Red, White and Royal Blue: A Movie Like an English Waltz with a Kick
I had practically given up on watching stories about same-sex relationships some time ago; for a while, I thought the reason for my growing indifference was that not belonging to the LGBT+ community, I am not directly involved. It took me a while to realize that I was simply sick of watching stories with sad endings, good as they may be otherwise.
Same-sex love stories in my experience very often have a tragic ending, with the possible exception of the Netflix show Heartstopper, which is nice and interesting to watch without being overdramatic. Also, there were Beautiful Thing and Maurice, two enjoyable movies that most viewers today probably hardly remember. Despite their positive ending they are serious in tone however, not exactly fun.
Red, White and Royal Blue burst into my world catching me by surprise and all but sweeping me off my feet; I immediately fell in love with the movie and am fully on page with anyone who is already asking for a sequel.
First off, I must say that this is one of the few cases where I found the movie to be better than the novel. I read it after having watched the movie, but I could not bring myself to like the characters.
The novel is told from Alex’ point of view, so we never get to know Henry’s; and I got the impression of following a bunch of rich kids without regular lives and routines having fun being noisy and obnoxious when they’re not busy with wanting to save the world, all of them equipped with their personal therapists and consuming this or another substance. I found it heartbreaking that Henry had been in love with Alex for a long time, never hoping that his feelings could be requited; and it did not shed a good light on Alex that for a long time, he did not realize that being intimate with Henry felt so good because he was with someone who actually cared for him.
The tone and story development of the movie is different and, in my opinion, superior. These Alex and Henry are about ten years older than in the novel: the actors are neither groomed to look younger nor do they act like they were. These are two adults, grown men who know what they’re doing; the feelings between them deepen very quickly (in the book, for Alex at the beginning it seems to be nothing more than a cross between a diversion and a challenge); and they soon take responsibility for each other and their families respectively political surroundings.
Nothing shows this more than the airport scene where they actually exchange ring and key, contrarily to the book where Alex keeps the ring together with the key around his neck. His official speech after their forced coming-out was much more straightforward and convincing than in the book, and he had written it himself, not his sister; also early in the movie, the Texas campaign is his very own initiative, contrarily to the novel where his mother sets him up to do it. All of these are narrative choices which in my opinion make the story much more enticing and the characters more relatable.
The movie Red, White and Royal Blue lives largely from the chemistry between the two protagonists; there is playful banter between them and lots of fun scenes and quips that I looked for in the novel in vain. (Except for a few jokes at Philips’ expense, pitifully.) Even in their most intimate moments, there always seems to be a twinkle in their eyes; the teasing begins when they’re not even friends yet. Their happiness is joyful and carefree, not founded on the intensity of feelings of couples who know they will be torn apart. The movie’s tone is a perfect balance: funny without being silly; serious without being admonishing; romantic without being sappy.
Some well-known clichés obviously are all there: having to talk to one another due to being locked in a room, a first kiss while both are tipsy, the lover hiding in the closet, the intolerant parent (grandparent in this case), the understanding sister… Nevertheless, the story is fresh, well-paced and never boring.
In my personal view, this movie will be remembered as marking a break in the storytelling of same-sex relationships: light-footed, entertaining and touching. While the book is a self-indulgent fanfiction, the movie is in its tone, set-up and storyline for all intents and purposes a fairy tale, except that instead of a princess we have a prince.
One of the things I loved most was that in the end, the couple does not reunite in a castle or a similar luxurious environment, but that for their happy ending they leave their wealth behind and retire to a simple, comfortable home and an everyday life.
I had a smile on my face almost the entire time while watching this movie. And I hope there will be many more light-hearted movies and novels centered on same-sex relationships following this, instead of the usual heart-wrenching dramas. It’s high time.
To this day, I sometimes wonder what made The Last Jedi such a special Star Wars movie, beloved by many fans despite the backlash coming from others.
It stands out as the most important instalment of the sequel trilogy, but here’s the thing: The Last Jedi is not a dark movie.
Star Wars sometimes has a tendency to overplay and / or to drift off into kitsch; as a result, the really good movies of the franchise are the ones with a dark tone. The Empire Strikes Back, Revenge of the Sith, Rogue One do not leave much room for dreams and starry eyes.
