. But if you’re looking at the nine films as one story, I don’t know many books where the last few chapters have nothing to do with those that have come before. If you look at the first eight films, all the set-ups of what we’re in IX are there in plain view.
I mean…I get where he was coming from and there is some merit to that argument. And Palpatine surviving Endor and rebuilding in hiding isn’t also without precedent thanks to Dark Empire during the pre-Disney Expanded Universe. Hell, Darth Maul bit it during Episode I and then Clone Wars and Rebels brought him back.
There’s also arguably a nice bookend element to Palpatine being right back where he was at the very beginning: A phantom menace within the shadows and manipulating both sides to attain galactic dominion while making time to screw with the family that helped facilitate and ruin the Sith Grand Plan.
The problem, though, goes back to what I was complaining about with Kathleen Kennedy and Iger not even bothering to mandate a road map for the Sequel Trilogy during pre-production. If they had planned on revealing Palpatine had survived and quietly laid clues during VII and VIII, that would’ve been one thing. But by Abrams’ own admission, he and Larry Kasdan discussed the idea during Force Awakens, but it didn’t actually become set in stone until
So from everything I’m hearing, it sounds like the execution of retconning Palpatine’s involvement in the events of the Sequel Trilogy is not seamless and the ‘Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities’ explanation for his survival is handwaved and unsatisfying. Plus is also undermines the setup from Last Jedi of Ben having achieved what Vader couldn’t (overthrow the Big Bad), only to go right back to being the Starscream, as it were, with little hesitation.
Some people feel like we shouldn’t revisit the idea of Palatine, and I completely understand that. But if you’re looking at the nine films as one story, I don’t know many books where the last few chapters have nothing to do with those that have come before. If you look at the first eight films, all the set-ups of what we’re in IX are there in plain view.
No, that isn’t true AT ALL.
@22/Zmn: Even if that one inconsistency can be explained, the larger point remains that storytellers will freely make continuity changes if it serves the story. Whether it can be justified after the fact is a secondary concern.
@25
Agreed. Continuity, especially in Star Wars, has always been subervient to the whims of the storyteller. My point was that things CAN change, without sacrificing continuity. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive, which seems to be how some people view these situations.
Making Palpy the evil behind it all just underlines the theme of this trilogy which is Luke, Leia, Han, and now Anakin, accomplished NOTHING.
No thank you.
@27, Yeah, as someone who grew up with the Original Trilogy and pre-Disney continuation of the Endor aftermath, I certainly get that. I’m not especially happy about the canonical fates of the Big Three either.
That being said…as Yoda touched on VIII, failure is an underlying foundation of the Saga. Each generation of the Skywalker family has made mistakes and he subsequently generation has had to do damage control and learn from these lessons…only to end up making their own mistakes and making things worse.
Lucas always called I-VI the Tragedy of Darth Vader and that in a sense this arguably plays out to its natural conclusion in VII-IX. As Yoda put it back in V, “If once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.” Anakin has been dead for 30 years, but the Dark Side casts a long shadow. Anakin’s legacy ends up plunging the Galaxy into civil war again and ultimately destroying his family and bloodline in the end.
It lends the Skywalker Saga the air of grand tragedy. Hell, even the old Expanded Universe explored the same ideas with Jacen making the same mistakes as his grandfather, triggered a second Galactic Civil War, forced his twin sister to kill him, and destroyed the standing and reputation of the new Jedi Order.
@27 Do you read Schlock Mercenary? Maxime 70 reads “Failure is not an option – it is mandatory. The option is whether or not to let failure be the last thing you do.”
It seems a good lesson to think about right now.
I think Ep 9 did as well as it could.
The main problem for the whole trilogy was when they decided to remake / repeat the Empire vs Rebels dynamic.
It could never recover from that.
@30:
Even though I didn’t like the execution (I don’t like the Yuuzan Vong in Legends at all), I liked the concept that Palpatine had formed the Empire because of a threat he perceived through the force coming from the Unknown Regions. And destroying the Empire left the galaxy unready to defend itself against this threat. I think working from that premise for this Trilogy would have been much, much better.
-8
Yes, I agree.
I think the large galaxy we associate with the original trilogy is mainly due to that first movie. They make several references to the senate, the bureaucracy, the emperor, Jabba the Hutt, and to historical events like the Clone Wars. All things important to the universe but not seen by the audience at that time, which allowed our imaginations to run wild.
The pace of that movie was also more deliberate than the others, and this can give a sense of a larger world as it’s gradually laid out before us (see also Lawrence of Arabia and 2001: A Space Odyssey for more extreme examples).
@30 and 31:
Yeah, even with the technical differences (and the irony that the First Order, from its perspective, was the Rebel Alliance in this Trilogy), I wasn’t happy they went back to ‘Empire vs. Rebels’ again.
