How Little I Care, But….Star Wars Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker

I’m not a fan-boy. That said, I like the Star Wars mythos as I understand it from the films (and the visual world-building is remarkable), but had to double-check to make sure that Mos Eisley is a place, not a person (I got confused with a character’s name in the current episode.)

I really don’t like the prequels, don’t particularly care for “The Jedi Strike Back” and view the last three tales of the saga with a mix of sentiment, curiosity, and indifference. I’m not inured to cultural cachet of the series and yes, I teared up whenever Carrie Fisher was on-screen and yes, I found certain parts of this last chapter moving, despite the staple gun patchwork of the script. That latter part feeds the indifference. The curiosity, of course, is how these new films were going to address this massive franchise.

Turns out, the new films aren’t bad, but that is most decidedly damning with faint praise. “The Force Awakens” is a beat for beat remake of “The Last Hope” and I actually really like Johnson’s take on the series with his “The Last Jedi”. Conventions and expectations were subverted, it was – for the most part – a fleet telling of episodic narrative, and this last one is okay.

I put off seeing it until now and I’m glad I did because the reviews left me thinking there was no major necessity to see it. There wasn’t. It doesn’t make sense to see a Star Wars movie on the small screen and if nothing else, Abrams knows how to set up shots and execute.

There’s not a lot to write about it, though, from my end. There is no challenging thematic arc to delve into, much less celebrate. It’s just such a safe bit of filmmaking and say what we will about the prequels, they did take chances (many of them wrong) and had the scripts been tighter (or just plain well written), there might have been more meat on the bones.

And it’s the lack of meat the leaves one undernourished here. For a series touted as a new cultural mythos now integrated into the pop fabric of our lives, there’s precious little depth to chew on. That actually could be said of all the films except for “The Empire Strikes Back” which began to deepen and enrich what was originally just a popcorn ode of epic proportions to Lucas’s love of the old Buster Crabbe “Buck Rogers” serials.

Therein lies the problem. When Lucas started touting his reading of Joseph Campbell and how he was studying the great myths and archetypes, he set himself up for the kind of lambasting that comes with a level of pretension outside the realm of the whiz-bang of the materials that inspired him and led to the clunkiness of execution that has plagued the subsequent  movies.

As much as I enjoy “The Empire Strikes Back”, it raised the bar too high for what was to follow. Instead of being simply a movie with which to entertain, Lucas – by way of his public pronouncements, freighted it and the subsequent films with a weight they couldn’t support. Never mind that they’re not all that good. They’re simply not. They’re fun (for the most part), they’re diverting (extremely), but at the end of the day, structurally and thematically, they’re messes.

It's too easy to dismantle the prequels, though I’ll say this for them: there are good ideas in them that could have been much more compelling under other showrunners. Additionally, as visual works, they’re exceptional. To ILM’s credit, they advanced CGI technology far beyond what it was at the time and helped bring about much of what we take for granted nowadays.

But the Abrams/Johnson/Abrams era deserves some examination. I’m not going to take a deep dive here. I just want to make some general observations and ask some questions.

I don’t like disparaging anyone and I truthfully think Abrams is very talented. However, he’s not a visionary, and he’s not terribly original. His template for filmmaking is Spielberg, obviously, but Abrams does not have Spielberg’s storytelling talent nor his genuine sense of character and the humanity characters need to breathe life in them.

“Mission Impossible III” was a solid start in franchise filmmaking about a series I couldn’t care less about. The main draw was the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman giving a master class in acting at every turn (it’s really unfair to have put him in the same scene with Tom Cruise – and yes, Paul Thomas Anderson did it earlier in “Magnolia” – but poor Tom…he just fades into the two dimensional one note movie star he often is) in an action cartoon that is often lauded for watching the hero cry. That last bit is significant and I’ll come back to it.

“Super 8” was fun. A pleasant, pre-“Stranger Things” homage to mighty Steve Spielberg (and to some degree, Zemeckis and Dante). Earth-shattering? Nope. A nice little nostalgic effluvium that may well have come from the heart but at the end of the day, felt like a by-the-numbers remake of a minor film that might have been fondly remembered.

“Star Trek” and “Star Trek 2: the remake of ‘The Wrath of Khan’”. No better example of the shortness of ideas exists than these. The conceit of messing about with the OST’s timeline is cool, and I enjoyed the first movie as – again  this – an exercise in nostalgia; but at the end of the day, it’s much ado about very little. Except lots of lens flare. The second reboot/remake is more indicative of one of Abrams’ biggest weaknesses; the mistaking of the appearance of a much-loved character or much recognized figure speaking deeply or doing something “meaningful” (like weeping) as a substitute for genuine human emotion and feeling.

If Spock/Nimoy were not such revered cultural touchstones, it’s unlikely that any of the scenes with Quinto would have had the weight they did. Seeing Tom Cruise as Ethan Whosits cry is allegedly a huge iconic breakthrough, humanizing the character or some such. But this is nonsense; it’s called going for the easy reactions. I don’t know that these are cheap shots, but it’s narratively lazy. To be fair, and a little honest, I do enjoy moments like this because a) these are good casts and b) who doesn’t appreciate a little fan service?

Fan service, though, is what Abrams traffics in the most heavily. It’s tedious, though, because he offers so little else. To wit, “The Force Awakens”.

(Before I start in on that, let me just say that I didn’t see “Star Trek Beyond”. I couldn’t be bothered.)

I said above that “The Force Awakens” is a beat for beat remake of “The Last Hope” and while that’s a common observation, I’ll give J.J. some credit for at least setting up the new cast, all of whom were really good. But again, any sense that the Star Wars saga was entering a radically new era or reimagining was left to the next guy.

