Hello everyone and welcome to another blog from a galaxy far far away. It's been a few months since the third installment of this blog series and with May 4th being right around the corner, I figured now is as good a time as ever for me to look back at the sequel trilogy that closed out the Skywalker saga. These are my thoughts on these movies, so expect lots of spoilers, as well as things I liked and things I did not like throughout episodes VII, VIII, and IX.
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
With the exception of Jurassic World, I cannot think of a movie that I was more hyped to see as soon as I could when it came out in theaters. The hype about the Star Wars franchise was running rampant. Promotions were literally everywhere, people who had never watched the movies suddenly had interest, and most of all among the die hard Star Wars fans, there was a sense of nervousness. What was this movie going to be? Was Disney going to drive their beloved franchise into the ground, or were they going to be able to capture that magic that made the prior three movies so incredible? We all held our collective breaths and watched as a new trilogy was born.
I have to say that I really do enjoy The Force Awakens. I'll spoil it right now, but out of the three sequel movies, it is my favorite. Story wise it is very similar to that of Episode IV, but with the series making a comeback, I am totally okay with it. Many, many people praise movies like Jurassic World for playing to people's nostalgia and continuing a series by starting with something people are able to relate to, yet The Force Awakens seems to get a fair amount of flack for it. Yes, Starkiller Base is basically a Death Star on steroids. Yes the First Order is a weaker version of the Empire. Yes we once again have a hero coming from a desert planet who will eventually rise and help take down said roided out Death Star. We even have one guy who is strong in the dark side of the force pulling the strings in the First Order. It's a lot of what we know already, but we get to see a lot more.
We get to see new force powers that are down right scary. We never saw Darth Vader stop a blaster shot and then carry on a conversation while it just hovers there, yet we see Kylo Ren do just that at the beginning of the movie. We get two storm troopers with actual personality. Finn of course ends up escaping, but Captain Phasma quickly establishes herself as cold and unforgiving. We see a return of classic lightsaber combat. There are no crazy flips and tricks going on like in the prequels. It's back to basics here and it's great. We also see the return of a few fan favorites in Han Solo, Princess Leia, C-3PO, Chewbacca, and at the end, R2-D2.
When it comes to the more controversial parts of the movie, I have mixed feelings. The biggest things that I hear about is Han Solo being killed off and Finn and Rey both being able to not just get slaughtered while facing Kylo Ren on Star Killer Base. I'll throw my opinion on the second one out there first. Yes, both Finn and Rey (especially) were able to hold there own for a bit against Kylo Ren. Rey even manages to hit him in the face and potentially even defeat him, but I believe there is a good reason for it. For that we touch on the first issue. Moments before Kylo Ren kills Han Solo he appears incredibly troubled by what he has to do. He wants so desperately to be the new Darth Vader, but he has so many mental hesitations. Snoke preys on this and sends him to kill his father. Once he kills him it is clear that Kylo is bothered. Chewbacca manages to get a gut shot on Kylo with his bowcaster. Think back to the beginning of the movie. When Poe shoots at Ren, he immediately turns around and stops the blast. He knew it was coming, could probably sense it, and acted. Here though, despite Chewbacca roaring prior to shooting he just gets hit.
So my point is, I think it makes sense that Kylo didn't have a huge success against Rey and Finn despite neither of them really having any experience with a lightsaber. He got shot in the gut by a bowcaster, so he was certainly injured, and he was still dealing with his own internal battle in addition to having to fight off Rey and Finn. As far as Han dying goes. It had to happen. There was literally no other way other than killing Leia, that would have made Kylo Ren seem like any kind of a threat. People say they hate Kylo Ren because he killed Han Solo. Perfect. That is what you are supposed to feel. Were there better weays they could have done it, probably, but I think what they went with works as well.
The Force Awakens, I felt, set up the series with a million directions it could have gone. One thing was clear, Star Wars was back and the way the movie ended with Rey finally finding a secluded Luke Skywalker, our hype level was on the rise once again. At the time, I don't think a single person would have expected that the next Star Wars movie would have split the fandom and sent the trilogy into a state of disorder and uncertainty.
Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
This is the section I've been dreading. This is the section of this blog that had me put the series on hold for a few months. What are my feelings on The Last Jedi? It's a loaded question. I saw the movie in theaters and by the end of it my thoughts were along the lines of "Not really sure what just happened, but it wasn't terrible". Subsequent viewing have had me thinking along the lines of "This isn't a bad movie, but it makes a hard turn as opposed to just following the road that The Force Awakens left". There are moments in the movie that downright frustrated me. There are moments in the movie that I love. There are several moments in the movie where I think they just crammed it in there for filler or something. I suppose I will start with what I liked.
I really like the dynamic and relationship building between Rey and Kylo Ren. Despite it all being put on by Snoke I found it interesting and had some what if questions pop into my head. What if Kylo turned? It's only the second movie afterall, so how would Snoke deal with that? What if Rey turned? Would Luke Skywalker return and save the day? It was an interesting back and forth that of course ended up in Kylo killing Snoke. The fight scene that takes place right after with Rey and Kylo teaming up I have to admit I was really excited to see. The two fought well together and really the fight ended up being a precursor for the final movie.
