Tag: Star Wars

The Rise of Skywalker and the final word in the accelerated saga

Posted on by victorfraga

WARNING: THIS ESSAY MAY CONTAIN MILD SPOILERS

There is a short documentary webisode that lies on the DVD extras of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999) that, thanks to YouTube, I often go back to. The scene begins on November 1st, 1994 and features George Lucas in his writing cabin beginning work on what will become the Prequel Trilogy of Star Wars films. He takes the camera crew around his den showing them his fresh paper pads and boxes of pens and his clunky desktop computer. He then collapses in his chair, exhausted by the prospect of writing these movies and sighs into the air “now all I need is an idea.”

What fascinates me about this footage is the fact that Lucas set out to write a film series that wouldn’t see the light of day for another five years. The Phantom Menace hit theatres in May 1999 and the subsequent films would be spread out over a further six years, with Attack of the Clones coming in 2002 and Revenge of the Sith [pictured below] in 2005. The Prequel Trilogy represents over a decade of dedication, not just Lucas’s part, but a whole team of creatives. As Lucas comments in the same clip “It starts with me sitting here doodling in my little binder but it ends up with a couple of thousand people working together in a very tense, emotional, creative way.” The Prequel Trilogy, despite its faults in direction, pacing, dialogue delivery, acting technique, racist stereotyping, and narrative elements that hinders the overall arc of Darth Vader’s origins, it has stood the test of time and like the Original Trilogy have become cinematic classics that have found a new life in the online world of memes and Reddit and YouTube theory posts. The dedication to scope, world-building, and mythology that might have slowed the films down to a death crawl has actually paid off.

Let’s talk a bit about about slow. Though I’m sure he wasn’t thinking of it at the time, Lucas’s decade long endeavour is an excellent example of the slowness philosophy that is often applied to other outlets: slow cooking, living, parenting, teaching, travel, and technology. The slow philosophy promotes attention to detail, to savour the moment, to experience something at a leisurely pace. These are attributes that rarely apply to blockbuster cinema. Knowing that a decade of one’s life is going to be set aside for the writing and production of three sci-fi fantasy movies is impressive, but what is more impressive is Lucas’s 15-year gap between the Original and the Prequel Trilogies. Star Wars was all but a forgotten pop-culture artifact when Lucas decided to resurrect it in the mid-1990s.

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Fast forward to the present

Our times are not the same as George Lucas’s heyday. When Disney purchased the Star Wars brand towards the end of 2012 the entertainment conglomerate pushed to have the new Star Wars films in theatres with almost immediate effect.

The first of the Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Force Awakens {J. J. Abrams) came in 2015. Since then a Star Wars related film has been released every year. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards) followed in 2016, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) in 2017, Solo: A Star Wars Story (Ron Howard) in 2018 and finally as 2019 closes, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J. J. Abrams) [pictured at the top and the bottom of this article] rounds off the Skywalker Saga. What took Lucas 28 years to complete with his two trilogies Disney has managed (minus one film, though the Disney+ show The Mandalorian is arguably an epic film-like production) in five.

I’m raising this point for a number of reasons. Firstly, the nature of cinema has accelerated to the point of almost exhaustive collapse. The Star Wars franchise is an excellent case in point but look to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for an even more hyperreal example. The first two phases, beginning with Ironman in 2008 (Jon Favreau; pictured below) and ending with Ant-Man (Peyton Reed) in 2015 saw 12 films issued, six films per phase. Twelve films over seven years is somewhat excessive, but no way in comparison to Phase 3 of the MCU, which unleashed 11 films in the space of four years. Secondly, the “quality over quantity” aspect of slowness has been reversed in this new accelerated cinematic landscape and the Sequel Trilogy and the Star Wars anthology films have been critically shredded and in some cases angrily dismissed by the fan base. All aspects of Disney’s production, from story to direction, art design to acting, casting to costume, editing decisions to the script has been dissected, ridiculed, memed, criticised and dispatched. A cottage industry has developed in which fans of the franchise call Disney out in public. Some of this criticism is justified – the narrative swerves and odd characterisation seen in The Last Jedi is somewhat meta for a blockbuster movie, whilst some of this criticism is uncalled for and downright cruel – the hounding of the films female actresses for example.

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All downhill from here?

