By which I mean the “First Trilogy,” which remains a mostly awful thing.
I’m enjoying the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series on Disney+, so I thought (since I had some spare time) I’d watch the “First Trilogy” films, to get the background story that leads into this new story.
(And, yes, there’s a ton of stuff in “Clone Wars” that adds to all that, which I have also watched in the past, and heartily recommend, but did not rewatch the several seasons of which for this purpose. Sorry).
Obi-Wan notes: Ewan McGregor’s first turn as a Padawan learner under Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn. The relationship and banter between the two of them are a big part of the positives to this film. Obi-Wan is is young and brash and confident, but with some justification — he’s a fierce fighter (he does eventually defeat Darth Maul), a powerful assistant to Qui-Gon, and an insightful observer.
In the end, Obi-Wan is on his own — and has sworn to his dying master that he will take on Anakin Skywalker as his apprentice. It’s a role he has no training to take on, being barely promoted to full Jedi himself.
Obi-Wan notes: It’s ten years later, and Anakin, ripped from his mother, has grown into a sulky teenager. Obi-Wan, sporting a sage beard, has grown into an old fuddy-duddy. The bubbly, defiant, independent Padawan under the rebellious master Qui-Gon is now conservative, chiding, fretful, and domineering teacher.
When on his own — investigating Kamino, fighting Jango, checking out Geonosis — he’s a strong character. Fighting with Anakin against Dooku, he’s heroic. But every time he interacts with Anakin, any attempts to the bantering camaraderie that he had with Qui-Gon is awkward and forced.
Obi-Wan notes: Obi-Wan gets to watch it all fall apart — the Republic falling into tyranny, the Jedi Order is destroyed through its own arrogance, and his Padawan apprentice turns into the monster assassin of the Sith emperor.
And, in the end, he realizes his own failure — and that of the Jedi. He/they failed to see Palpatine’s plot, they failed to protect the Republic, they failed to protect the Younglings — and they failed to see how Anakin was falling from grace. It’s (rightfully) gut-wrenching for him, and the final battle he has with Anakin is no victory on his part, but a cap on the tragedy he’s overseen.
“You were my brother! I loved you!”
And that’s the final indictment, as he failed as both master and as brother, not fully embracing either role, because he got bulldozed into trying to be both when he was too young to figure it out.
And while he takes on a final assignment at the end of the film, watching over Luke, the OWK series shows he’s been more than a bit traumatized by the whole thing. Which adds an interesting twist to the series.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is arguably the most interesting and heroic character of the First Trilogy, and he was definitely my favorite character in The Clone Wars. I love that they’ve given him a dedicated series, and I am definitely eager to see what comes next.
The lovely parts are far greater than the muddled, poorly-structured whole.
So … The Book of Boba Fett.
Sigh.
YES THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE FOR THE SERIES, AND BITS AND BOBS OF THE FINALE. YOU SHOULD WATCH IT FIRST (YES, YOU SHOULD, EVEN IF IT HAS SOME SIGNIFICANT FLAWS).
You know the drill.
This was a marvelous, stirring, my-younger-fanboy-would-disbelieve-we’d-ever-see-it collection of incredibly cool, thoughtful, interesting, thrilling, exciting, lore-filled, great bits and ideas …
… that were greater than the eventual sum of their parts.
To start bluntly, dramatic pacing on this show was for shit. Backflashes and presentflashes and huge sidequests and where-the-hell-is-the-titular-character chunks of story dominated the whole series. Loading down the saga with backstory and exposition can be done … but it has to pay off. And inserting massive peripheral tales that have nothing to do with the core narrative would rightfully have any writing group pulling out the torches and flensing knives.
Hey, know that graph of how a novel is structured? Essentially a cascading series of rising actions, ending in a big climax and then a denouement?
Look! A plot structure!
This series was just a constant stream of static.
Slow moments. Fast moments. Small moments. Big moments. All thrown into a blender with no actual pacing, aside from the Disney+ “The final episode will be full of pew-pew-pew action.”
And even in that final episode, which was, to be sure, mostly the huge blow-out action sequence that people were looking for …
… we get interrupted mid-stream by an extended sequence of gratuitous Groguness.
Yeah, things are getting unbearably tense in Mos Espa … so let’s break for several minutes of cute Grogu action!
… the titular character, master of a dozen deadly weapons, spends much of his time during the big action sequences not doing much more than hanging with a (beautifully rendered) CGI figure, yanking on chains.
He … mostly sits up there.
… the denouement is an utterly flat collection of much of the cast, and then some meaningless Mando stuff, and then a mid-credit scene of a supporting character with supporting character and ROLL REST OG CREDITS.
Honestly, I didn’t recognize him on first watch.
Whu–?
(Okay, I’ll give a shout-out to the secondary characters. The Mod gang. The Gamorreans. The Freetowners. Krrsantan. The Mayor. The Mayor’s Chief of Staff. They were all finely done. But they weren’t the real focus of series, even if I’d have loved to see more of them.)
We ended up in this series spending so much time with fun stuff and cool stuff and interesting stuff and backstory stuff and lore stuff and fan service stuff that … it feels like they forgot it was supposed to maybe … be a story … nay, a book … a book of … well, let’s grab a name at random, say … Boba Fett.
I honestly don’t know if they decided halfway through the plotting that they had run out of ideas and therefore threw in a bunch of other stuff (Sarlacc! Mando! Grogu! Cad Bane!), or if there was never a story to begin with, or if this was a way of sneaking in a Season 2.5 of The Mandalorian past the Disney overseers … but …
Really, truly, the idea of …
a bounty hunter, the coolest bounty hunter (and bodyguard and button man) ever, deciding they didn’t want to work for stupid, short-sighted, inept, venal bosses any more, but wanted to become their own boss, a boss unto themselves, building something that was theirs, and in the process learned the challenges, perils, pitfalls, challenges, seduction, and ultimately oblige of power …
… that is an awesome story. And that’s what the trailer promised us.
Boba Fett, and the uneasy head that wears the crown
And that’s what … we got a watered-down half-a-story of, mixed up with a cloudy brew of guest figures, parallel stories, and fan-cruft.
Heck, imagine the difference if we took all that irrelevant Mandalorian time and added in some internal conflict to the Boba Fett story.
For example, Fennec Shand repeatedly bumps heads (if lightly) with Boba Fett about taking a more forceful, bloody, and criminal course of being a mob boss. Hey, Spice is profitable! That could have given us some real conflict. Is she going to argue when he says, “No”? Is she going to consider her options? Is she going to set up a side gig? Is she going to (even seem to) consider betraying him? Will the Pykes approach her, thinking she’s a weak link? Will she show she’s her own person … and ultimately make the right choice for her own reasons?
Nope. A kick-ass character and great actress, she just spends most of her time in the series giving us recaps of the situation (overlapping the “Previously” intros), nodding politely to Boba’s orders, and then being a deus ex assassin at key moments. A huge waste.
Just me … and my … shaaaaadow!
Or consider, if you wanted to drag the Mandalorian into the mix (which his own series laid the groundwork for), we could create some dramatic tension from that. Does Din Djarin really support Boba Fett’s ends (or his understanding of Boba’s ends) or is he supporting Boba, reluctantly, out of a sense honor? How far does that go? Does he protest Boba’s course? Does he actually show that possible internal conflict? Conversely, does Boba Fett really trust him? Does his see how his own sense of honor/obligation lines up to Mando’s? What do these two characters have in common, and where do they have differences, and how can we let that actually drive some drama between them?
Nope. Instead, we get “I am Lawful Neutral, so I will follow your orders to the death.” “Dude, you really believe that?” “It is the Way.” Ho-hum.
“Because they’re cousins … identical cousins …”
Hell, as far as that goes, even Boba Fett, the titular character, after getting a burst of character growth in the extended Tuskan flashbacks (very nicely done) … spends most of the series in an enlightened mob boss state. From the time in the present when he sits on Jabba’s throne to the end of the show … he doesn’t actually seem to grow or change. He’s the “I am the boss. I will rule with respect. I will protect my people” guy. He doesn’t get any internal conflicts, he doesn’t clash with anyone but obvious enemies, he doesn’t question his course. He just cruises along. His only challenge is a bit of naivete as to what it takes to run a city as a mob boss. That’s the only internal “conflict” he faces. Which is … a bit boring.
Boba really doesn’t tick any of these boxes.
While the Mando 2.5 miniseries bits were a huge gimping disruption, I did enjoy them for themselves. Playing with the Darksaber (when it could do things); running into Luke, and Ahsoka, and Grogu; learning that Luke is, yeah, just like we learn in the third trilogy, going to be a Jedi dick of a teacher … all of that was informative and fun. It was all great.