Even with the focus in the tie-in literature, I do wish they’d gotten more mileage out of the dynamic of the New Republic being active. It was a big missed opportunity to evoke the dynamics of the preceding Trilogies while making it distinct on its own.
@32 / Kowalski:
All things important to the universe but not seen by the audience at that time, which allowed our imaginations to run wild.
Incidentally, you reminded me…I’ve always thought that was one reason why there was such fierce backlash against the Prequels (aside from Lucas’ creative shortcomings).
We had 16 years in-between the initial two Trilogies and everyone spent that interim trying to piece together the clues and imagine how we’d gotten to where A New Hope opened.
And when the long-anticipated narrative finally arrived in 1999 (and then subsequently in 2002 and 2005) and didn’t conform to what everyone had built up in their heads during their childhoods, they lashed out, felt their ‘childhoods had been ruined’, etc. The people who grew up with the Prequel Trilogy didn’t have that context and frame of reference and so they couldn’t understand that toxic response.
Ironically, I think the Sequel Trilogy has that same basic problem in reverse and I touched on this back in @28. For everybody like me who grew up with the Thrawn Trilogy and the old Expanded Universe. For us that was the story of the years and decades after Endor and what happened to the Big Three.
And then Disney threw that all out to do their Trilogy and the new story, while taking some cues and inspiration, is not conforming to what we’d held to be true for 20 years and going a different route. So now it’s all the Millennials who are pissed and complaining Disney ruined their childhoods and the people growing up with this Trilogy don’t understand the backlash, etc.
@34/Mr. Magic: I feel lucky I grew up in a time when Star Trek tie-in novels and comics had no shared continuity and contradicted each other all the time, so I never expected them to be the single “true” version of events. I was always aware that just because one writer chose to tell a story in which an event happened a certain way, that didn’t preclude other writers from telling the same event in different ways. Because they’re all just exercises in imagination, after all.
For that matter, early Star Wars tie-ins were like that too. There weren’t really any shared ideas between things like Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, the Marvel comics, the Brian Daley Han Solo novels, the NPR radio drama, the Droids and Ewoks cartoons, etc. (although I think there was a bit of continuity between Ewoks and the live-action Ewok TV movies). It wasn’t until the ’90s, I think, that an attempt was made to retroactively lump everything together into a single messy whole and gloss over the inconsistencies. That always struck me as a problematical exercise, and I was glad that different Star Trek tie-ins were never under any pressure from on high to pretend they fit together.
@33
A structure of having the New Republic firmly established in 7 and being severely threatened but ultimately surviving would have been just fine. It at least makes the struggles in 4-6 payoff.
But it certainly feels like Disney didn’t trust its audience to want something new, so they brought back all the old Empire TIEs, Stormtroopers, Star Destroyers, etc.
And the fact that we still don’t understand why Ben went to the darkside is just amazing. Just bad design from the start.
@@@@@ 35 / CLB:
Yeah. I think it was also different for my generation because for us Star Wars wasn’t ubiquitous like it is for Generation Z or even younger Millennials who grew up with the Prequels.
When the Thrawn Trilogy came out almost 30 years ago, Star Wars was basically dead in popular culture. The Ewok films and cartoons had wrapped and Lucas had switched gears to other projects (Labyrinth, Return to Oz, Indiana Jones). We didn’t have the omnipresence of the games and cartoons and streaming shows.
Then Timothy Zahn, heh, lit the spark that awakened the Force, and every time a new novel or game came out, it was like Christmas and a thrill to see the post-Endor story forging new trails and narrative paths (though admittedly the Bantam years were more loosely structure compared to the Del Rey years and stuff like the Clone Wars campaign or The New Jedi Order).
So in context of my generation, with my own reactions to the Sequel Trilogy, I wasn’t happy at all to see that (and, heh, my literary investments of years past) get tossed down the garbage chute by the Mouse. But as Yoda put it in V, “You must unlearn what you have learned” and I’ve tried to make peace with the narrative choices and direction of the Disney era.
Ironically, since you mentioned Trek, I’m having to do the exact same thing for the 24th Century Relaunches with Picard coming up. And strangely, that doesn’t bother me as much as it did with Disney. I think it’s different there because the 24th Century had much more on-screen canon across a 14 year period as opposed to a Trilogy of films complemented by dozens of tie-in books.
-34
That’s a very good point.
I remember hearing about Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting on a lava planet long, long before it ever made it to the screen, and I have no idea where I heard it. A novel? A fan magazine? From friends? I don’t know. Anyway, the story was just out there, floating amongst the fandom like a campfire story, repeated for many years and building up in our imaginations. Doubtful the final adaptation could ever have lived up to it.