Here's the thing, though. I – like everyone else – was moved by certain moments in the flick. This is usually where I get pissed at myself for being so malleable and subject to crass manipulation. But even I have to admit that there are genuine notes of accomplishment here; the original trilogy is etched deep in the cultural heart as a shared experience and it’s hard to deny that there is an emotional resonance.

The last scene of Mark Hamill in “The Force Awakens” promised great things and Rian Johnson delivered a number of things that I like very much. Whether they were great is another matter; I think they were very, very good.

“The Last Jedi” took much of the Star Wars myth and hagiography and stood it on the head. But that’s what gave the “The Last Jedi” so much of its vitality. We also got to know the new kids better (though the casino scene went on far too long) but we had a felt sense of the old guard’s story concluding gracefully. Watching Han Solo die at his son’s hand was earned tragedy; knowing that Leia had some of that ol’ Force magic was a good touch, and Luke dying after one last big Jedi moment was a fitting end. Of course, it hurt that knowing that Carrie Fisher had died might mean a different arc for Leia lay in the background, but while in the film, the story felt fresh in a way it hadn’t in thirty years.

However, fan-boys are a vocal bunch. The trolling of Kelly Marie Tran, the bitching and griping about Johnson’s perceived lack of respect for the material and all the other bullshit – and it is bullshit – were either cumulative elements that the studio and Abrams (as producer) should have faced down and shut down or as they proved to be in the latest outing, determining factors in doubling down on fan service and letting the vocal masses have their way.

The result is a half-assed piece of work that succeeds only because the actors involved know how to commit to their craft so well and can lend some kind of life to underwritten parts. It’s all there, though: Han Solo as a Force ghost delivering fatherly advice, Leia giving it her all one last time to save her son, Luke mentoring Rey from The Beyond. And fuck all, we get Emperoro (that started out as a typo; I’m leaving it in) Palpatine back! A character no one missed and who has not been a presence in thirty plus years but all of a sudden, we learn has been pulling the strings (likewise from The Beyond, or whatever you call it in the Force Dictionary). Bitch, please.

Did I fall for all this? Did I choke up? Yes. And I hate myself for doing so because these characters deserve better. I do want to see Han and Ben make up, who doesn’t? But it would have made for a stronger film if Ben Solo had come to his redemption on his own or through some other agency (as in Rey finally getting through to him).

Did we need to see Luke playing uncle to Rey (be careful, Rey, from what Kylo Ren tells us, Luke’s a lousy uncle)? No. No, we did not. Rey could have found her full powers under Leia’s Forceful machinations or using some other device. Did we need Palpatine? Did we need Palpatine to be Rey’s fucking (sorry, but this is the laziest device yet) GRANDFATHER? No. No, we absofuckinglutely did not. Did we need Lando Calrissian? (Okay. Got me. Yes. Yes, we did. Seeing Billy Dee Williams do his thing was awesome!)

This last chapter in the Star Wars saga is the very example of what contributes to the fatigue associated with poorly told tales. There’s the promise of a richer narrative and there’s even some degree of hope it’ll happen but the creative team behind this third of the final trilogy was not the team to provide any of that.

I said above that I don’t want to disparage anyone and to be fair, “The Rise of Skywalker” is a relatively fleet bit of movie, though it could have been trimmed down substantially. Again, the cast did the most with what they had and introducing Zorii (Keri Russell), a woman from Poe’s past, was a good idea, one that maybe could have been earlier in the tale or at least, mentioned earlier so that we have more of a build-up instead of one of these “YOU!” moments that come out of nowhere and feel more like a distraction than a real plot device.

I need to circle back to letting fans have so much power. Every time I hear something like the sentiment “you’ve ruined my (childhood/adolescence/stunted adulthood)”, I really want to puke on that person’s shoe. I’m an audient, a reader, a viewer, and yes, a fan of many things that I like and I don’t want to have any say on what’s right/what’s not. This is up to the musician, the author, the choreographer, the creative team. If I’m not happy with a piece, it’s not the piece’s fault per se. As with these reviews/essays, I can lay out why I don’t think a piece works or why it does, but ultimately, it’s more about me than the work.

But when a director, a writer, or anyone capitulates to the influence of the audience, then they’re no longer creating. They’re reacting. What we get, then, is a mish-mash of half-thought-out, barely considered characters and plot threads poorly sewn together.

The most egregious, indeed the most rotten and to employ an oft-used and accurate term, toxic aspect of this is the vilification of Rose Tico. She proved a vital part of this new generation and that the fan-base was able to leverage their misogyny to have her marginalized so very much is the ugliest part of this. This may be the principle reason why I feel that Abrams and company don’t deserve much in the way of accolade. Their quisling retreat before these little boys with big mouths (and presumably, Disney’s support of their non-action) is indicative of the last point that I shouldn’t have to bring up.

Star Wars is a multi-billion dollar industry. My guess is that the capitulations to fan service and near-erasure of a female character (who wasn’t – what? – stacked and/or scantily clad enough for the basement dwellers?) were in part motivated by not wanting to damage – however small that might have been – the revenues that would accrue from rolling out this tired retread and its attendant merchandise (“look, mommy! It’s the new collectible 78 year old Han Solo doll!”)

Yeah. I’ll reiterate; I’m not a fan, boy.

Looking to the future? I don’t know. Don’t really care. I doubt I’ll run out and see another Star Wars related movie, unless it’s on the same level as “Rogue One” (which was remarkable and it’s that movie that was responsible for any interest I had in these later ones).  

I think I’ll happily take a break from big franchise movies (until “Black Widow” opens in May) and turn my attention to some not-so-recent films.