Despite my admiration and even genuine like of the Sequel Trilogy, I realise something is off. There is a hollowness and lack of depth to the overall arc and coincidence and convenience has replaced storytelling in order to make the narrative of this trilogy happen. There is also the mismatched direction of J.J Abrams and Rian Johnson that barely correspond to each other with any fluidity. Though the Original Trilogy had different directors for each film, George Lucas was the overseer in creating a consistent set of movies. Here Abrams and Johnson have set out agendas and arcs only to retract, change, or ignore them completely. These elements might be answered in books, TV shows, cartoons, comics, and games, they will certainly be debated ad nauseum for years to come by Star Wars YouTubers and Reddit threads.

The Rise of Skywalker arrives with diminished fanfare and an expectation that the film will be a disappointment in some way or another. Script leaks captured early criticism and the recovery is not yet in sight. I’ll not divulge the narrative or offer a review as such. These have been offered in countless forums across the internet. What I want to discuss are elements of the film that hinders its overall impact as a film and a conclusion.

The film suffers from plot devices (I’m refusing to use the term ‘McGuffin’ though that is what they are), thrown in simply to get the action rolling at a chaotic pace. A Wayfinder device, an ancient dagger, an old adversary, a revealed heritage, the introduction of new (and old) characters, and new and unexplained Force abilities. In themselves, these are not bad ideas. What they are are underdeveloped ideas, ideas which would have benefited from inclusion and explanation way before this film. Suddenly, and as a reaction to the swerves taken in The Last Jedi, a whole new narrative apparatus has had to be created in order to get one movie on track towards the whole saga’s conclusion. It’s an exhausting experience that leaps from one planet to another at dizzying speed. Time accelerates in this film’s presence.

The quite literal resurrection of Emperor Palpatine [pictured above] for the final chapter is welcome only due to that particular character’s utter and delirious wickedness. In reality, it makes little sense and is never really explained, and despite denials from Abrams, the inclusion is an obvious quick fix for Johnson’s despatch of Supreme Leader Snoke in The Last Jedi. We’re led to believe Palpatine has been pulling the strings for the past three decades and with only a few flourishes of dialogue the whole dilemma is snuffed out without question.

Character arcs and actions are redundant or unbelievable. Many complained (including Mark Hamil himself) that Luke Skywalker’s grizzled and downtrodden turn in The Last Jedi failed to correspond with Luke’s optimistic and adventurous persona in the Original Trilogy. In The Rise of Skywalker, characters we’ve been shown to be egotistical devils are suddenly performing actions contrary to this perception. Take, for example, General Hux. In The Force Awakens, Hux is a proto-fascist zealot of the dreaded First Order. A man whom with spit in his mouth and tears in his eyes directs a destructive laser towards the heart of the New Republic government planets and snuffs out potentially billions of citizens. In The Rise of Skywalker, he turns his back on the First Order and allows our heroes to escape and set about the destruction of the First Order. This is not a realistic action of a character we’ve come to know as a snivelling repellent. It is an action that is nonetheless required by the script to get one set of characters from A to B.

And whilst the characters may physically move from A to B, their actual emotional arcs are pretty much stuck. The main character of Rey, for example, has garnered many Force abilities and earned wisdom from her adventures. But, ultimately, she ends up where she began the trilogy, alone on a desolate backwater desert world staring off into the horizon not really knowing her path. In the Original Trilogy, there was knowledge that Luke, Han, and Leia had weathered many crises in the intervening years between episodes. During the Galactic Civil War, there was genuine loss and upheaval. The end of the Original Trilogy showed (thanks to the 2004 Special Editions) citizens celebrating the end of the Empire across many different worlds. It was a universal victory. In The Rise of Skywalker, the victory, if there even is one for the galaxy, is far more subdued and personal. Has Rey really won a galaxy? Will she lead a new collective government of begin a new Jedi Order? Her story ends at the pinnacle of a new dawn with no victors as such and raises more questions for the wider galaxy than it can answer. Judging by some of her questionable Force actions (she shoots bolts of Sith lightning and destroys a ship supposedly holding her conrade), she might even be a future danger to the galaxy.

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Not all doom and gloom

The only character arc that is worth the whole saga is that of Kylo Ren/Ben Solo. As the main protagonist, Ren has carried a weight around his neck and his physical self seems in constant turmoil. When he succumbs to the Light Side as Ben Solo his whole body language and facial expressions become as light as a feather. His whole persona in the last half of the film is one of relief and we feel it with him. In this case Adam Driver really deserves the praise that has been granted him for this performance.