@@@@@ 36 / M.
A structure of having the New Republic firmly established in 7 and being severely threatened but ultimately surviving would have been just fine. It at least makes the struggles in 4-6 payoff.
Bingo. That’s been my sentiment too.
And yeah, I also think Disney took away the wrong lessons from the Prequel Trilogy. They concluded they needed to make new films modeled on the Original Trilogy to win back the crowed…and it blew up in their face because we already got this kind story.
The frustrating part is that I actually like the concept of the First Order. I like the idea of a generation that’s even more zealous in its devotion to the idea of the Empire than the original generation of Clone Wars-era Imperials or even the Original Trilogy-era generation. And like Snoke said of Kylo Ren, they’re children in masks and jackboots trying to emulate something they could never understand — that the Empire wasn’t meant to instill galactic order, but to instead enforce the will and designs of an arcane theocracy.
Again, interesting ideas, but bad execution.
@38 / Kowalski:
I remember hearing about Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting on a lava planet long, long before it ever made it to the screen, and I have no idea where I heard it. A novel? A fan magazine? From friends? I don’t know.
I think the earliest mention of what eventually became Mustafar was James Kahn’s Return of the Jedi novelization.
-40
Wow, thanks for solving that little mystery. I had no idea it went back that far.
I always had the impression from somewhere that Vader had fallen into a lava pit when Obi-Wan defeated him, long before it was established as a whole planet.
@41, yeah, here’s the passage in question from Chapter 9 of the novelization:
And this memory brought a wave of other memories with it. Memories of brotherhood, and home. His dear wife. The freedom of deep space. Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan, his friend … and how that friendship had turned. Turned, he knew not how – but got injected, nonetheless, with some uncaring virulence that festered, until … hold. These were memories he wanted none of, not now. Memories of molten lava, crawling up his back … no.
This boy had pulled him from that pit – here, now, with this act. This boy was good.
Also, I should add that Khan didn’t invent that piece of backstory. Lucas is on the record as having what became the Mustafar duel as early as 1977:
“Vader kills Luke’s father, then Ben and Vader have a confrontation, just like they have in Star Wars, and Ben almost kills Vader. As a matter of fact, he falls into a volcanic pit and gets fried and is one destroyed being. That’s why he has to wear the suit with a mask, because it’s a breathing mask. It’s like a walking iron lung. His face is all horrible inside.”
-42, 43
You’re right, I think I heard it as a pit originally, too. Lucas must’ve felt the need to make it an entire lava planet to carry on the tradition of theme planets in Star Wars.
Thanks for posting that, Mr. Magic.
@44, You’re welcome.
Heh, glad I could be of help. :)
I can’t wait to read your spoiler review. I feel the exact same way as you do, Emily, as usual. :D
I’ve never read any of the novelizations or seen the TV shows but based on the comments here, it looks like the novels fill in or fill out a much larger universe for Star Wars. Is there a canon list of what book I should start with chronologically or should I watch the Star Wars cartoons (Rebels or Clone Wars) first? Newbie asking!
@47. Astarte: this list may help you:
guide-to-the-new-canon-of-star-wars-books-comics
@48 many thanks, can’t wait to dive in!
@49, If you do James Luceno’s Tarkin, I also definitely recommend his pre-Disney EU novels Darth Plagueis, Cloak of Deception, Labyrinth of Evil, and Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader,
They’re technically not canon anymore, but Luceno used Tarkin to re-canonize the broad strokes of his earlier books (Plaugeis in particular). It’s not necessary to read them to understand Tarkin, but doing so will enrich Tarkin because of the connective tissue and callbacks.
And they’re also tie-in literature done right and just good books overall. Cloak and Plagueis are still favorites of mine to this day.
Regarding the lack of political context and establishing the First Order as a major threat to galactic freedom, I do find that this trilogy is by far the weakest in terms of bulding up motive. How did the First Order came to being? What’s their goal besides terror? Do they have a plan for government? Why did the Republic sit idly without providing an adequate response?
Force Awakens‘ idea of that was putting a brief minute-long scene of Starkiller base wiping out a bunch of people we’ve never met before. At least A New Hope established Bail Organa as Leia’s father before Tarkin wiped out Alderaan.
The third trilogy’s intimate focus on character and relationships is sound, but the drawback is this lack of plot cohesion and overall well-established reasons behind the galactic conflict besides having characters like Hux who are little more than bullies with big ships. Empire these guys are not.
I do give credit to Rise of Skywalker on a couple of scenes – when the movie dares to slow down a bit, given its insane pacing. One is the scene where Finn and Jannah bond over the fact that they are both Stormtrooper deserters, making clear that Finn was not an anomaly and that this First Order approach to recruiting cannon fodder is bound to generate friction and rebellion.
