Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

"Thought it was a bunch of mumbo jumbo. A magical power holding together good and evil, the dark side and the light? Crazy thing is, it’s true. The Force, the Jedi, all of it. It’s all true."


Growing up with an older brother who loves all things sci-fi and fantasy with Star Wars at the very top of his list, one might assume my own appreciation for the original trilogy was inevitable. However, it was hardly love at first sight for me. My awesomely nerdy best friend in grade school graciously sat me down one Saturday to binge watch the movies on VHS, but I was an easily distracted 11-year-old brat and the epic space opera barely held my attention. It took about two more years for Star Wars to irrevocably become one of my favorite things ever, when another super cool classmate invited the entire gang to the cinema for the Special Edition rereleases. Shamefully, I must admit the shiny newly inserted special effects blew my adolescent mind, having no respect for (let alone any concept of) cinematic preservation, but I'd like to believe the experience of seeing the films at the cinema is what finally awakened my fandom. My love for the original trilogy has only grown over the years. The first Star Wars Trilogy was a gateway to Akira Kurosawa samurai pictures and an unending fascination with the monomyth by way of Joseph Campbell, profoundly shaping what I perceive to be good storytelling.

STAR WARS
1977 | Dir. George Lucas | 121 Minutes
The original Star Wars is bottled lightning plain and simple. Robots, aliens, mind powers, laser swords, dogfights in space - it's a testament to how well a mish-mash of ideas and genres can come together to form a cohesive rollicking adventure given the right circumstances. Far from a perfect film, even after all of the post-1977 tinkering the dialogue is noticeably flat in places and the pacing at the start with Artoo and Threepio's run-in with the Jawas has always seemed off to me, but there is a true earnestness to Luke's emotional journey that really carries the film thanks to Mark Hamill's natural performance. With each rerelease, the reinserted Jabba the Hutt scene sticks out like a sore thumb no matter how much they retexture and upscale the not-quite-massive-enough digital slug because the scene just doesn't work in the grand scheme of things, and the Han and Greedo scene somehow continues to evolve as a hilarious debacle. McClunky Forever, baby.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
1980 | Dir. Irvin Kershner | 124 Minutes
The Empire Strikes Back is among only a handful of sequels that are better than their predecessors. It will likely remain the best picture of the nine mainline installments. It was my least favorite installment in my youth but it became one of my favorite movies ever over the years. The music from the Battle of Hoth plays in my head every winter when I'm shoveling the driveway. Han, Leia, Chewie, and Threepio fleeing the Empire is viscerally exciting but what really speaks to me on recent rewatches is the wisdom that Yoda imparts on Luke, the value of having patience and faith in oneself, and to not let one's emotions run amok and take control of one's actions. I'm thankful that Lucas tinkered with this one the least, and the changes he made actually make sense, mostly just patching up flaws in the special effects.

RETURN OF THE JEDI
1983 | Dir. Richard Marquand | 132 Minutes
Return of the Jedi was my favorite entry in the series for the longest time. Vader's redemption arc has always appealed to me in a big way as I've always been a big fan of closure. Real talk, I loved the Ewoks when I was a kid, convinced myself I grew out of them when I was a teen, and now I adore them again - CGI-augmented blinking be damned. My opinion of the film turned when I realized that the saga ends with a ragtag army of teddy bears defeating the Empire's supposedly best troops. Almost overnight, I began to detest all of the Endor scenes and, by extension, the whole movie. Years later, I learned to not take Star Wars as some form of nerd gospel and I've been much happier since. The extra musical number in Jabba's palace that's been in place since the Special Edition rerelease remains a garish assault on the senses, but I remember it was the replacement of the Ewok celebration song with a new musical arrangement that angered my best friend in grade school the most. Little did we know back then that on subsequent reissues, Lucas would have Vader shout "Nooo!" as he chucked the Emperor into oblivion, and a creepy Force Ghost Hayden Christensen would replace Sebastian Shaw and his epic eyebrows. Too funny.