Criticism can be placed at George Lucas’s feet for many problems seen in past Star Wars movies. But his consistency in epic storytelling and worldbuilding was at least an asset. In The Rise of Skywalker, and the Sequel Trilogy as a whole, the whole galaxy seems smaller and you get the impression most have given up on the outcome of this conflict and that the battles are being fought on a much smaller scale in some deadbeat part of the galaxy. It is a reaction many audience members will also feel.

I will say The Rise of Skywalker offers the most complete Star Wars experience seen on screen since Revenge of the Sith, but its placement as a final chapter in the saga is ultimately redundant because of the previous inconsistency of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and now this film’s inconsistency to those films and the other trilogies. It doesn’t feel connected to past films. As a standalone film, The Rise of Skywalker is a treat, a rollicking adventure that twists and turns, offers plenty emotional gut punches, nostalgia kicks, and never for a moment bores. But it’s too little too late. The goodwill has been exhausted. The acceleration to rebirth Star Wars to a new generation is obviously rooted in firstly, making fast bucks, secondly, pushing merchandise and toys, and thirdly, signing up new subscribers to a streaming service. Intricate layered storytelling and gradual worldbuilding have been abandoned in this quest.

As a film, The Rise of Skywalker might stand as the final word in the Skywalker Saga, but what it should’ve been is the first word in a far broader and more expansive and diverse universe that was hinted at in The Last Jedi. But as the trilogy, and an entire saga is now at its end the roots have been severed from any potential future. Although I’m as eager as any Star Wars fan for more content, you wish in retrospect Disney had taken a leaf from Lucas’s book and just slowed down.

The TOP 5 most thought-provoking Star Wars films!

Posted on by victorfraga

It’s beginning to feel that Star Wars has become its own cinematic universe, rather than just a franchise. With the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story (pictured above), we’ve now seen the second of many proposed spin-offs, in addition to what will soon be nine core films. And while there are now countless rankings littered around the internet of which of these films are best or most enjoyable, we don’t talk as often about which ones gives us the most to think about. So that’s what we’ll focus on here.

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1. Solo: A Star Wars Story (Ron Howard, 2018):

The public is still digesting this newest Star Wars film, but it seems that with specific regard to the franchise it will ultimately be among the most thought-provoking. That’s because this is the film, more than any other before it, that forces us to confront the somewhat sudden reality noted above: that Star Wars is now its own cinematic universe. One of the more interesting responses to Solo’s release came from The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey, and posed the question of what happens when a Star Wars story isn’t special or when, as the story also mentioned, such a story lacks a “wow factor.” The point here is not that Solo is a bad film, but that it feels more ordinary or run-of-the-mill in the context of a world in which we suddenly get a new Star Wars movie every year.

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2. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson, 2017):

The Last Jedi was polarizing, and by this writer’s estimation, disappointing. However, it was also particularly intriguing simply by way of introducing more new things to the universe than any other entry since The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999). We saw a Jedi stronghold/training island for the first time, for instance, in something of a loose homage to Luke and Yoda’s time together in The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980). We saw a space casino, in a possible throwback to the iconic cantina scene that also felt vaguely like pandering to young audiences. A wealth of one-of-a-kind games has rapidly grown the online casino gaming business, to the point that more young people are familiar with these types of games, and might have related to the playfulness of a space casino. We saw new creatures, new types of Imperial Walkers, a new Sith lair, Imperial Guards that actually did something, etc. Basically, in everything from setting to characters, The Last Jedi just established a new look.

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3. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards, 2016):

Not to harp too much on the newest of the Star Wars films, but there’s an argument to be made that Rogue One is actually the biggest outlier of them all, in terms of feeling like a one-off project. While not without flaws, it earned sweeping critical praise essentially for being a terrific war movie, with more than a few reviews comparing it to Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998). That might be a little bit of a stretch, but it does speak to the idea that Rogue One, more than any other film in this rapidly expanding franchise, taught us to question what a Star Wars film could be. It was the first such film made without a Skywalker, and while it directly concerned the events of A New Hope (George Lucas, 1997), it felt very much like a successful telling of a tale that simply happened to exist in the same universe. It opened the door for potentially limitless types of films for the franchise to explore.

