let's be human

In November 2015, I did not want to watch Star Wars. My sister and I didn’t like “weird” things, and Star Wars was absolutely, undoubtedly in the category of “weird”. In anticipation of the release of The Force Awakens, my parents were trying to convince us to give it a whirl, but my vague knowledge of lightsabers and Darth Vader pegged it as a boy movie, and thus, “weird” (I was nine in 2015, don’t judge too harshly). That is, until my mom dangled the concept of Princess Leia in front of me, and I took the bait.

That week, my sister and I discovered the movie equivalent of crack cocaine for kids. I think we rewatched all three movies at least six times in the span of two weeks. We got every Star Wars encyclopedia from the library near our house and practically memorized the names of every character and planet, even the ones from the prequels. We spent hours playing Star Wars in the backyard. I could recite extensive lengths of dialogue from A New Hope.

I’m not sure exactly what it was about Star Wars that so thoroughly captured my imagination. I think it was my first time getting exposed to a story as vast as Star Wars, which spans so many places and characters and lengths of time. My overactive imagination had so much to engage with, and also Princess Leia was my favorite character to ever exist.

For my tenth birthday (conveniently situated in January, only a little over a month after the release of The Force Awakens), I had a Star Wars themed birthday party, and my present was a ticket to the movie I had been desperately waiting to see. The sequel trilogy has been the subject of a looooot of discourse, and I have plenty of thoughts on it. But when I walked into the movie theater to see The Force Awakens, I was freshly ten years old and blissfully ignorant to the Tumblr fandom going up in flames.

I loved it.

So much.

Rey was added to my shortlist of pretend-play characters, and after convincing my parents to buy the film, I had even more recitations to pull out as a party trick for my friends (can you tell I was homeschooled?). And while I remained in my Star Wars phase for longer than my parents expected, probably about a year and a half, I eventually moved on to other things before outgrowing pretend play altogether. But my love for Star Wars never left, and to this day my obsession still revives every year or so in rotation with other fandoms.

"The only prerequisite for being a star wars fan is hating star wars" --tumblr user artoo

original trilogy

prequel trilogy

sequel trilogy

rogue one

andor

obi-wan kenobi

ahsoka

Shrine 2

Shrine 3

Shrine 4

I loved the original trilogy as a kid, and I think they've held up over time as good, solid movies. I don't rewatch them often, though--maybe because I saw them so many times when I was young lol. I know lots of people say the original trilogy is their favorite trilogy, but I have a lot of trouble deciding whether I like the originals or the sequels more. I definitely think the originals had much better storytelling across all three movies, but I personally like more of the characters in the sequels. I really can't choose between them; it feels like comparing apples to oranges. But if you came across me on the street and really pressed me for a favorite, I'll say Andor Season One, Andor Season Two, and Rogue One.

Before we move forward to the other films, I’m going to quickly set up my argument for why I don’t hate the sequel trilogy as much as everyone else. I think many older fans (you know, the ones who like to dunk on all Star Wars media bar the originals) have so much nostalgia for the older films that they don’t realize the original trilogy is far from perfect. While it has great characters and a good overarching story, it also has an underdeveloped character arc with Luke, siblings kissing, and dialogue that all the actors agreed was nearly impossible to deliver. So when critiquing other media in the Star Wars universe, I think it’s important to not hold it to an impossible standard inflated by nostalgia.

Great concept, bad execution. The story of Anakin’s fall to the dark side and Order 66 is exquisitely tragic, but the writing was just so, so bad. I haven’t watched these movies more than once or twice, so I can’t give a super detailed analysis. Watching Clone Wars and reading books set in the prequel era really increased my understanding and appreciation for the story that George Lucas was actually trying to tell.

I’m gonna get a little bit more nitty gritty here, so I’ll split up my thoughts for each movie.

I really do like this movie, and it’s on par with the original trilogy in my opinion. My two main critiques are that a) Jakku and Maz Kanata’s cantina felt a little too derivative of A New Hope, and b) Rey realized her powers pretty fast without any training. I don’t have a problem with Rey being an unusually powerful Jedi or with her discovering basic Force manipulation on her own (Anakin is shown to at least have Force precognition as a child on Tatooine), but I think a Jedi mind trick was a bit much for her first day as a Jedi, even if it was a very cool scene.

Everything else about this movie is so good. Rey, Poe, and Finn are all such good characters. Rey is scrappy and persevering with a kind heart, Poe is brash and charismatic, and Finn is trying to find his way after leaving the only life he’s ever known. Kylo Ren is also a fantastic villain. He’s not the calculating, slightly insane Emperor Palpatine nor the stoic, ruthless Vader. He’s desperately grabbing for power and control–both over himself and others, and that’s so interesting. He is capable of great evil, making him a competent villain, but the only reason he’s capable of it is because he’s fundamentally weak. You might have been asking, “Why wasn’t Starkiller Base in her list of derivative elements?”, so I’ll tell you: Starkiller Base is a copy of the Death Star, almost comically so. But that’s the point. Kylo Ren is trying so hard to be Darth Vader that he doesn’t learn from his predecessor’s mistakes, in exactly the same way that he’s modeling his life on Anakin’s big mistake. The same thing that destroys the Death Star destroys Starkiller Base (*cough* foreshadowing for how the same thing that destroys Vader destroys Kylo Ren? *cough*).

Rian Johnson I love you so much but you ruined everything.

I mean, it’s just not good. All the characters are split up doing different things, the movie has about a hundred subplots, and none of it seems to move the story forward in any meaningful way. Rey’s whole “feeling the call of the darkside” thing is confusing (why are there a bunch of her in a mirror?). I think the goal was maybe to have her grapple with the darkness in Luke’s, Kylo’s, and her past and in doing so push Luke back into action, but I felt like she didn’t really grow as a character. Add that to the way Luke’s new jaded, cynical personality is so out of step with everything he represented in the original trilogy, and Rey’s plot for the whole movie is just not it. That said, I do think Rey and Kylo’s relationship was very interesting. Rian Johnson was right about one thing–they both want to belong. Ben as Kylo Ren is fundamentally insecure and weak, and just as those who are drowning will pull people down with them, it makes a lot of sense for Kylo to grab onto Rey as a lifeline. I think it also makes sense that, like Luke in the original trilogy, Rey can see the good in Kylo Ren and wants to pull him out of the waves. The Throne Room Scene is the perfect manifestation of this dynamic. Rey shows up at Kylo’s Star Destroyer just like Luke does in The Return of the Jedi. Kylo kills Snoke, and they work together to take out the Red Guard, but despite his desperate desire to have Rey on his side, he can’t give up his even more desperate desire for power. This is lowkey the only thing in the whole movie that worked.

Finn and Rose’s little trip to space Vegas is just…strange. Although the film managed to get Finn from Point A (being driven by fear) to Point B (being committed to the rebel cause), it did so in a pretty unbelievable and uninteresting way. Finn already knew on a very deep level that the Empire was evil. That’s why he’s so terrified of them. He needed a sense of responsibility and duty toward his friends and the galaxy to override his fear. And what’s the perfect way to do that? Perhaps discovering he’s force-sensitive? Anyway

Although I loved the big reveal that General Organa is Poe Dameron’s favorite celebrity, Poe’s subplot didn’t fare any better than Finn’s. Why didn’t purple-hair-lady just TELL Poe that she did indeed have a plan that she just couldn’t divulge at the moment (or just tell him the plan straight-up) instead of letting him start a mutiny? Maybe it’s my American values showing but teaching Poe a lesson about respecting the chain of command at the potential cost of actual lives is a pretty strange subplot.

I liked Rise of Skywalker more than most people did. Coming off of The Last Jedi, the plot and character arcs were basically in shambles. For a movie that was trying to piece together broken bits of ideas, I think it did pretty well.

I thought Rey’s plotline was the best. Giving her a solo mission without isolating her from other characters was a good move, and the push and pull between Rey and Ben and her role in his redemption was very interesting. However, I didn’t particularly like Rey’s character arc in this movie. I think the creators were trying to build on Rey’s encounters with the Dark Side in The Last Jedi, but it came across as her just being angsty for no discernable reason.

Poe and Finn’s plots weren’t the most fleshed out, but they were, unlike in The Last Jedi, not bad. I think Finn was one of the greatest casualties of the disjointedness between all three movies. He had so much potential as a character that went completely unrealized.

As for the overarching plotline…Do I think Palpatine returning was a good idea? No. Do I think it ruined Star Wars and made Anakin’s and Luke’s contributions to the story meaningless? Also no. Bringing Palpatine back was probably the easiest answer to the hardest question in The Rise of Skywalker: “what is the final battle?”. I don’t know what the right answer to that question is (maybe Kylo finds some ancient sith relics and/or mercenary troops such that he can pose a large enough threat for a final battle while the forces aren’t able to be taken out of commission immediately when he is finally redeemed?) but I know a wrong answer when I see one.

Kylo Ren’s redemption scenes were amazing and I will die on that hill and also I’m a Reylo shipper and you’re not allowed to say anything about that.

I love Rogue One!!! It’s my favorite Star Wars movie :). Cassian, Jyn, and the supporting characters are fantastic, all the story beats are perfect, and I love a good hopeful message combined with a tragic ending. ALSO Krennic is one of the funniest Star Wars characters to me I love him so much. I would write more about this film, but I feel like most people don’t need too much convincing that Rogue One is good.

SO SO GOOD. It’s the best thing Star Wars has ever done. Because it came out after everyone gave up on the Disney+ series, no one has watched it, but I’m not exaggerating when I say it encapsulates everything good about Star Wars. It shows how the Empire chews up and spits out even the most loyal to their regime. Multiple characters throughout the show have to decide whether they will turn a blind eye to the evil happening right in front of them or take a stand for a cause bigger than themselves.

Every character in the show must answer the question, “What are you willing to risk to stop injustice?”. And in the most poetic way possible, it shows how those who give the wrong answer to this question have only a matter of time until they become the Empire’s next victim. The most beautiful thing about the story of Star Wars is how ordinary people, by choosing to bet against their own lives, can change the world. And that’s what Andor is about.

Anything where Obi-Wan is sad has some redeeming value, but the writers did not cook on this one.

I was so glad to see my girl on screen again, and the continuation of her character arc was really fun to watch. However, the other characters and parts of the show weren’t very robust.