The topic of these films is loss, in particular loss of hope: which is all the more dominant in the three trilogies of the Skywalker saga.
In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin’s fate is sealed: he loses everything he believed in and hoped for and he will never get them back.
In The Empire Strikes Back, during his dramatic clash with Vader, Luke also loses the things he believed in and his hope for what he wanted to be and to achieve: though in his case, he finds them again.
And yet for all of the dramatic things that happen - Leia’s almost-death, Holdo’s sacrifice, Luke’s ultimate sacrifice - The Last Jedi does not have a dark undertone. At its core, it’s Ben Solo’s story, and in the central scene of the movie, the grandson and nephew of the Skywalker family does not lose what he hopes for and believes in.
When You Don’t Know What Your Heroes Want, Neither Do You
Having read and heard so much about what made the Star Wars sequels botch and why some fans still have problems with the prequels, these days I was struck with a sudden, very simple thought.
The problem is not only the character’s lack of agenda as such, but how this impacts the viewer’s impression. The thing is that we want to immerse ourselves into another world on watching a movie or tv show; we want our imagination to be tickled to be spirited away into an entirely different world.
I still love the Star Wars classics more than the other movies; they’re not bad and e.g. Revenge of the Sith and The Last Jedi, are actually quite good, but it can’t be denied that they still didn’t match the classic movies in quality and that a lot of their success is due to the fact that the fanbase is enormous and that some will watch almost anything Star Wars related just because.
The narrative task is as simple as it is crucial. We need to understand what the characters actually want; even better, if their desire is decisive to their own well-being, if it clearly is a need and not only a wish or a dream. But with the Star Wars stories which were produced since the classics, characters are often confused or outright in the dark. And as a result, so are we.
As viewers, we want to feel and think with our heroes. We root for those we can identify with; we can hardly be expected to get all excited about people who merely want to prevent things, or who have vague wishes but not personal wants and needs. The Star Wars classics are excellent at this, and they outline the characters, making abundantly clear what they are here for, in a few minutes.
As viewers, we do not need to know why Darth Vader wants to terrorize people; why Leia is a good character, as Luke is. Han at first is only in for the money, but it is clear enough that he is not a villain. Within a few minutes of having met them we have sized them up and know whether we like them or not. We do not need to immerse ourselves intellectually into the world of Star Wars by knowing how the Jedi Order looked like or the old Republic, who the Emperor is, what the Force is etc. We may want to learn about it later, but it’s not necessary to enjoy the story as it is, and to love the characters. The subtext adds to the story’s magic; it is not and does not become boring or annoying because we don’t care for understanding all details, we care for the characters.
The prequels’ and the sequels’ main mistake was to go too much into the details or world-building, at the expense of what to us, as viewers, is of paramount importance if we want to enjoy a story. We need to know what drives the characters if we’re supposed to feel with them.
~ More under the cut ~
Prequels
The Phantom Menace works relatively well because we are aware of the protagonists’ agendas for the most part.
Qui-Gon wants to do the will of the Force, which makes him free Anakin and bring him to the Jedi to be trained, convinced that he is the Chosen One.
Anakin wants to win the pod race, to free the slaves on Tatooine and to explore the galaxy. His mother wants him to be free.
But here’s where things get tricky.
Obi-Wan, a beloved and popular character from the classics, in his youthful impersonation has hardly anything to say, he merely is his master’s sidekick.
Padmé wants to keep her people safe, but she is a healthy, affluent young woman from a powerful background. She acts out of idealism; if she was not a queen, personally she wouldn’t be any worse.
Darth Maul says he wants “revenge” over the Jedi, but it is never said what that revenge is to be for. He kills Qui-Gon and again, it is not said why. (We can only imagine it is to deprive Anakin of the father figure he needs, leaving him with the too young and immature Obi-Wan.)
Palpatine is already working towards taking over absolute power over the galaxy, but again, we don’t know anything about him personally; what made him the way he is, why he wants this kind of power so badly that he will do anything for the purpose.
The Jedi Council is the most disappointing part of the movie: they obviously have no wish but to keep things the way they are.
JarJar is not only irritating due to his quirks but because he is merely a comic relief. We have no idea about what he actually wants in the story, and neither does he.
Attack of the Clones is a weak movie due to the same reasons.
Who ordered Shmi’s abduction and torture, and why? Palpatine, most probably, but that is never uncovered.
Anakin wants to rescue her, but again, he wants to prevent something; he does not actively want something of his own. We e.g. never hear him speak about wanting to save the slaves on Tatooine again.
What does Dooku want, and again, why?
Jango Fett wants a good life for himself and his son, which makes him an interesting character; but he meets his death and his son picks up right where he ended.
A very important scene where Padmé tells Anakin that she laid down her mandate because she wants to get married and have children was, unfortunately, cut from the movie.
Many fans remember this movie mainly as a love story - why? Exactly. Because that Anakin and Padmé are in love and want to be together is the clearest narrative thread in this movie that is packed full of details but leaves us without much actual knowledge about what is happening, and why.
In Revenge of the Sith everyone has an agenda, but except for Palpatine, they all want to prevent things from happening; they have nothing new in mind.
Anakin wants to keep his family safe; Padmé wants the same; the Jedi want to preserve their power, and so on.
On Mustafar, Anakin says to his wife that now they can finally “make things the way they want them to be”, but that is very vague. Also, he obviously never knows that Palpatine groomed him from the very start. His own will seems to be of no importance.
The population of the galaxy hands over power to Palpatine tired of the long war; but we never see anyone mourning loss and death, so that motivation is not really stringent.
Of course, the prequels are a tragedy and we learn that the Jedi are supposed to live for the “greater good” and not to have any personal drive. But if that is one of the causes of their downfall, at least it ought to be said or shown clearly. Also, there is a lot of fatalism at work. But even in that case, it ought to better be shown how the characters fight desperately against fate and in the end are incapable to prevent it.
One of the reasons why Darth Vader is such a popular character is that even if he is of course not likeable, we always are led to understanding him, both with regard to his fate and to his personal wishes. In the end he kills Palpatine, accomplishing his fate by killing the actual mastermind behind the Empire, the archvillain; and in doing so, he also fulfils a personal wish, which is to save his son. This action and both his motivations are clear enough within the scope of minutes. The prequels are nice to fill in the details that led to this moment, but they are not actually needed to understand the story.
Sequels
I remember well, on watching The Force Awakens, how Kylo Ren’s character irritated me. I kept asking myself, “What is the matter with this guy?” He is deeply conflicted - due to what? He killed his own father - why? He only becomes more interesting when it is revealed that he wants Rey more than anything else.
Rey is a passive person waiting in an awful situation although she could run, waiting for her family whom she intimately knows to be dead. She runs from Maz Kanata’s castle; she says to Luke that she wants someone to tell her where her place is.
Finn wants to get away from the First Order. He has nowhere to run to the way Luke did when he chose to go with Ben and become a Jedi.
Poe is devoted to the Resistance and Leia, but where does his loyalty come from?
Holdo is hated by many antis because she is secretive about her aims.
Han and Leia want their son back, but why “back”? What drove him away in the first place? Why are they looking for him only now, years after his fall?
Luke’s aim is to wait for his death. Only shortly before that, he decides to give Rey encouragement, to apologize towards his sister and nephew and to save the Resistance.
Rose wants to help the Resistance and, later, to keep Finn safe. Her character is a major drive to the second sequel film.
Jannah and Zorri - forgettable due to the same reason.
Palpatine - wants to have one person killed and then another.
The sequels, and with them the entire saga, end with Rey, a Palpatine, on the desert dunes both Anakin and Luke ardently wanted to leave. Why? What does she want there?
In-Between
Rogue One is a well-made story but somehow depressing because all the protagonist wants is to do her father’s will. Jyn seems to have no agenda of her own; neither does the rest of her squadron. They all join her because they have nothing to lose.
Solo is a good action film with a feel-good ending because we are always aware of what Han wants: his first motivation is to find and keep his freedom, and when he finally gets the Falcon, that aim is accomplished.