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2. Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith (George Lucas, 2005):

Revenge Of The Sith might be the most thought-provoking film of them all strictly from a character standpoint. Say what you might about the prequel trilogy, but despite insistent reliance on silly creatures, cheesy visuals, and questionable acting performances, this trilogy accomplished its core goal: to depict the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker. Most who care about or even study the Star Wars saga agree that Anakin is in fact its core character, and Revenge Of The Sith is the film that really shows how he transitioned from promising Jedi to devastating Sith apprentice. It’s a film with some interesting messages about loyalty and influence somewhat cloaked in over-the-top (and actually fairly spectacular) action sequences.

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5. Star Wars: A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977):

If Revenge Of The Sith had the most going for it from a character perspective, A New Hope was probably the most significant in terms of pure filmmaking. Naturally it’s the film that started this whole, improbable ride, and it changed cinematic science fiction for all of time. As one ranking of the films put it, A New Hope showcased an exhilarating mix of old movie tropes and newfangled technology. It also combined an almost Old West style of drama and action with the unusual, unique zen of the Force. It was simply an original effort, and one that we can still look back on and be fascinated by when we think of how it set the tone for so much that was to come.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Disney has hit the mother lode with the Star Wars franchise and is wasting no opportunity to deliver to its huge, hungry fan market further films to fill in between the ‘official’ trilogy episodes eight and nine. This one takes the character of Han Solo, owner and pilot of legendary spaceship The Millennium Falcon and goes back to maybe 10 years before the events of the very first Star Wars film (aka Episode IV: A New Hope, George Lucas, 1977). The script is by veteran Lawrence Kasdan (most notably co-screenwriter on The Empire Strikes Back, Irvin Kershner, 1980) and one of his sons Jonathan; on the evidence of Solo: A Star Wars Story they appear two very safe pairs of hands.

I always had the feeling that George Lucas had lucked out casting the then largely unknown Harrison Ford as Han Solo in the first film. Perhaps Star Wars would still have been the monster hit it was with another actor in the part, but in his first major role Ford lit up the screen every time he came on. Much the same thing happened when Disney bought him back into the series for fan favourite Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J.Abrams, 2015). So the challenge for Solo is to find an actor who can bring to the teenage Han Solo something on a par with what Ford brought to the adult version of the character. Imitating Ford would probably be a mistake. Alden Ehrenreich turns out to be a good choice. His performance effortlessly includes mannerisms which are pure Harrison Ford so you can believe the one onscreen actor will grow into the other later on. Yet Ehrenreich is smoother and less wisecrack-ey. But, the important thing is, it works.

Speaking of imitation, something I personally hate is when a Star Wars film slavishly copies parts of earlier Star Wars films (or even one of the films more or less in its entirety). This really isn’t a charge that for the most part can be levelled at Solo which plays out as a series of unique set pieces: an urban speeder chase, an attempted escape from a planet which is a prison in all but name, an Imperial training base where Solo meets the wookie Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo, here playing a younger version of the character he played in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson, 2017), a raid on a (sort of) monorail train winding its way through mountains along snowy ridges, the gambling den of Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino) where The Millennium Falcon changes hands in a card game, a daring sortie to Kessel to plunder an unstable, explosive substance and a race against time to get that substance to a processing plant before it blows up and takes the Falcon with it.

In between all that comes cross and double cross involving Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), the girl Solo left behind when he escaped the initial planet who in the interim has done “things you couldn’t possibly understand”, intergalactic criminal player Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) and crime lord mastermind Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany). There are muddy rumours about a mysterious organisation known as the Crimson Dawn and – in a calculated imitation of Disney’s equally lucrative, rival Avengers franchise – talk of a gangster on the planet Tatooine putting together a crew to do a job both of which will presumably furnish material for the inevitable second and third Solo films. The Crimson Dawn trilogy, perhaps?

The gambling den scenes involve a degree of cheating on the part of Calrissian and in a later confrontation a clever countermove against his underhand methods by Solo. But as with whatever went on with Qi’ra which we never saw, there’s a feeling that what’s actually made it onto the screen isn’t that dirty. Enjoyable and entertaining? Yes. Dirty? Not particularly.

Two other characters fare rather better in terms of whether or not the film is a genuinely dirty vision.

Beckett’s sidekick Val is played with great presence and energy by a terrific Thandie Newton, continuing the franchise’s push for ethnic diversity within its cast. As with John Boyega in Disney’s first Star Wars film The Force Awakens (2015), it’s good to see a black actor take centre stage in a Star Wars outing and the fact that it’s a woman is a definite dirty plus. Newton plays the character as a no nonsense, hardbitten type as effective as Beckett.

