The Star Wars

Here I am with one of my best friends from high school back in Kentucky at Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Friday night in Portland, Oregon. It’s just a fluke that we’ve ended up living so near each other after all these years. It’s been wonderful to see every Star Wars movie released in the last four years with him and his family.

I was 12 when I saw the first Star Wars movie. I’m going to be 54 next month. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: the original trilogy of Star Wars saved my life, got me through a horrific period of my life, and fueled my soul to pursue all sorts of dreams. It sat inside me and I retreated to it whenever things got too bad, too horrible. It kept me away from all sorts of bad influences that a lot of people around me got caught up in – boredom and discouragement are at the heart of so many bad choices by kids, and because of Star Wars and all it inspired, I was kept away from boredom and I could navigate discouragement. I will forever be grateful to anyone and everyone who made these movies.

I don’t think there will ever be something cinematically like Star Wars again, something that makes millions of people collectively gasp and delight and repeat its dialogue over and over and over, that years later parents later lovingly introduce to their children and they enjoy it together, that’s characters feel like our family – at least the family we wanted.

Since everyone else is doing this on Twitter, I’m going to do it too, on Twitter and here: Star Wars theatrical releases ranked on how I feel about them, from most-loved to absolutely loathe:

LOVE SO SO MUCH:
A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back (tied for most awesome)
The Force Awakens and Rogue One (tied)

LIKE:
The Rise of Skywalker
Return of the Jedi and Solo
The Last Jedi (actually, while it had its moments, more meh)

CRAP:
The Phantom Menace 
Revenge of the Sith and Attack of the Clones (tied for crappiest)

I can’t believe I didn’t review Rogue One! I loved it so much! But I didn’t…

And now, here there be spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker. Please don’t read anymore if you haven’t seen the latest film. Go to the movie fresh and unbiased, make up your OWN mind.

What did I think of The Rise of Skywalker? Honestly, I’m mostly just SO glad it got made. When Carrie Fisher died, I thought it might not get made at all, or would have to be re-written so drastically that it could never be any good. Come on, you all know how it was SUPPOSED to end: with Leia Organa redeeming her son, Ben Solo – bringing him back from the Dark Side. Everything was pointing to that. And the scenes between Leia and Kylo/Ben would have been glorious and heart-wrenching. And I would have been a puddle on the ground in the theater as a result. I pretty much was a puddle when Han showed up in this film- both because I was thrilled to see him and because I knew it was supposed to be Leia.

With that huge challenge of Carrie Fisher gone, I think the filmmakers did a good job of ending not only this trilogy, but the entire Skywalker saga. It’s not a great film, but it’s satisfying, and better than The Last Jedi (and it really needed to be better than that). I really liked the clever banter between characters – that was SO needed and so missing in The Last Jedi and entirely from the prequels. Snappy dialogue is an essential part of what makes the best of this series the best – if a Star Wars movie is not quotable, it had FAILED. I want to love the characters, and I can’t do that unless they say things that establish chemistry between them and make me want to fall in love with them. I do love the new good-guy three and their interactions with each other: Rey, Poe and Finn. I thought Ben/Kylo was a terrific character and the exploration of the dark side via his journey was very well executed in all three of these last films – it’s an exploration that flopped miserably in the prequels.

It must have felt like an overwhelming challenge to take Leia’s scenes and dialogue unused in the other films and create entire scenes around them to make her appear to be there and a part of the story in The Rise of Skywalker. While I think the CGI was obvious, it was done with such love and care, I didn’t mind. Carrie Fisher deserved to be in this film.

My favorite part of the film? THE MUSIC. Bringing back the music from A New Hope, Empire and Return of the Jedi was brilliant and perfect and conveyed hugely important plot points. Absolutely brilliant.

Only a few things were displeasing to me, if anyone cares:

• Rose. She was barely in this. She was really the only person I was intrigued by in The Last Jedi, except for Rey, Kylo, Luke and Leia, and I wanted to see her a part of the core group – or at least play a super key role. She was an afterthought in this. That’s shameful.
• The kiss between Rey and Kylo. What. The. Hell?!? Unnecessary. Distracting. Weird. And please note: I am staunchly pro-kissing.
• C3P0’s dialogue. Just like in Return of the Jedi, he says things that he should NEVER say. 
• The Sith. If you have only watched the theatrical releases, you don’t know who they are, where they came from nor what they do. 
• All those Final Order ships. Who in the hell built all those? Are we really so jaded that one damn big star destroyer no longer impresses us?
• Destroying planets willy nilly. It was my only criticism of The Force Awakens as well – Empires don’t destroy resources like that. Leaders, yes, certain groups of people, sure, but not minerals, fuel, irreplaceable labor, places to station their troops, places to build vacation homes, etc. The big thread in Star Wars movies cannot always be lots of planet destruction. 
• The new droid. I mean, whatever. The first characters seen in the original Star Wars were R2D2 and C3P0. They were essential characters in the first two movies. I’m sorry that they became so superfluous to the stories.