TV Shows
The Clone Wars gets irritating after a while because there is no overarching structure. The Separatists fight the Republic, the Republic aided by the Jedi fights back, yada yada. A nice time filler but nothing to get enthusiastic about.
The Bad Batch has a similar problem. After the war, the five clones have no actual aim in life anymore and all they want is to remain together and keep Omega safe; however, that is no definite aim and although the show is well received, it’s no wonder fans don’t get all excited about it.
The Mandalorian leaves no doubt about its protagonists’ aims. Mando wants to protect his covert, to keep the child safe, then he wants to bring him to his own kind. What the other characters want is also never left in the dark, except for Greef Karga who is an ambiguous figure; but even that changes after a while. The show was a cult among fans even before the first season was fully aired.
What’s so sad about this problem is that with a little more concise writing, it could have been avoided.
The saga of course has the problem that many fans are not elbows-deep in it, that others believe it’s only about action and outright deny or overlook the deeper themes; many fans simply want a hero who kills the bad guy, saves the world and gets the girl because otherwise they won’t understand it. Which is of course annoying, but can’t be helped. Fans have a right - excuse me - to be stupid, respectively to only want to be entertained and not to spend months or entire years delving into the saga’s themes.
However, simply fleshing out what really drives the characters and why would boost these stories enormously. It’s such a simple thing: any Disney movie makes the characters’ setting and agenda clear within the scope of five minutes. Why in this case they left everything so shrouded, leaving the fans baffled or even hugely disappointed, is beyond me. I have not studied filmmaking but if I did, I would expect such basics to be taught beginning with the first lesson.
Viewers watch movies with their “child brain”, and while it’s not wrong to introduce deeper themes, at least on first viewing I daresay what we all want is to entertained and to actually understand what the story is about. It’s deeply frustrating when we don’t, and such movies or shows never age that well, as good as they may be otherwise.
Personally,
- I don’t need the cliché “hero saves the world, kills the bad guy and gets the girl” to be accomplished
- I don’t watch Star Wars expecting nothing but special-effects-packed, plot-driven action
- I’m fine with a female heroine, Jedi or not, and I never thought that Rey is a Mary Sue
- I know that a villain like Darth Vader can’t be topped and I’m fine with his angsty counterpart
- I never saw the Jedi as almighty, all-wise superheroes and I can live with the fact that they failed; the saga is ultimately not about them but about the Skywalker family, and that’s fine by me
- I don’t need a happy ever after to go on loving and admiring my heroes
- I can accept that someone like Luke Skywalker would go into exile and refuse to join the fight again
- I like the idea that both heroes and villains are human and that there is no clearly definite black / white pattern
- I don’t need to see the Adventures of Han, Luke and Leia in an endless loop, much as I may love them
- I did miss the magic atmosphere of the classic movies in all new ones except for The Last Jedi, but I can accept that not everything can be a fairy tale
- I liked the idea of Kylo’s more fleshed-out redemption arch than in Vader’s case
- I like profound dialogue but it is not a must (in The Mandalorian, we realize that the hero’s aim is to protect his foundling from the moment of their first meeting - they don’t talk, one wears a helmet and the other is a literal puppet).
PLEASE, let us know what the characters are up to. Don’t just leave us in the dark for three movies in a row. Plot twists are fine. Endless confusion is not.
Define your characters by making us understand what they actually want and why, if you don't want your audience to bang their heads against a wall. Thank you.
P.S. If being unclear about what the characters actually desire was aimed at not letting us realize that in the end nobody got anything they longed for: that has failed, too.
I guess anyone who follows me or reads my meta’s from time to time is aware that I love Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi to death.
I really do. I will be eternally thankful to him for bringing back Star Wars’ magic after all of those years.
However for the last two and more years, I could not bring myself to decide whether it came up to the movie that until now is ranked as the saga’s best, The Empire Strikes Back.
And sadly, having thought about it for a while, by now I have to confess: no. It doesn’t.
I can’t forget something a friend of mine told me who had been to the cinema with her eight-year-old nephew: that he found The Last Jedi „boring“. The daughter of a friend of mine, who was a few years older when the sequels hit cinemas, said the same.