Equally if not more worthy of special mention is Phoebe Waller-Bridge for mocapping and voicing Calrissian’s co-pilot and droid with attitude L3-37. She’s far, far removed from the cuddly R2-D2 and subservient English butler-type C-3PO droid and robot of Episode IV, constantly arguing with Calrissian and poking her nose in where it isn’t wanted to speak up about Droid Rights. It’s as if C-3PO changed sex and became a rampant feminist. L3-37’s not perfect either – occasionally someone has to give had a bang on the head to get her circuits to function correctly, but she always comes through in a crisis. The character, and Waller-Bridge’s visually arresting physicality of movement and vocal argumentativeness, is arguably the dirtiest thing in the film and surely destined to become a major element in Millennium Falcon mythology.

The proceedings overall start at breakneck pace and never really let up, with the screen constantly full of amazing visuals and astonishing characters. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that the director holding it all together (after the original directors were fired) and doing a fabulous job is Hollywood veteran Ron Howard who prior to this surprised us all with compelling motor racing biopic Rush (2013) and memorable documentary The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years (2017). If he seems less interested in dirt and subversiveness than in delivering the package Disney and the audience want, to his credit a few dirty elements still sneak into the movie. Meanwhile, Disney currently seem to have the magic touch with the Star Wars movies and their serious presence in the blockbuster stakes looks set to continue for quite a while, dirty or not…

Solo: A Star Wars Story is out in the UK on Thursday, May 24th. Watch the film trailer below:

The Last Jedi: is it about time the Empire strikes OUT?

Posted on by victorfraga

Thousands of reviews, opinion pieces, YouTube videos, blog posts and tweets were published within hours of Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi hitting cinema screens across the globe a couple of weeks ago. The critical response was overwhelmingly positive. DMovies‘ writer Jeremy Clarke (who’s not a big Star Wars fan) absolutely loved it, and gave it five dirty splats. Without spoiling too much, film critics jumped over themselves in a lavish display of righteousness as they universally proclaimed that, at last, a Star Wars film could be considered serious art.

Many noted the visual spectacle was something to behold, the twists in the plot were remarkable and genuinely surprising, the performances from the original cast and the newer recruits were impressive, and the overall arc meant that the original Star Wars fan who was now pushing past 50 years old could happily sit and immerse themselves in nostalgia whilst a 13-year-old whose only familiarity was the Star Wars: Rebels cartoon series would be swept along to embrace a whole new trilogy without much knowledge of the previous films. A perfect bridging between old expectations and new perspectives.

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People have the power

Except the audience response didn’t quite gel with the critical. Including DMovies readers, who seemed to disapprove of the movie, despite Jeremy’s enthusiasm. Some fans walked out of screenings fuming at what they perceived as mindless tosh and announced via social media that they were done with Star Wars, and that any ounce of hope for Disney’s vision of the franchise was lost to the clusterfuck of swerves and misses that The Last Jedi presented. An online petition gained momentum to urge Disney to eject the film from the official canon. My own experience of The Last Jedi was less dramatic. It was actually extremely positive, if somewhat bewildering. I came out my own screening utterly convinced the film was brilliant, but also I acquired a throbbing headache as my neurons fired in an attempt to construct new pathways that could cope with this much change, this many twists, this much elation, this much disappointment. I was dizzy with chemical contradictions and imbalances.

The bones of contention were many, but two stand out among the din. The representation of a grumpy Luke Skywalker hiding out and sulking on the remote planet of Ahch-To caused many concerns even from Mark Hamill, the actor who has lived and breathed Skywalker for 40 years. Skywalker seems to have broken off from the galaxy due to a mishap in the training of Ben Solo who succumbs to the Dark Side and becomes the evil teenage emo-dream Kylo Ren. But, in fact representation of elder Jedi in the original trilogy matches Skywalker’s depiction.

When the young Luke first met Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Tatooine dustbowl in A New Hope, wasn’t he an odd bearded hermit living off the land? When Luke jets off to Dagobah to find the “great warrior” Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980) he meets an old frazzled eccentric exile who also refuses to train him in the ways of the Jedi. Hamil’s arguments to Rian Johnson were that “Luke would never have given up”, but both Obi-Wan and Yoda had thrown in the towel decades before for a life of meditation and solitude whilst Darth Vader (a product of Kenobi’s failure) tore up the galaxy. We’ve placed an awful lot of faith in Skywalker if we think he can’t have a brood once in a while and his shortcomings as a whiney teenager in George Lucas’s 1977 A New Hope (pictured just below; remember the strop he pulled when Uncle Ben told him he had to stay for one more season) offer a trajectory to a lonesome hermit quite well.