The excitement was off the charts for a Star Wars Prequel Trilogy chronicling the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker. I fondly remember me and my best friends gathering around the TV for the highly anticipated premiere of the teaser trailer for the first brand new Star Wars movie in fifteen years. The preview alone was a genuine cinematic event as diehard fans drove ticket sales for mediocre 20th Century Fox pictures like the three-hour slog Meet Joe Black just to see two minutes of fresh Star Wars footage on the big screen. Figures in the fog, smooth shiny new spaceships, Mathilda from The Professional in Kabuki makeup shooting an intriguing glance, the guy from Trainspotting as young Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sam "Bad Mother Fucker" Jackson as a Jedi Master, and a Satanic-looking baddie firing up a (holy shit!) double-bladed lightsaber. We were convinced this new set of Star Wars films was going to be the best movies ever. Needless to say, they were not. The major story beats are fine on paper and present some fascinating world-building that goes beyond detailing events that were only alluded to in the original trilogy. However, much of what works is overshadowed by objectively lousy execution and questionable storytelling decisions.

STAR WARS: EPISODE I - THE PHANTOM MENACE
1999 | Dir. George Lucas | 133 Minutes
The Phantom Menace was my first moviegoing experience in which the entire auditorium cheered when the title of the film appeared on screen, but as exhilarating as that was, things swiftly took a sharp turn for the worse. Awful dialogue, Jar Jar Binks, midichlorians, intergalactic C-SPAN - it all just felt... off... For reasons that remain unclear to me, the friend who invited me to the Special Edition screenings only a few years prior whispered a major spoiler in my ear just as Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were about to face off against Darth Maul on Naboo. On the car ride home from the theater, I found myself questioning whether or not I even liked the movie. I read all of the published professional reviews and think pieces I could get my hands on and nearly all of them suggested George Lucas had lost his way, and that he might just be racist against Asians and black people from the Caribbean as evidenced in the Neimoidians and Gungans that sprung from his imagination. In a perpetual state of denial, my brother and I rewatched the movie in theaters nearly every other week for the next six months. In hindsight, while it isn't a great film, it was never going to live up to all the hype surrounding it and despite it all, its big picture plot points mostly work: a remarkably clever child is separated from his mother to take his first step into a larger world while a dark figure sows political discord from the shadows. The pod race sequence is thoroughly entertaining and, though the outcome was forever spoiled for me, the climatic lightsaber duel is really damn cool.

STAR WARS: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES
2002 | Dir. George Lucas | 142 Minutes
Attack of the Clones is not only the worst installment of the prequel trilogy, it's the worst Star Wars movie out of all nine, but I'm convinced I genuinely loved it after seeing it the first time opening weekend. I distinctly remember telling a high school crush that it was far better than Episode I and her guy friend telling me I was full of shit. I also distinctly remember this one guy in the audience asking out loud "Who eats fruit with a fork and knife?" and getting a huge laugh from the crowd on one of countless screenings my brother and I attended. The biggest problem with the movie is that the love story that's supposed to be its centerpiece simply doesn't work. Hayden Christensen's creepy teenage Anakin and Natalie Portman's blandly conflicted Padme make for a painfully unlikable couple. Thankfully most of the action is pretty great, especially the battle scenes on Geonosis, but I still have misgivings over the decision to have Yoda bound about with a lightsaber, and I outright despise the goofy robot factory sequence that plays like a big budget Nick Arcade challenge. Anakin's steady descent into the Dark Side triggered by the loss of his mother actually works extraordinarily well in the grand scheme of things and the Detective Obi-Wan subplot is captivating.

STAR WARS: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH
2005 | Dir. George Lucas | 140 Minutes
Revenge of the Sith is easily best movie of the prequel trilogy. I'm not a big fan of Yoda and Obi-Wan's respective final Clone Wars missions but everything happening with Anakin and Palpatine on Coruscant is genuinely engaging despite a few odd and occasionally distracting acting choices. From the moment Palpatine issues Order 66, the film becomes the Star Wars prequel I always wanted, culminating the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker in the most spectacular ways. The emotionally repressed Jedi Order fails him, and believing he has no other option that will enable him to save his wife from certain doom, Palpatine convinces him that the Dark Side will grant him the power to cheat death. It's compelling stuff. It's also total nonsense that Padme apparently dies from a broken heart, so in my head canon she was done in by internal injuries from when Vader choked her. A grim interpretation for sure, but the film had already gone to some profoundly dark places by this point. The inevitable lightsaber fight between Vader and Obi-Wan on Mustafar is my favorite action sequence of the prequels and, hot take, I like "Battle of the Heroes" more than "Duel of the Fates".


Did fans need a Star Wars Sequel Trilogy that takes place after the fall of the Empire? Probably not. Did fans want these movies? That depends entirely on who you ask. If anything, the Star Wars sequels released by corporate behemoth Disney have further fractured an already divided fanbase by completely replacing decades of expanded universe lore with a new imperfect canon. Overblown internet backlash against the sequel trilogy even managed to somehow galvanize the obnoxiously loud toxic internet troll contingent. While these pictures are not groundbreaking cinema in any way, I am very fond of them. The visual aesthetic skews much closer than the prequel trilogy to my preferred vision of Star Wars, the action is consistently fantastic and, despite its overall inconsistency, the overarching story does a fine job expanding on the major themes of the original trilogy: finding faith, defying destiny, and resistance against tyranny.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
2015 | Dir. J. J. Abrams | 136 Minutes
The Force Awakens may be derivative but it totally works as the start of a new monomyth cycle. I liken this first sequel to a decent cover album consisting of greatest hits with one or two original tracks that are surprisingly good. Rey and Finn are excellent new protagonists as Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are instantly likable, and I immediately bought into their respective journeys: a capable young woman in search of her identity and a remorseful young man on the run from trouble at every turn. I think it's fiendishly clever that the central villain is a toxic fanboy who worships a dead fascist. All in all, the picture does a fine job of setting the stage for potentially more interesting stories to come. Unfortunately, I went to see this one alone on opening night as none of my friends and family were able to join me. However, I was overcome with a real sense of community while chatting with fellow Star Wars fans as we gradually entered the theater and took our seats. I believe we all felt our collective enthusiasm was duly rewarded based on the conversations we had as the credits rolled.

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
2017 | Dir. Rian Johnson | 152 Minutes
The Last Jedi is something of a raw nerve for Star Wars fans but I am one of the nuts who unequivocally love it. The thematically rich adventure is centered on accepting failure. While I understand why certain diehard fans aren't thrilled with Luke's character arc, I find it to be a fascinating turn of events that falls in line with the reality that many heroes don't live up to their respective legends. Like his father, Luke is not an infallible paragon. His disenchantment with the Jedi contextualizes the overarching narrative of the prequel trilogy in a way that makes a lot of sense to me, stating outright the idea that the Jedi Order, steeped in arrogance, perhaps did more harm than good. When all is said and done, Luke still performs a mind-blowing heroic feat at the end of his journey to give the Resistance some much needed hope, and that’s what matters. Finn and Rose’s controversial extended side quest failed to directly assist their friends and allies but they managed to inspire a new generation to rebel. While Rey failed to complete her training, and further failed to bring Ben Solo back from the Dark Side, in the end she remains the hero the galaxy needs. Perhaps the one idea presented in this film that appeals to me the most is that Force does not belong to the Jedi or the Sith, that the Force can be strong with anyone.

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
2019 | Dir. J. J. Abrams | 142 Minutes
The Rise of Skywalker is objectively the weakest film of the third Star Wars cycle, sidelining or outright dismissing the original ideas introduced in The Last Jedi and taking even fewer creative risks than The Force Awakens. It is far from a perfect conclusion to the nine-picture Skywalker Saga, paced haphazardly and plagued with structural problems, but there is much fun to be had on this adventure if you are willing to go along with its nonsense - in essence, it roughly resembles a microcosm of the Star Wars franchise as a whole, warts and all. It is packed with fan service moments of varying effectiveness, the convoluted exposition at the top of the film is laid on thick, and plot developments range from surprisingly flat to logically questionable, but the non-stop action keeps things moving, the visuals are gorgeous, and the principal cast continues to do a fantastic job keeping the grand space opera engaging. For all the story beats the film glosses over or breezes through, the last episode directly explores Palpatine's quest to cheat death introduced in Revenge of the Sith, it definitively concludes the remaining Skywalkers' respective character arcs in an emotionally resonant way, and it effectively reiterates the central theme of redemption that runs through the entire saga.


007 CONNECTIONS
- Benicio del Toro (Dario in Licence to Kill)

- Daniel Craig (James Bond in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre, and No Time To Die)


MCU CONNECTIONS

- Natalie Portman (Jane Foster in Thor, Thor: The Dark World, Avengers: Endgame, and Thor: Love and Thunder)

 - Andy Serkis (Ulysses Klaue in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Black Panther)

- Lupita Nyong'o (Nakia in Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)

- Benicio del Toro (Taneleer Tivan in Thor: The Dark World, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Avengers: Infinity War)

- Ralph Ineson (Ravager Pilot in Guardians of the Galaxy)

- Hannah John-Kamen (Ava Starr in Ant-Man and the Wasp)

- Michaela Coel (Aneka in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)
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