Note: Spoilers follow for the entire Star Wars movie series, although mostly The Force Awakens.
With our
watching of The Force Awakens earlier
this week, my girlfriend and I have now completed seeing (almost) all of the Star Wars movies worth seeing. While the
re-watching didn’t surpass my initial Big Screen experience, I was pleasantly
surprised how much I enjoyed it on second viewing.
Namely, as
opposed to the original trilogy, The
Force Awakens has the pacing and hallmarks of a modern movie, while still
having touchstones for longtime fans. Watching them in close proximity, I was
struck by how slow the original Star Wars
is in its pacing, as not much really happens in the initial hour or so.
Like, we haven’t even gotten to Mos Eisley yet, if I’m remembering correctly.
In contrast,
the first hour of The Force Awakens has
some fun, like Rey’s run through the market, and Finn and Rey escaping the Imperial
New Order ship. Plus, there are plenty of “Holy shit!” moments, like the
discovery of the tarped up Millennium Falcon, and the first appearances of
Chewbacca and Han Solo.
If there is
a major downside to The Force Awakens,
it’s that I can’t imagine the movie being completely intelligible and
satisfying to first timers. Yes, there are new characters that can hook them (Finn, Rey, Kylo Ren), but
a good portion of the movie’s fun comes in the form of crossover roles between
the trilogies, allusions and cameos.
Anyway! Here
is my reckless speculation and thoughts for the rest of the upcoming movies:
- Doing
“young” Han Solo movies seems like the stupidest thing ever to me. Maybe the
films will actually be good, but why? Just why? It seems like craven IP
recycling on the part of Disney. Seeing how quickly and strongly the new
characters, especially Rey, were embraced by fans of The Force Awakens should be a hint that you don’t need to risk
tarnishing Han Solo. Speaking of…
- The Rogue Squadron movie looks great. I’m
fine with a somewhat-grittier take on Star
Wars as long as the series as a whole doesn’t trend in that direction. Part
of its charm to me is that while it does have darker moments (Darth’s reveal,
Luke getting his hand chopped off, Darth burning in the lava), it doesn’t
embrace the Darker and Grittier manta that too many other properties have. The
absolute last thing I want is a ton of Star
Wars movies that try to emulate Batman
Begins (on the good end of the scale) or the new Superman movies (ugh, just
ugh).
- If they’re
looking for more Star Wars back lore
to translate into movies, there are two already established things that make
sense to me, that wouldn’t clash with already established storylines. 1) Shadows of the Empire, a Nintendo 64
game starring Dash Rendar. Taking place between the second and third movies, it
basically explains how carbonite Solo gets to Jabba. 2) Something piggybacking
on Knights of the Old Republic, the
awesome Bioware RPG series. The games are set far in the distant past, even by Star Wars standards, and have some good
twists and turns.
- Karen
liked The Force Awakens more than the
three movies of the original trilogy, but she was disappointed that nobody got
their hand chopped off. The reveal of Luke with a metal hand at the end wasn’t
enough. I had to remind her that because these movies are set in the distant
past, they’re actually documentaries, and it would just be wrong to make up
facts like that.
- Going
forward, I’d be shocked if Rey was Luke’s daughter. Firstly, because they don’t
look anything alike, and secondly, because it would be bizarre if Luke, Leia
and Han Solo were all seemingly in the dark or negligent in monitoring his
daughter. The likeliest answer on the Internet suggests that she has Kenobi
blood in her, which seems likely to me, given her strength in the force, her
age, and the fact that Luke’s lightsaber responded strongly to her. My second
thought is that Luke was able to find some “force sensitives,” people strong
but untrained in the force, out there in the universe. However, regardless of
the answer, there will seemingly be some Character Gymnastics to explain this
previously unknown Jedi being in the picture. (i.e. If she or one of her heirs
was alive in the first trilogy, why did Yoda and Obi-Wan only seem to think
that the Skywalkers were the last Jedi?)
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