And it was totally inappropriate to this series. It had nothing to do with Boba Fett. It had nothing to do with the overall gang war of Mos Espa. It was simply a bridge to (we assume) the desired starting point of Season 3 of The Mandalorian.
(It also led to some of the worst telegraphing. “Oh, hey, I, the Mandalorian, am now flying around in a Naboo starfighter, but the little dome area where an astromech droid used to go is now just an empty dome, so very, very empty, I wonder what will ever fill it …?”)
I’m shocked, SHOCKED, to find Grogu here!
Sigh.
This series really could have been so much more. So many of the elements are beautiful. The Tuskan sequences were lovely and meaningful both for Boba and for Star Wars lore. (What? The Tuskans aren’t just blood-thirsty, superstitious wogs? Mind-blown!) So many of the figures used — the Pykes, Krssantin, Cad Bane, even call-outs to Mando bits like Cobb Vanth and Mos Pelgo and Peli Motto — were neat in and of themselves, and could have all fit into a rich Boba-focused narrative saga.
For that matter, Boba’s part of the story could have been about the conflicts he felt, his personal urges toward violence, what he learned from his time with the Tuskans, how that intersected with his vengeful motivations dating back to his father’s death, and how those drives still did (and, to his realization, didn’t) apply to the present … maybe his growing uncertainty about his reasons for taking on the role of daimyo of Mos Espa, and how that ultimately translated into his taking on responsibility for the lives of the people there.
But the show decided, for whatever reason, to try to do too much, and too little, to show some lovely lore, and to short-circuit the character growth … and ultimately turned out to be a fun-to-watch, frustrating-to-contemplate, disappointment.
I don’t regret watching any individual element, really. But I definitely consider the series, the Book, as a whole … a fail.
I am quite satisfied with this wrap-up to the Skywalker Saga
Preliminary, non-spoilery notes:
This is by no means a perfect movie. It is not a cinematic classic. It will win no Oscars for writing or acting or directing.
Neither did any other Star Wars movie, I’m pretty sure. And that’s what this is: a Star Wars movie, full of leaps of illogic and crazy adventure and pew-pew and Force magic and melodrama and the whole series is based on Saturday Afternoon Movie Serials, fergoshsakes. We’re not talking high art.
Which is to say that I was entertained, and I thought it was a fine movie for what it was, and I will buy the Blu-Ray, and will feel like I got my money’s worth, and I will debate the details, and I will try not to lose my patience with people who pooh-pooh it because it isn’t artistic cinama or because it doesn’t cause all of their fanboi pleasure centers to fire off they way they demand.
It was a fun movie. I enjoyed watching it. I will watch it again in the future. I think it wrapped up the “Skywalker Saga” just fine, thanks.
It’s an odd confluence of events and commemorations.
Three things of note.
It is, of course, Star Wars Day. “May the Fourth be with you,” as they say. James messaged me that, and when I mentioned it to Mom, who’d never heard it, it drew a chuckle. So totally worth it.Yes, an awful joke, but it still always draws a chuckle from me.
This is the fifth anniversary of Dad’s passing. I don’t talk about it much, even now, though I still think of him often — what he would think of something, how he would enjoy a joke, music he would enjoy, all that kind of thing. I miss him.Dad, with Mom, on a visit to the Denver Botanic Garden
This is the fiftieth (!) anniversary of my First Communion. Which I only remember because the gift I got for it, a St. Christopher medal I wore for many years, had the date engraved on the back: 5-9-69.
It’s not something that means quite as much theologically to me as it once did, but it was a huge milestone in my childhood, and that it’s hit that kind of anniversary is … well, once in a lifetime.
Ah, the joys of old school photos.
It was a nice day — sleeping in, running errands with Margie, texting with the boy, dinner out with Mom. Pleasantly domestic and familiar. An odd confluence of anniversaries and events, with an otherwise pleasantly ordinary day, but, then, ever.
It’s always interesting what theaters, distribution companies, and other interested parties think are the “right” trailers for an audience.
At a 2pm Saturday showing of Avengers: Endgame, here’s what showed up at the local Regal:
Hobbs & Shaw — I have to say, as someone who’s never had much interest in the F&F franchise, this keeps looking more and more amusing. Snarky banter and over-the-top action violence … wow, I’m not sure I’d pony up for a theater showing, but streaming it some day? Sure.