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A thick-skinned antagonist

The other point that many people saw problems with was The First Order’s Supreme Leader Snoke, a reptilian villain of immense force power who since his introduction as a monolithic hologram in The Force Awakens (JJ Abrams, 2015) had been the subject of countless identity theories (was he Darth Plagueis? Mace Windu? a reincarnated Emperor Palpatine?). Anticipation for his big reveal was intensive, yet he was offed by his apprentice Kylo Ren during a brief scene. The end of Snoke (pictured below) seems to have genuinely shocked fans who want their Star Wars baddie to have depth, purpose and wisdom. The prequel trilogy was as much Emperor Palpatine’s back story as Darth Vader’s. Expectation to fill in the gaps in Star Wars is…well… expected. Yet The Last Jedi seemed to be at once a denouncement that your Snoke theory was useless and that any theory you ever had about Star Wars was highly problematic. The rule book was being rewritten and torn up at the same time.

Yet Snoke’s introduction and his death might not be as odd as you’d think. After all Star Wars is now a Disney property and one needs only to look towards Disney’s other franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to see that powerful antagonists are two a penny. For example, 2016’s Doctor Strange (Scott Derrickson) introduced the ancient demon Dormammu, a seemingly immortal being that nonetheless was defeated within the timeframe of the film by a man who had only recently discovered his powers. In 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (James Gunn), the antagonist Ego, a god-like Celestial who has traversed the universe for eons sowing his ‘seed’, succumbs to the rag-tag Guardians in fairly short order. Sadly for the theorists, Snoke is nothing more than a simple narrative device for moving the action along and give our heroes something to overcome. He might get his back story in books, but his day in the sun is truly over.

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A new beginning?

As I’ve now lived with The Last Jedi for a couple of weeks and read many other opinion pieces, I’ve allowed the film to sink in and concluded that The Last Jedi acts as the final page of George Lucas’ creation and a first page to an unwritten and collaborative vision of future Star Wars films. In fact, we shouldn’t have been surprised to discover this was the film’s intention. These seeds have been planted since Disney’s takeover of the franchise. In the lull period between Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas,m 2005) and A New Hope, the idea that Jedi were roaming the galaxy and helping the rag-tag Rebellion seemed nonsensical.

The cartoon series Star Wars: Rebels introduced Kanan and Ezra, two Jedi who continue their teachings whilst adapting to the idea of resistance to the Empire. Rebels also introduced new perspectives of The Force with the character of the Bendu, a large ancient creature who occupied the centre ground between the light and dark side of The Force. This wider perspective has bled into the latest Star Wars films, with The Force Awakens introducing The Church of the Force, a kind of fraternity of Force worshippers, Maz Katana an ancient being whom confesses that she “is no Jedi, but I know The Force”, and Snoke’s Force abilities are also up for debate with him being not a Sith Lord or a Jedi Knight, but something else (now he’s dead we may never know). The best and boldest interpretation of The Force was seen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards, 2016; in the image below) with the character of Chirrut, a Guardian of the Whills (Jedi textbooks) on the planet Jedha and a zealot for The Force. Though Chirrut had no Force capabilities his belief and devotion to it meant that he was a formidable and spiritually attuned warrior.

So The Last Jedi’s mission is to embrace a wider perspective for future films and not as Chancellor Palapatine remarks in Revenge of the Sith “the dogmatic view of the Jedi”. These films will be inclusive to all from an audience perspective and a character perspective also. Luke’s admission in the film that “it’s time for the Jedi to end” echoes Kylo Ren’s statement that in order to move on and progress we should “let old things die”, the Rebellion, the Empire the Sith, the Jedi. An all new perspective must rise to replace the old texts. This needs to happen within the narrative of future Star Wars movies, but it also needs to happen for those that will watch these movies.

The reliance on the original audiences has to end. The demographics of these viewers (45-55 years of age) are no longer the active cinema goer. Fifteen to 25 appears to be the largest demographic, the youngest of which might still have been toddling around in diapers when Revenge of the Sith was last in theatres. When in The Force Awakens, Rey, upon hearing the name Luke Skywalker, remarks that “I thought he was a myth”, she’s talking both within the film and to those watching who have heard this name uttered by parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and within popular culture, but the significance of Skywalker (even Anakin) to this generation is moot.

The embrace of a newer audience, one well attuned to cinematic spectacle is how the subsequent movies will play out. This might sound like Star Wars movies will become formulaic blockbusters. However, there is immense freedom to be had. No longer will we the audiences be constrained by the Skywalker linage, the royal blood of The Force and the baggage that carries with it. Now the galaxy far, far away is anybody’s for the taking and that means the audience can place themselves right there in the middle of it. Seeing heroes that come up from nothing on screen (even those that occupy a fictional, magical universe) will be mesmerising and hopefully inspiring to young audiences. New Star Wars heroes and villains will emerge and fade within the next few years, but one thing is for sure the hero’s journey will be the prominent theme of these films.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Where The Force Awakens (J.J.Abrams, 2015) felt like a lazy reworking of Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977), The Last Jedi feels like a clever reverse engineering of The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980). It starts off with rebels fleeing a planet base under attack from the First Order under the command of General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and ends with another rebel base being attacked on the surface of another planet, this one covered in white, and being besieged by the ultimate land-based weapon.

In between, Rey (Daisy Ridley) trains on yet another planet with Jedi master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hammill) and must confront not only her nemesis Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) who has gone over to the dark side of The Force under tutelage from Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) but also her own darker self. Meanwhile, renegade pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) falls out with the top brass of Leia (the late Carrie Fisher) and Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern) to initiate a bold plan to save the rebel fleet from impending disaster. Thus, Finn (John Boyega) and maintenance worker sidekick Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) embark on a daring mission and find thief/codebreaker DJ (Benicio Del Toro) who gains them unseen entrance to an enemy base to disable some technology and facilitate the rebel fleet’s escape and survival.

These are all, more or less, loose reworkings of the constituent elements of The Empire Strikes Back but to his immense credit writer-director Johnson (Looper, 2012) takes that film apart apart and reassembles its parts in a fresh, original and constantly inventive way for The Last Jedi. His crew includes longtime Tim Burton collaborator and visionary production designer Rick Heinrichs – which helps considerably and probably accounts for much of the visual panache. To take the most obvious example: the pressure of skates fitted under aircraft to help them traverse the finale’s salt flats landscape leaves red trails on white to produce an extraordinary visual spectacle.

Spectacle is one of the many things the Star Wars franchise is about. You’re taken to new places (planets, locations, spaceship interiors) you haven’t seen before, there are unfamiliar creatures and cultures. Thanks to some deft writing here the new film explores of some of the darker areas and mysteries of the cod-religious philosophy underlying the series. Without ever descending to the level of risible, The Last Jedi is prepared to laugh at itself: witness the potentially irritating bird-like characters on Luke Skywalker’s island home, one of whom ends up as Chewbacca’s lunch or the ongoing tension between Rey, inflicting damage on buildings while training, and the same island’s walking, fish-like, caretaker creatures. But such levity is wisely never allowed to be more than a minor sideshow to the main narrative through lines.

The visual effects on display effortlessly push the boundaries of what we’ve seen in the movies (watching on a huge digital IMAX screen is recommended) and deserve to receive the Oscar in that category. The big space battle set pieces impress even by Star Wars series standards, which is pushing the bar pretty high. However all effects at the service of Johnson’s vision and he’s much more interested in maintaining the integrity of the franchise’s characters, old and new, and extending and developing the mythology underpinning the series than in effects for effects sake. As in Looper, he demonstrates that he knows how to tell a rattling good yarn.

The are so many impressive ingredients in The Last Jedi that it’s impossible to cover them all in a review for DMovies. I will just note that the movies have come a long way in the 40 years the franchise has been running. In Star Wars, the film’s only significant female presence Carrie Fisher was essentially a damsel in distress, albeit one wielding a blaster. Nowadays, she’s the commander of the fleet and no-one bats an eye at a film where an out of control flyboy ace is a thorn in the side of cool headed, female admirals, where an engineer is as likely to be a woman as a man and where the Jedi heroine is given pole position in the plot where she may or may not succumb to the dark side of The Force. There’s no denying The Last Jedi is an audience pleaser [how could it not be? – well, see reactions to Return Of The Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983) and the trilogy that followed it] but it’s also, happily, a remarkable achievement on many, many levels.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out in the UK on Thursday, December 14th. Watch the film trailer below: