Sequel Trilogy Post Mortem part 1: What went so wrong?
Long time no post, but I saw TROS recently for the first time since cinema, and it reminded me again of how utterly that movie managed to destroy my interest in the ST and the entire era. I wanted to look back at the ST and try to analyze what went so wrong. This is my opinions listed, and Iâll write in more detail in separate posts about some of these points.
1. The Force Awakens. Solid movie, presents characters and plot that has potential for a fun story. However, the set up for the new canon is already very limiting, basically undoing the progress of the previous movies both in the story sense (another Republic vs Empire conflict, another âlast Jediâ etc) and in the creative sense (the PT significantly expanded the world, themes and aesthetics of SW and this is discarded). In hindsight (and as someone whose first movie TFA was), itâs obvious from the start here that Disneyâs take on SW canon is already problematic and bound to cause trouble.
2. The Last Jedi. This is where the trilogy gets derailed. TLJ split the fanbase and itâs easy to see how many people enjoy it. If you look at it as just an isolated piece of cinema, itâs a perfectly adequate movie. But as a middle part of a trilogy, TLJ is a disaster. The only character whose story is advanced in a meaningful way is Kylo. The plot is just one long chase scene. Reyâs character arc, which for two movies has focused on her quest for finding her parentâs, end in a meta-twist that feels hollow and pointless. Finn gets no development, just repeating the same arc he already had in the last movie, Poe gets development but it isnât very good, Rose is okay but feels unnecessary, Snoke is killed without telling us anything about him, Phasma is killed, Hux becomes a walking slapstick joke, and oh, Luke Skywalker dies after pretty unsatisfying end to his story. TLJ ends so many plot thread, eliminates so many characters (including killing/neutering all but one villain!) and fails so utterly to move the trilogy forward,that it essentially writes the story into a corner.
3. The Rise of Skywalker. TROS is âobjectivelyâ a terrible movie, a long series of visually impressive and even superficially entertaining scenes that nonetheless feel completely disconnected and empty. Itâs hard to comment about TROS because I walked out of the theater feeling just apathy. No matter how problematic TLJ was, the last movie shouldâve continued itâs developments for the sake of coherence. Especially Kylo at the end of TLJ is perfectly set up as the main villain for the last movie, and dismissing that undoes the biggest positive of TLJ. Instead, TROS feels like it has even less to do with the previous story than TLJ did, completing the total disintegration of the Sequel Trilogy.
So, why did ST fail so badly? Mostly I think it comes down to Disney's lack of understanding of SW and vision of where to take it.
* Disney treated SW like another ânostalgia franchiseâ, a dead property to be resurrected for cheap nostalgia appeal, which simply isnât what SW is. Good example is the dismissal of PT.
* Disneyâs take on SW suffers greatly from excessive risk-aversion, which has caused the franchise to feel less imaginative and unique, while those are the qualities that the fans want from a franchise like this. Good example is the lack of (interesting) aliens and exotic planets in the new canon.
* Neither J.J. Abrams nor Rian Johnson were good choices for the ST. Abrams is Hollywoodâs most famous âconcept guyâ who has become (in)famous for coming up with cool ideas and set ups - and failing to follow up on them. Johnson's only experience with serialized story telling was directing (not writing) three (not successive) episodes of Breaking Bad, which is hardly proof that he is capable of writing the middle part of a trilogy with epic scale and complex canon. Both of their weaknesses are extremely apparent in their approach to the ST, as neither of them was capable of creating a satisfying and coherent story arc, and neither did Disney have any Lucas-figure doing it for them.
* The ultimate problem is Disneyâs lack of vision and creative ambition. ST shouldâve been a new era equal to the OT and PT. An epic story full of memorable characters, setting up a new perspective to the world that fans would love to get lost into. But nobody seems to have thought about it much beyond âhow many OT references can we stick hereâ. The lack of big picture is frankly astonishing when you consider how much money Disney invested into buying and developing this franchise.
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