The faults in the new Star Wars movies have been plucked apart and discussed to shreds by now, and I’ve written my fair share about them, in particular after the disaster that was The Rise of Skywalker.
A major problem is, as I already wrote before, that we are left too much in the dark about what drives the characters. Though they are less confused than in The Force Awakens, in The Last Jedi their actual desires are still not defined enough: we mostly know what they want to avoid, not what they actually want. Which is probably meant for the element of surprise but keeps too much in the dark, made worse considering that The Rise of Skywalker answered no question at all.
Between the classics and the sequels thirty years have passed which remain largely unexplored. But that’s exactly the point: if the new movies were really well told, it would not matter.
When e.g. Vader kills Obi-Wan in A New Hope, the one who has a close connection with Obi-Wan is Luke, and it is he who is devastated when his mentor dies. Vader's personality is not explored in depth here because the story is about Luke, so whatever fall-out Vader and Obi-Wan must have had is not important narratively.
The sequels however are Ben's story; and since we do not know how Luke’s and Ben’s relationship was before the fatal night at the temple, we can only imagine that Ben must have loved his uncle a great deal, or at least trusted him implicitly. But without that knowledge, Luke’s moment of panic and why it pushed his nephew right to the Dark Side remains difficult to understand. Also, Ben’s redemption loses a lot of its narrative weight without knowledge of his grandfather’s past.
In the classic movies, we get some hints at things that happen or did happen behind stage, but they’re not what the story is about; we can watch them and thoroughly enjoy them without getting frustrated. The emphasis is always on the new storyline.
While ever since the prequels, the saga seems to have largely become a set-up for further stories, paving the future by neglecting the present; e.g. one of Attack of the Clones’ major problems is that it’s fraught with side plots and characters, since it’s also a set up for The Clone Wars and the return of Boba Fett.
In itself, I don’t think that’s bad. Fans ask for new Star Wars content and it’s a producer’s right to make as much of his stories as he can.
However, there is no way that the new stories are ever going to reach the vigor and freshness of the original story, going on like this.
The audience wants to know what’s going on and why.
The audience is often new and doesn’t know what went on before.
The audience wants to be entertained, in particular younger people.
I think the DLF studios are naïve if they automatically expect that the viewer will understand this and that, “knowing the saga”. But that exactly is often not the case. New fans or viewers who don’t like to delve into themes and connections between plotlines will often just get confused and simply feel stressed, or even bored. The classic movies never get old and you can show them to children, too; they will understand the storyline, if not the nuances.
A new or relatively young viewer
- will not know that Chancellor Palpatine is the future Emperor
- will not realize why it is so important that Anakin can’t control his dark sides
- will not understand why he and Padmé get married although they’re not supposed to
- will not recognize Han, Luke and Leia in the sequels, or hardly be interested in them
- will not know the legend of Luke Skywalker and consequently, why his falling out with his nephew was so fatal
- will not know Anakin Skywalker’s backstory and thus not why his grandson’s redemption is so important
- will chafe at the idea Luke takes Grogu away from Mando
etc.
I realize that with a franchise like Star Wars, which is quite unique, it is difficult to tell new and original stories while connecting them to the old ones. The Rise of Skywalker is an awful example for this - it’s easily understandable because, apart from a few good scenes, it’s simply stupid where the classics were linear and clearly cut-out.
If the studios want to keep writing quality stories, with this franchise they ought to wonder: what will my eight-year-old-nephew say to this?
Clues: if he gets bored, you’re not there yet.
If he doesn’t but his teenage sister is pulling her hairs out at the roots: same.
Do you believe there are no similarities between uncle and nephew? Well, until now, we at least saw this one.
The Force Awakens
The man who brought death and destruction to Takodana and kidnapped the story’s heroine, promising her to train her in the Force, on uncovering his face turns out to look young and quite inoffensive.
“You need a teacher - I could show you the ways of the Force!”
The Mandalorian S2E8
Sounds familiar? 😉 A man brings down a whole platoon of Dark Troopers in a few minutes, but when he removes his hood he looks surprisingly young and friendly.
“He is strong with the Force, but talent without training is nothing.”
On a side note, they are the same age: Kylo / Ben is 29, Luke is 28.