The other scene, one I enjoyed a lot more, is between Poe and Zorri Bliss, where she mentions how the children have been abducted – and we do see a fair amount of First Order oppression taking place in the city. This leads Poe to mention the fact that people haven’t responded to the Crait distress signal, which leads to a rumination on the seemingly lack of hope, which Zorri rebuffs. A lot of this scene works in no small part thanks to John Williams, who resurrects one of his older themes from Attack of the Clones – the one that plays during Anakin & Padmé’s scene with the Lars family as they discuss Shmi’s Tusken Raider abduction – and it fits this new scene beautifully, playing up just how damaged the galaxy’s become over the tyranny of the FO.
This third trilogy needed to slow down more often and use more scenes like these. In fact, I’d argue Rise of Skywalker could have easily been the best film in the saga, if Abrams and Kennedy had the willingness to make it a full 3 hour film, one that encompasses everything and give every scene the time it needs to breathe.
@51 – THANK YOU! After the movie I was discussing music and I said that I could have sworn an Attack of the Clones cue was in there, but by now I couldn’t remember what scene it was (or what cue it was – just that it was a conversational, tense ambient music). I’m glad I wasn’t crazy. That said I’m not so sure it fits thematically (I also found the use of the Brother and Sister cue to be playing at Lando and Janna’s meeting to be VERY jarring).
Speaking of, thank you Emily for giving Williams his due :) That was always one of the things I was looking forward to most in this movie. Towards the end when a main character’s theme gets reworked…oh, it was magic :)
More to the main point of this post – I more or less grew up with the prequels and I’ve often thought the same thing. I was very new to Star Wars fandom when the prequels came out so it was the perfect time for me. I loved them (and still enjoy them). When TFA came out, I definitely was burned after having decades to read EU, dabble in my own fanfic and just have my own ideas of where things should have gone. That said I did still try to at least give them a fair shake and find things to like about them, even though I was still pretty vocal about it not being my preferred direction.
I will say I did really enjoy this review and I liked this movie. In fact I feel the same way about it – I think for me, Star Wars has always been about those big moments and character drama and emotional themes, and I think RoS delivered on that in a lot of ways (and I also like hall the ‘Big Three’ were used). The plotting/backstory I agree felt pretty cobbled together, and it always has. It’s a shame that there wasn’t more of a plan but…alas.
I have to admit, in some ways, I’m less interested in all of the political aspects (which I totally agree falls apart if you look too closely at it), but rather the whole drama of the Skywalker (and Palpatine) line. In that sense I think the movie delivered. I’ve said more in the spoiler thread though.
@52 / Lisa Marie:
I have to admit, in some ways, I’m less interested in all of the political aspects (which I totally agree falls apart if you look too closely at it), but rather the whole drama of the Skywalker (and Palpatine) line. In that sense I think the movie delivered. I’ve said more in the spoiler thread though.
I also think the lack of political focus in the Sequel Trilogy can also be chalked up to Disney looking at the criticisms of the Prequel Trilogy and deciding to play it safe by only giving it a minimum focus.
Personally, I think it was a mistake. I loved the politics of the Prequel Trilogy and seeing the governmental dysfunction and corruption that facilitated Palpatine’s ascension and the Sith Grand Plan.
And there was arguably so much story mileage that could’ve gotten better focus. How is the New Republic different from its predecessor? Is it making the same mistakes or new ones? After 50 years of nonstop conflict, has the Galaxy had enough and is willing to turn a blind eye to the First Order?
This is why I loved Claudia Grey’s Bloodlines because it answered these questions and showed the New Republic learned nothing from its predecessor and was doomed even before Hosnian.
@54 it’s funny you say that because I actually really like the prequels for that reason. It always felt odd to me that people criticized that it starts with a tax dispute or politics because it’s literally the story of the fall of a Republic. I think it has some important messages about how a government and an institution can become complacent and corrupt and fall (this goes for both the Republic and the Jedi). But at the same time, it’s all kind of being told along with (and paralleling) Palpatine’s corruption of Anakin.
But at least for the sequels, I was more interested in the characters themselves than the political backdrop. But I agree with you that there’s a lot more to say and I hope future tie in media continues to explore that. I’m not saying that I didn’t want more of that in the movies; I think it IS a flaw in the movies (I haven’t read any of the new books yet so I’m still not even sure what the First Order IS). It’s just not a dealbreaker flaw for me.
@55 / Lisa Marie:
(I haven’t read any of the new books yet so I’m still not even sure what the First Order IS).
Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath Trilogy shows the first seeds of the First Order being born from the Empire’s ashes following the final year of the Galactic Civil War. The aforementioned Bloodlines and Deliah Dawson’s Phasma also show more of the Order’s machinations in the lead-up to the destruction of the Hosnian system.
I mean, to be fair to the Films, they didn’t have the room to explore all this. Hell, it was the same with the Empire in the context of the Original Trilogy’s original release. We only got that backstory come the Prequels and I wish the transition from Empire to First Order had been just as smooth.
Like I was complaining earlier (@39), I like the concept of the First Order. I like the idea of a generation that grew up in the wake of the Empire’s fall…and ended up becoming even more devoted to the idea of the Empire than the old Imperials were at their heigh. For guys like Piett, it was a 9-5 job with a good pension. For guys like Hux, it’s almost religious zealotry.
And just like Snoke said of Kylo Ren, they’re children in masks and jackboots trying to emulate something they could never understand — that the Empire wasn’t meant to instill galactic order, but to instead enforce the will and designs of an arcane theocracy.
And if the execution had been tweaked just a little bit, it could’ve been something interesting instead of just Imperials Redux.
@55/Mr. Magic: I’ve seen it plausibly argued that the repetition in TFA was the point — that the First Order is basically just a group of Imperial wannabes who want to turn back the clock and restore the way things were under the Empire. I find that credible, because in real life, hate groups and fascists and the like are frozen in the past, their beliefs and rhetoric essentially indistinguishable from their counterparts from generations before. The rest of us move forward and strive to be better, but they believe things were perfect in the past and everything needs to be changed back to the way it was. So the fact that the First Order is just “Imperials Redux” is pretty authentic. And it serves to underline how different the Resistance looks, how much more inclusive it’s become. There was an intentional counterpoint between the stagnation of the FO and the evolution of the Resistance. It even set up Kylo’s rejection of the FO in TLJ — he recognized that it was an unworthy cause, a relic of the past that needed to be torn down.
(Nobody tell me if TROS retcons any of this. I haven’t seen it yet.)
Yes, I agree – I think I might have preferred, instead of the New Republic being completely obliterated, the idea that they are fighting a kind of terrorist reactionary cell still enamored with the ‘old ways’ perhaps uneasy with some of the change and chaos of the present day and idealizing the “order” of the past – they can still do some damage, perhaps, due to their funding from some Imperial remnant that had hoarded resources, they could even put together a ridiculous superweapon (which is actually lampshaded in this movie when one of the First Order officers says that the Starkiller base was a waste of resources when they could have been building a real fleet). Plus something like that I feel like could be resonant to today’s current state.
@56 / CLB:
Yeah, I’ll concede that’s a valid interpretation of Force Awakens. I’m just frustrated we didn’t get to see much of the New Republic on screen before Hosnian Prime went boom.
Then again, considering how quickly the Imperial Senate got disbanded off-screen in the original film, it’s just following tradition.
@57 / Lisa Marie:
Yeah, I also loved the acknowledgment of how cost-inefficient Starkiller Base was. It’s the argument everyone’s made about the Death Star for years both in the audience and within the literature like Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn: Treason.
@58/Mr. Magic: It’s entirely in keeping with historical precedent that tyrants and dictators want to spend huge amounts on massive, impractical projects that will be monuments to their power and ego, from the Pyramids to the Great Wall of China to the Dumb Wall of Trump. So the Death Star and Starkiller Base are in the same tradition.
The Great Wall of China had some utility I believe.
@60/princessroxana: Lots of monumental works have utility, but are still more extravagant than they need to be. For instance, the Three Gorges Dam in China, which is a single huge dam doing what could be done just as well by several smaller ones, and with less potential for catastrophic flooding if something went wrong.
I’m not sure we needed to see more of the New Republic in TFA, though it would’ve been nice to get a little more detail for why the First Order wanted to destroy them. General Hux’s fascist speech was a fairly broad villain speech of us vs. them and not much else. Some passing mention of a betrayal or a denial of representation from specific worlds would’ve added more depth, and it would’ve taken all of ten seconds screen time.
Same goes for Maz Kanata’s non-explanation for where she got the lightsaber. “Long ago from an Ugnaught scrap dealer on Bespin,” is all we needed. Or something to that effect.
@62/Kowalski: It’s not as if Star Wars has ever aspired to subtlety and nuance in its villains. It’s a kids’ adventure series inspired by the serials and pulps of the 1930s-40s, in which the villains were pure evil with no sympathetic qualities or relatable points of view.
Besides, people who are motivated by legitimate grievances don’t go around blowing up planets. Only psychopaths who crave power for its own sake do that. Any pretense they put on of being betrayed or denied would just be an excuse, the “look what you made me do” of the abuser. They might play on some people’s grievances and fears to manipulate them, but their own motivation would simply be the desire for power and dominance.