We see more and more of the force. Last movie, we learned that people's minds can be read and information could be pulled out of a person. We also learned that laser blasts can be stopped by using the force, but other than that we saw a lot of what we already knew from previous movies. In this movie the force is expanded upon greatly. Snoke forces Rey and Kylo to see each other despite being on completely different planets erm... Rey on a planet, Kylo on a ship. Luke Skywalker is able to have a lightsaber duel with Kylo Ren through a force projection, again from a completely different planet. Yoda's force ghost is able to call down a lightning bolt that sets an ancient tree on fire. We have always heard that the force is all powerful and really limitless so it was cool to see more of it as opposed to the usual lifting, mind trick, choking we have seen to this point.
Not so little known fact about me is that I love porgs. The little alien birds are far and away my favorite creatures in the Star Wars franchise. The fact that the island the team was filming on had too many puffins so they turned them into porgs as opposed to editing all of them out I thought was great. They also provide a good amount of comedy in a movie where I feel comedy of any kind is lacking.
Lastly, I really like the final battle scene. The ice foxes are a little ridiculous in that they help the Resistance escape, but otherwise I really like it. It's not the Battle of Hoth, though it appears that's what they were sort of trying to emulate, but it's good and the standoff with Kylo Ren and hologram Luke Skywalker is actually really good.
So that's what I like about the movie. Here are the things that frustrated me and things I didn't like. I will try to be as brief as I can with it. Right off the bat, Poe is ordered by Leia to stand down from attacking a Dreadnought. Poe continues his attack, even turning off the radio, but then the entire Resistance fleet continues to attack. All of them ignored the order to stand down? Continuing on, the bombers the Resistance had seemed to use gravity to drop bombs as we saw there was nothing propelling the bombs downwards. The problem I have here is, they're in space... How are the bombs continuing to rapidly drop once they enter space? Speaking of bombers, the First Order has no problem taking out all but one of the bombers... Then all of a sudden what looked like a completely dominant win ends up being a loss as the final bomber is able to drop its bombs at the last second. Insert issue I have with Princess Leia being blown out of a ship, surviving, then force flying through space back onto the ship. Was it cool to see Leia using the force? Yes. Was it ridiculous? Yes.
The Force Awakens set up Luke and Rey meeting as Rey held out Luke's lightsaber to close out the film. This movie takes all that build up and literally throws it just as Luke throws the lightsaber. Speaking of The Force Awakens... One of the big points in the movie was finding the map that Luke Skywalker left behind to find him. In this movie he multiple times says he didn't want to be found. So what was the purpose of the map then? Again, the movie taking a big turn from the set up road that The Force Awakens left for it. Okay okay. Some of this stuff so far is a little nit picky. Fine, it's Star Wars let the sci-fi fantasy be there, but lets add fuel. This is the first time to my knowledge in any Star Wars media where fuel is mentioned. To my knowledge, when it comes to Star Wars, there is no fuel in any movie, T.V. series, or video game. So why all of a sudden is fuel an issue? This is even further irritating to me with the fact that the next movie sees TIE Fighters jumping through light speed, yet the Resistance fleet cant because of fuel? The only good thing that came out of the whole fuel topic was Admiral Holdo slamming the cruiser through Snoke's ship. That was epic.
So now I come to the thing I dislike most about this movie, the entirety of Rose and Finn's mission to find the code breaker to sneak onto Snoke's ship. Everything about this from the casino, to the space horse chase, to the code breaker himself eats up so much time and has literally no pay off. By the time Finn and Rose get onto the ship, Holdo is about to shred the thing with her suicide run which rendered the entirety of their mission pointless to begin with. Really all the mission ends up achieving is Finn killing Captain Phasma whom personally I would have loved to have seen way more from. She's literally in this movie for all of a couple minutes whereas she was much more prominent in The Force Awakens. Guess we needed more time for the forced Finn and Rose love story that developed over the movie. I admit it. Rose is not my favorite character.
One final issue I have involved the Battle of Crait. While I overall really enjoy the fight, there is one part that literally made me put my hands up in the theater and ask "what the Hell"? The First Order has this mini Death Star gun that they are going to crack open the old rebel base with. Finn is going to sacrifice himself from the beam burning through by crashing into it and destroying it. Two issues. One. The gun is firing. While Finn is approaching we see his speeder literally melting away around him. That is metal melting. Meanwhile, with an open cockpit, Finn is merely breaking a sweat and his clothing is fine. Also, just before impact, Rose slams her speeder into Finn's, saving his life, but if not for Luke showing up, killing the entire Resistance. I still cannot wrap my head around this part of the scene.
I guess my feelings are that The Last Jedi is a movie that tried to reboot a series while being the second in a trilogy. It's not a bad movie as a standalone movie. It wouldn't be a bad movie with some changes as a first in a trilogy. It is really hard for me to love it as the second in a Star Wars series where we have had so many different things established over the course of seven previous movies. It tries to establish so much, only for a lot of it to be undone in the final movie. I can watch this movie and enjoy it by itself, but if I link it to all my memories of this series it seems so out of place. Now let me make this clear. I give the movie credit for being different. I give it credit for trying to establish new things and set up a story. My problem remains is that it is the second movie in a trilogy while trying to be the first.
Wow that was a lot to type for the first two movies in the new trilogy, or the sequel trilogy, or whatever you want to call it. I'm going to divide this blog into two parts due to the unexpected length of this blog. I apologize about the long rant about The Last Jedi, but again, that's what kept me from doing this blog earlier. Thank you for reading and stay tuned for part 2 coming real soon!
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