Spoilers for Star Wars, mostly Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.
I promised Star Wars. Here's some Star Wars.
While my fiancée was sick recently, we re-watched Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It's the first of the new Star Wars spinoffs that takes place between Episodes IV and V.
It made us both cry, multiple times. Other than the tears, it got me to thinking: why are some movies and books and TV shows so popular?
There's many answers to that question; more than one answer comes down to timing and coincidence. Technical skill is also relvant. (A well-written book, all else being equal, is better than a less-well written book.)
The answer that most interests me is how something reveals and encourages specific concepts- the way the world is supposed to be. Ayn Rand is good at this, which is I reference her so often and why so many people like her work.
So, to Star Wars: why is it so special? Well, it had a theme- the most classic theme, of pure heroism versus pure evil. In the original trilogy, Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca form a team of heroes who right the galaxy. The journey is one from tyranny to freedom and from oppression to liberation. It's a classic.
When the prequels came out, they showed a different story. Still necessary, but different. They depict how the galaxy went from stagnant and corrupt, but free to the evil and tyrannical Empire. (It involves a lot of murder.)
Importantly: the message of the prequels is incomplete without the original trilogy. That is, Episodes IV-VI can exist without Episodes I-III, but I-III cannot be whole without IV-VI.
Then, in a complicated bid for more money, the story continues...we have the new trilogy. (This is Episodes VII and VIII at the time of this writing, with IX not yet released.) It is openly marketed as the "end of the Skywalker Saga".
True, something must happen to Leia now that Carrie Fisher is dead. True, Luke Skywalker dies at the end of The Last Jedi. But, now that every iconic Skywalker is dead, the huge problem is: what comes next?
Confession: I love both released movies of the sequel trilogy, but in a different way. While I love the technical aspect and the lore and the storytelling, I take issue with the subversion of the values. The ethos of the original trilogy was traditional: heroes and villains. The prequel trilogy shows the primacy of evil, only as the prelude to the return of the heroes. The sequel trilogy is about change, but what sort of change?
Kylo Ren is a villain throughout the sequels, and is shaping up to be the big bad of the final movie. He also happens to be the last known Skywalker (by ancestry, Luke is his uncle). The line that Kylo Ren adopts in The Last Jedi is to "let the past die. Kill it if you have to." It became the theme of the movie and the purpose of the movie, more generally.
A quick, but relevant sidebar: I'm not a traditionalist in the sense of thinking the past is uniformly better than the present. I look forward to the future and the growth of the civilization. But, the past has important lessons and important values that we need to make the center of our lives.
Star Wars is a story about The Story: the conflict between good and evil. This Story plays out in big and small ways in history and within each of us. With the direction that Rian Johnson, director of Episode VIII, took us, we risk muddying the water. Rey, for instance, does not come from some impressive lineage: she is the daughter of drug addicts. Luke was not a paragon of the light side, like Yoda or Obi-Wan before him: he tries to kill his nephew out of fear. Snoke is not a powerful villain: his death takes seconds and his screen time is minimal.
All this to say: Star Wars is better as a story about Ideas, instead of about people. To change this focus is to be more in line with storytelling tropes of the day, but not with what makes Star Wars so great. Star Wars was an aspirational movie series, showing us the best of ourselves versus the worst of ourselves.
If it becomes a movie series that's based on destroying what it was- about letting the past die, or even killing it- isn't it destroying aspirations?
I promised Star Wars. Here's some Star Wars.
While my fiancée was sick recently, we re-watched Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It's the first of the new Star Wars spinoffs that takes place between Episodes IV and V.
It made us both cry, multiple times. Other than the tears, it got me to thinking: why are some movies and books and TV shows so popular?
There's many answers to that question; more than one answer comes down to timing and coincidence. Technical skill is also relvant. (A well-written book, all else being equal, is better than a less-well written book.)
The answer that most interests me is how something reveals and encourages specific concepts- the way the world is supposed to be. Ayn Rand is good at this, which is I reference her so often and why so many people like her work.
So, to Star Wars: why is it so special? Well, it had a theme- the most classic theme, of pure heroism versus pure evil. In the original trilogy, Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca form a team of heroes who right the galaxy. The journey is one from tyranny to freedom and from oppression to liberation. It's a classic.
When the prequels came out, they showed a different story. Still necessary, but different. They depict how the galaxy went from stagnant and corrupt, but free to the evil and tyrannical Empire. (It involves a lot of murder.)
Importantly: the message of the prequels is incomplete without the original trilogy. That is, Episodes IV-VI can exist without Episodes I-III, but I-III cannot be whole without IV-VI.
Then, in a complicated bid for more money, the story continues...we have the new trilogy. (This is Episodes VII and VIII at the time of this writing, with IX not yet released.) It is openly marketed as the "end of the Skywalker Saga".
True, something must happen to Leia now that Carrie Fisher is dead. True, Luke Skywalker dies at the end of The Last Jedi. But, now that every iconic Skywalker is dead, the huge problem is: what comes next?
Confession: I love both released movies of the sequel trilogy, but in a different way. While I love the technical aspect and the lore and the storytelling, I take issue with the subversion of the values. The ethos of the original trilogy was traditional: heroes and villains. The prequel trilogy shows the primacy of evil, only as the prelude to the return of the heroes. The sequel trilogy is about change, but what sort of change?
Kylo Ren is a villain throughout the sequels, and is shaping up to be the big bad of the final movie. He also happens to be the last known Skywalker (by ancestry, Luke is his uncle). The line that Kylo Ren adopts in The Last Jedi is to "let the past die. Kill it if you have to." It became the theme of the movie and the purpose of the movie, more generally.
A quick, but relevant sidebar: I'm not a traditionalist in the sense of thinking the past is uniformly better than the present. I look forward to the future and the growth of the civilization. But, the past has important lessons and important values that we need to make the center of our lives.
Star Wars is a story about The Story: the conflict between good and evil. This Story plays out in big and small ways in history and within each of us. With the direction that Rian Johnson, director of Episode VIII, took us, we risk muddying the water. Rey, for instance, does not come from some impressive lineage: she is the daughter of drug addicts. Luke was not a paragon of the light side, like Yoda or Obi-Wan before him: he tries to kill his nephew out of fear. Snoke is not a powerful villain: his death takes seconds and his screen time is minimal.
All this to say: Star Wars is better as a story about Ideas, instead of about people. To change this focus is to be more in line with storytelling tropes of the day, but not with what makes Star Wars so great. Star Wars was an aspirational movie series, showing us the best of ourselves versus the worst of ourselves.
If it becomes a movie series that's based on destroying what it was- about letting the past die, or even killing it- isn't it destroying aspirations?
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