-63
Sorry, I should’ve been more clear. I didn’t mean pretenses or politics were needed for the sake of plot or story or finding some deeper meaning within the antagonists we’re watching (the books can flesh out that stuff). I wanted these things — brief mentions of them — primarily for the texture it would add to the universe, to give us a greater sense of time and place.
As I said in an earlier comment, what made the original 1977 movie feel bigger than what was shown to us were the throwaway references to the universe beyond the main characters. I didn’t know what the Senate looked like or how it functioned, and I didn’t know how the emperor swept it away, but it sure made the universe feel big and important.
@64 / Kowalski:
Bingo. The worldbuilding of the original film really is impressive even 42 years later. And I also wish Force Awakens had taken the same approach to building the post-Empire Galaxy of the Sequel Trilogy.
Star Trek also has a long history of these throwaway references adding flavor to the universe. “We haven’t seen the Romulans since the Tomed Incident.” What’s the Tomed Incident? Doesn’t matter, we’re moving on.
I think there was some planning before TFA. I think the plan went like this:
1) Movies are roller coaster rides. Nobody needs to explain a roller coaster ride.
2) Put all the plot points, characters stuff and backstory that detract from the roller coaster ride in the novels and call them “canon.”
@67/Allen: “Roller coaster ride” has always been the defining style of Star Wars since 1977. Heck, it invented the modern blockbuster action movie (along with Jaws). It came along at a time when cinematic science fiction was bleak, dystopian, somber, and slow-paced, and it revolutionized the medium with its thrill-ride sensibilities (which were widely scorned by critics and filmmakers at the time for dumbing down the industry).
Agreed, Christopher. But these new films have definitely eschewed and glossed over major plot points and plot logic in favor of “more feels.” The fact that a huge plot point of TFA was the destruction of people we only got to see when they were destroyed was pretty telling.
This is JJ’s way. He did the same to the Star Trek movies and they bear the same incoherence. The old films had the illusion of depth because they hinted at a larger world. The new films just show you another mind numbing special effects shot and think that’s story.
It ain’t.
@69/Allen: Again, I don’t see how that’s remotely different from what the original films did. Abrams was not right for Star Trek, but he’s perfect for Star Wars, because Star Wars has always, always been about the visceral over the rational, always about characters and emotions and sensations over plot logic or making sense.
“The fact that a huge plot point of TFA was the destruction of people we only got to see when they were destroyed was pretty telling.”
At least we actually saw them, which is more than we can say about anyone on Alderaan.
Fans have this way of mythologizing older productions, convincing themselves they were better or deeper than they actually were, and claiming that newer works are somehow worse for doing exactly the same things. Trek fans have been doing this for decades. People confuse the stuff they’ve filled in after the fact in their imaginations for stuff that was actually there in the text, and so they’re unfairly harsh toward the new stuff that they haven’t had time to rationalize or flesh out in the same way.
I went and saw the movie with my Dad last night and he said he loved it, in part because “it kept moving and there were no slow parts”. Which I thought was kind of funny given that I’ve heard complaints about the pacing (I have to admit I can do with a few more quiet moments, if for no other reason than it gives Williams’ score a chance to breathe).
Every real world person so far I’ve spoken to has liked to loved it, for what it’s worth. (In general, these aren’t people that consider themselves ‘fans’ or are the type to frequent blogs analyzing genre content – although some of my fan friends also loved it too, as did my husband and I.)
And yeah, CLB, I honestly feel that if the original were to come out today, it would be ripped to shreds, ha.
“always, always been about the visceral over the rational, always about characters and emotions and sensations over plot logic or making sense.” – I kind of love this quote because in a way this is how I’ve come to view the movies. I don’t mean it as an insult, or to say that there aren’t important or intellectual discussions and themes to be had. But for this movie was a flawed movie which I still found deeply satisfying on an emotional, thematic level. It’s a franchise that leans heavily into tropes, symbolism, visuals/music, repeating cycles, etc. And I’m fine with that. In a way it’s something like the creation story (unless you’re a Fundamentalist, I suppose) – it doesn’t ‘make sense’ on a scientific level, but it’s meant instead to transmit other types of truths. Plus, now we have stuff like the books and the TV shows which do a great job digging into the details.
@71/Lisamarie: As I recall, it was ripped to shreds when it came out, but more by professional critics and SF writers, many of whom found it to be mindless tripe.
I complained elsewhere about the retcons in RoS, like who has access to the force, then ran across this reminder:
“The original trilogy was helmed by three different directors and isn’t without its retcons and reversals, from A New Hope describing Luke’s father as dead when we later learn he’s alive and is Darth Vader, to Leia being revealed as Luke’s sister in Return of the Jedi after they kissed in the last movie.”
sequel-trilogy-needed-roadmap
So the messiness replicates the original trilogy.
-73
Not sure I can go along with that argument. The original trilogy isn’t perfect. Empire got away with one big familial twist, okay, but Jedi steered it into incestuous stupidity. Then again, Jedi has a lot of problems. An affable enough movie but structurally it’s a mess. Like two or three scripts glued together with barely a through line to hold it together. (Couldn’t they tie Jabba to the new Death Star somehow? Supplying slave labor in its construction, for example?)
Anyhow, I had hoped TROS could improve on ROTJ. A remake, for sure, but a better remake. Above the traditional messiness.
@74. K: Not exactly sure what you’re disagreeing with. “The original trilogy isn’t perfect” is the point. You seem to agree with the lack of roadmap or Endgame at the planning level. I should clarify that I was referring to retcons Abrams did to Johnson’s TLJ.
@74/Kowalski: It’s not as if the Hoth sequence that opened TESB was any more connected to what followed than the Jabba sequence in ROTJ. Both of them really just served to advance character arcs, and to be action set pieces to provide some initial excitement. Even the original film is like that to an extent, spending a remarkable amount of time following a couple of robots on their misadventures before we finally get into a story involving human beings.
You have to remember that these films were meant as homages to the ’30s and ’40s adventure serials Lucas watched as a kid. That’s why they have corny “episode” titles and opening scrolls, to mimic those serials. Every serial chapter opened in the middle of a cliffhanger that needed to be resolved before moving on to the next part of the story, which is why the two Lucas film series that paid homage to those serials — Star Wars and Indiana Jones — both open with smaller initial adventures before moving into the main plot. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
-74
Sorry, I misunderstood. I was disagreeing with the argument you see occasionally crop up that the old movie wasn’t perfect so they can repeat the same mistakes in the current movie too. I’d like for it not to be “traditional.” If they’re going to remake something, improve it.
-76
No, the Hoth sequence is there because the Empire — make that Vader — wants to find Luke. It’s in the opening crawl and serves as the through line of the movie. It’s the reason Vader later chases the Falcon and tortures Luke’s friends. It’s all about getting Luke.
Jedi doesn’t have such a strong through line as that or, as in the original movie, getting the plans to the Rebels. They take on Jabba to rescue Han, but does he serve some great importance to the Alliance? Not really. Not at that time. He’s just a good friend. Does Jabba have any connection to Vader or the Emperor or, heaven forbid, the Ewoks? Nope. Does Jabba even tempt Luke to join him as the Emperor does later, setting up a thematic connection? No.
Of course they’re based on the serials, but feature length movies are typically structured differently from serials. Raiders of the Lost Ark opened with a short adventure unrelated to the main story, but it’s not as unrelated as you might think. It’s about Indy finding a relic and having it taken from him by Belloq, right? Then what happens in the main story? It’s about Indy finding a relic and having it taken from him by Belloq and then the US Government. So there’s a thematic through line.
@78 / Kowalski:
Jedi doesn’t have such a strong through line as that or, as in the original movie, getting the plans to the Rebels. They take on Jabba to rescue Han, but does he serve some great importance to the Alliance? Not really. Not at that time. He’s just a good friend. Does Jabba have any connection to Vader or the Emperor or, heaven forbid, the Ewoks? Nope. Does Jabba even tempt Luke to join him as the Emperor does later, setting up a thematic connection? No.
The Jabba sequence at least is important insofar as that’s wrapping up loose ends going back to A New Hope with Han’s troubles with the Hutts and showcasing how much Luke has advanced as a Jedi in the year since he got his derriere handed to him by Vader on Bespin.
And don’t forget Luke Force Coking Jabba’s guards. That’s a pretty key indication early on he’s already walking the fine line between the Light and Dark sides and which will come to a head during the final minute of the Vader rematch.
Funny enough, though, the Jabba sequence at least arguably is strengthened somewhat because of Episode I.
The first Prequel film made a big deal about Tatooine being under the control of the Hutt clans and Anakin vowing to come back and free the other Slaves. But when he does come back and Shmi dies, he makes no effort to follow up on that pledge (though, in his defense, he was busy with the outbreak of the Clone Wars and the emotional trauma of losing his mother).
A quarter of a century later, Luke’s rescue of Han takes out Jabba and his syndicate and cripples the Hutt’s control of Tatooine. The son of Skywalker fulfills the promise Skywalker made and failed to execute.
I don’t know if it was intentional by Lucas, but that’s always been my interpretation of the Tatooine subplot running through the first two Trilogies.