Long Shot — This political rom-com doesn’t poll well with me.
Gemini Man — This is not a remake of the short-lived 70s SF show, but about an assassin being hunted by his own younger clone, both roles played by Will Smith. Looks interesting, but not quite my cuppa.
21 Bridges — The island of Manhattan is sealed off as the police try to hunt down some cop killers. I guess. There’s other stuff in the trailer, but I think that’s it.
Godzilla, King of the Monsters — This is looking pretty darned good. There is a sense of real awe in the kaiju and their appearance. We may go to the movie theater for this one.
Dark Phoenix — I’m kind of over the Fox X-universe. I’d be willing to watch this sometime on an airplane, but I’m not intrigued to go out of my way to see it any time soon.
The Lion King — This is the trailer that’s been out for the last week. Still looks pretty. Haven’t yet gotten a reason to see this remake.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker — First shots I’ve seen of this film. I don’t have any sense of story here, just images. I’m sure I’ll see it, but this didn’t excite me.
Shane Rimmer, with Roger Moore, in “The Spy Who Loved Me”
I don’t know that I could have picked Rimmer out of a crowd, but his resume is a geeky wonderland. Not only did the Canadian actor portray the voice of Scott Tracy, pilot of Thunderbird 1, but he had roles (some big, some small) in three Bond movies, Doctor Who, Space: 1999, Star Wars, Dr Strangelove, Superman III, Gandhi, and Out of Africa, among many others.
Thank you sir, for all that fine entertainment, even when I wasn’t aware of you.
I'm with Scalzi here. The manifesto is not only incoherent, the parts that are understandable are dead wrong. Or as wrong as someone can be in an argument about what they do or don't enjoy. https://t.co/6LnsWofQZC
I’m with Scalzi here. The manifesto is not only incoherent, the parts that are understandable are dead wrong. Or as wrong as someone can be in an argument about what they do or don’t enjoy. https://t.co/6LnsWofQZC
Solo is a perfectly pleasant movie that entertains, incrementally adds to the Star Wars universe, and competently (if not brilliantly) tackles the thankless task of creating a backstory for a character (or two) whose future is deeply known by pretty much everyone.
The result is that the movie does its best when giving us new stuff — origin tales, incidents in Han’s youth or formative period — but falters when things that couldn’t be left hanging after this one-shot, but whose ultimate resolution is known, come up. The plot still gives us a few surprises along the way, but sometimes gets a bit too cute in foreshadowing things that happen (“again”) later (sometimes reinforced with musical notes).
That all said, +Margie Kleerup and +James Hill and I had a good time, or didn’t feel we wasted our time or money in going. The acting talent is up to the job — Alden Ehrenreich does decent work in the title role, channeling an appropriate mix of brash hubris and youthful idealism. Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian plays well if as expected. Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, and, heck, even Joonas Suotamo as Chewy all do well, and Paul Bettany channels Christopher Walken delightfully.
Plus I now have a new favorite droid, Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37.
(Though there are some character deaths that come as a surprise, and it’s never quite clear that their deaths are to any great purpose besides generating momentary sadness.)
There are some enjoyable characters, character notes, and a continuing look at the gritty, corrupt, brutal underside of the Empire. Plus, we finally get a justification for Han’s most famous boast.
Worth going to see, definitely worth watching. I’m pleased.
— Mission Impossible: Fallout — I love it that the MI series is getting so meta that the fact that Ethan keeps being betrayed by his own country isn’t seen as a weakness in the series, but as a new plot point to exploit. Those who like MI films (which I admit I kind of do) will find this the sort of thing they like (whether or not they go to see it in a theater).
— The Meg — It’s Jaws, with a bigger CG budget, as a prehistoric giant shark does just what you would expect it to do with an underwater lab and a beach community. Ho-hum.
— Adrift — I kept waiting for the prehistoric giant shark to eat the sailboat that the beautiful young couple are stranded on in the middle of the Pacific. Based on a true story (sans giant shark). Not my cuppa.
— Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom — Those who like the Jurassic movies will likely enjoy this. The previous trailers made it look like it was about rescuing dinosaurs from the island (which has abruptly gone all volcanic). The new trailer indicates that things are a bit more sinister than that.
— Venom — I have never been a fan of Venom in the comics, but this looks pretty good. The trailer gave enough story to hook me without telling the whole movie. I suspect this is one I’ll stream eventually.
— