Con’s Score: 3.5 Light Sabres
Star Wars means so much to so many. I remember queuing up twice to get tickets back in 1977, and sitting on the footpath waiting for The Empire Strikes Back. I would never have thought I’d be choosing my seats by tapping on a piece of glass 42 years later for a ninth chapter, but I was hoping that 3-D Chess game would have been on special at K-Mart by now.
This chapter flows on from the highly contentious The Last Jedi, which has had hours of heated debate on social media and Disney studios. (There is a three-part 5 hour critique on YouTube. Some bloggers responded to a favourable 38 minute breakdown with a 6.5 hour response. Even Kevin Smith spent 90 minutes reviewing it positively on YouTube. Star War fans have become as bizarre as the characters in that bar scene.)
For me, it was forgettable and needed this chapter to pay it off. In fact, I’ve found the first two Disney storylines are pure plagiarism of the first two films. JJ Abrams returns as a writer with Chris Terrio, who’s worked on Argo and some Justice League films.
And here’s the rub with Star Wars films. You can either remake the originals, like JJ Abrams did and please fans, but bore me. (They’ve even coined a term for it: fan service.) Or take the characters on new arcs, be more interesting and upset the fans, like Rian Johnson (Knives Out) did.
JJ Abrams takes the reins back from Rian Johnson. Apparently the ending is the one George Lucas always envisaged, and yet he didn’t attend the premier. But John Williamson is back, Lando is back, Leia is still around (but not for long), and according to the credits the Emperor Palpetine, Luke and Han Solo will be back, so it promises to be a big sign-off. It’s important to set up this context, as it explains some of the problems the film has.
I’m going to review the film, with minimal spoilers below:
It opens with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) fighting a whole army on his own, and confronting Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). Wasn’t he dead? Oh well – it’s explained with a quick reference to cloning. This has already set the critics frothing with rage. But as Snook was killed in the last episode, Abrams had nowhere to go so he went to ‘implausible’. Did he think we wouldn’t notice?
Palpatine gives Kylo the task of bringing Rey (Daisey Ridley) to him, and he will give him everything. He’s been building a huge and deadly First Order fleet that will rule the galaxy. Kylo thinks he can bring Rey over to the dark side, so off he goes to resurrect the spirit of Darth, wearing a sleek helmet with red cracks, to find her.
The second scene is the good old Millennium Falcon, with Poe Demoron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega) and a new Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) together. They receive a message from a spy who tells them First Order is being built on a planet that doesn’t appear on any maps. Cue the first chase scene, and it’s a beauty. Storm Troopers fly in this, which is great, but isn’t followed up. Once they tell Rey, she is determined to find Kylo, kill Palpatine again, and bring Ren to the good side of the Force, and along the way they bump into Lando (Billy Dee Williams). Welcome back sir!
The rest of the film is essentially a treasure hunt on steroids, as this film has to set up all the plot points that were discarded after The Last Jedi. (You would have thought they would have worked out all the plot points before they started the first of this trilogy, but nooo…)
Breaking down the plot into this description will make this sound like the lamest Star Wars of the nine. It isn’t. It’s one aware of its legacy and all the elements of the series are here: the special effects, the amazing sets and the interplanetary travelogue. The scenes where Rey rides massive waves on a Skimmer to reach the burnt our Death Star are brilliant. The shine on the Storm Troopers armour is gleaming as ever, and they still can’t hit the side of a Death Star at point blank range. There are bar scenes, exploding planets and loads of epic fight scenes. The cinematography and production values are still top class.
What is well above the others is the acting and dialogue. Daisey Ridley dominates every scene she is in. She has grown in stature and class through the series. Adam Driver is also imposing, but is not as downright ruthless as Darth was, but these two give the Disney series its credibility. Now they can connect and fight through the Force, without being in the same place, there are too many fight scenes between them, only saved by how good they are.
You can never have too much Chewy, and Isaac and Boyega play well off each other, but they’re not in the Harrison and Chewy class. Special mentions to some of the support characters: Richard E Grant is suitably evil as the Commander, Zori Bliss (Keri Russel), Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o – is there anything she can’t do?) and C3PO (Anthony Daniels) gets more of a role and arc than he’s had before too.
There are many things that will strike you coming out of this one. It’s a far more of an emotional ride than the others, and being the last of the Skywalker storylines, it’s to be expected. There will be tears.
Also, Abrams seems to have written off The Last Jedi, with a big “Thanks for coming” to Rian Johnson, and picked up where he left off. It’s a bit petty. When Rey says she wants to become a hermit like Luke, he has Luke say: “I was wrong!” as if that was his view on it. Some characters have become bit parts, like Rose, the Knights of Ren and R2D2, and it’s been streamlined down to one basic storyline, with no real subplots. And there’s too many parallels to the Return of the Jedi. Even the Ewoks make a cameo.
Star Wars was film about a boy who bought a droid and stumbled on a message that took him into a worlds we were dazzled by. It was about good vs evil but also about the temptation and evil within each of us. It became intertwined with our lives and memories, and we became possessive of it. In some ways, we didn’t let it grow into something new and more interesting, and this is one its disappointments. But it still succeeds in dazzling us, and taking us into places we hadn’t seen before.
It’s almost pointless giving this a rating, as fans will go see this regardless. And if you’ve ever loved any of the Star Wars movies, you should go too, at least twice. This Disney series is well above the disastrous prequels, but nothing will reach the glow of the original three (Chapters IV to VI). It’s a pity that’s all that Disney attempted. But hell, it was a heck of ride while it lasted.
Con Nats, On The Screen