@78/Kowalski: Yes, of course there are plot points that set up for later, but if that had been all it was about, it wouldn’t have needed to spend so long on all the business about Luke and Han. They could’ve just opened right with the walker attack and thrown in Ben’s spiritual visitation during the fight. Instead, they gave us an initial opening set piece that was more about re-establishing the characters and providing an initial “cliffhanger” sequence.
Too many people today assume that if something in a movie isn’t about plot, it’s unnecessary. But plot is just one of the basic elements of fiction, along with character, setting, and theme. The value of the opening sequences in these movies is that they give us a chance to get to know the characters and see their relationships developing. The original film spent a lot of time with the droids so that we’d learn to engage with them as characters rather than just mechanisms, and so we’d see how headstrong R2-D2 was. The Hoth sequence in TESB was largely about establishing Han Solo, who’d been mostly a scoundrel in the first film, as a more heroic figure, someone who cared enough about Luke to risk his life for him, as well as laying the groundwork for the romance with Leia. It also served to re-establish what the Force was and show that Luke had gained some ability to use it. The Jabba in ROTJ sequence was just as much about showing us where the characters were now. They were a well-oiled team, carrying out an organized plan rather than just reacting. Lando was fully part of the group now. Luke was a mature, confident Jedi. And so on. It did serve a purpose, because stories are not exclusively about plot. Plot means nothing without character.
(And I’d say that your Raiders example is more about character than theme. It sets up the rivalry between Indy and Belloq. Theme is more abstract, the central idea or philosophical message of a narrative.)
-79
Good points. I’ll keep them in mind when I watch ROTJ next time.
-81
I took the overall theme in Raiders being: not getting the valuable object or objects you seek and settling for the more fulfilling human relationship, much like the theme of one of its influences, Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
I think part of the other reason the RotJ opening sequence is important is pricely BECAUSE Han isn’t of great importance to the Alliance and he’s just their friend – it shows that Han is now part of a team/family, and builds up on the cameraderie and attachment that these characters have been building. It’s those attachments that are part of what make Luke who he is.
Likewise, one of the things I liked about RoS is that it kept the main three together for much of the movie and had a similar theme…like Lando says, they always had each other.
@83 / Lisamarie:
Yeah, and I think Steve Perry’s Shadows of the Empire novelization (which bridged Episodes V and VI — and I don’t care what Disney says, I still consider it canon) also addressed in-story why the Alliance allowed Luke and company to direct time and resources to rescuing Han.
The justification, if I remember right, was that:
1. The Alliance High Command was more flexible than Imperial Command.
2. More important, Leia successfully argued in favor of PR reasons. They owed Han (since the Battle of Yavin would’ve been lost if he hadn’t come back at the last minute to shoot at Vader’s TIE) and the Alliance needed all the good pilots they could get. And Han certainly fulfilled that criteria.
-82
Sure, I don’t have a problem with them rescuing Han because he’s a friend. Those character beats work perfectly. My issue is there being very little connection in the first act with the rest of the movie. The movie is a little more episodic than the two before it. There’s not a constant, propulsive reminder that we have to keep moving forward with these stolen plans or a manhunt for Luke.
-83
Would’ve been nice of the Alliance to let Commander Skywalker have a couple dozen troops, so they could just storm the palace and take Han by force. It sounds Imperial, I know, but they do end up killing everyone on the sail barge anyway. [shrug]
@84/Kowalski: I think the plan was to get Han out more clandestinely, but Jabba caught them and they had to escalate. Going in guns blazing from the start would’ve been a bad idea — Jabba’s fortress was well-defended and it would’ve cost a lot of Rebel lives to break in, not to mention all the innocent slaves inside (although that didn’t matter to anyone involved in blowing up the Death Star in the first movie). And Jabba had no reason to keep Han alive, so he could’ve just killed him before the Rebel force managed to break through. A quiet infiltration was the only plan that made any sense.
@84 / Kowalski:
Shadows of the Empire addressed the lack of Alliance backup during the Tatooine mission. The Alliance initially lent Rogue Squadron to Luke and company for their initial (and failed) attempt to intercept Slave I before it reached Tatooine (with the bonus that the attack could be used to disrupt an Imperial supply depot).
If I remember right, by the time they tried again, the Alliance was marshaling its forces in preparation for Endor and Rogue Squadron was unavailable. Plus, they were also trying to keep a low profile on Tatooine to avoid the resident Imperials and Jabba (whose thugs already attacked Luke during the story at the behest of the Black Sun crime syndicate). So CLB is correct in @85 that the guns blazing approach was never on the table.
And as it is, killing Jabba also caused the Big Three long-term consequences in the old Legends multimedia as well, if I remember right. Jabba’s death crippled the Desilijic clan and they put out a bounty on Leia and the others. It wasn’t until the Desilijics lost more power and it became too costly for the Hutts’ relations with the New Republic that it was finally rescinded.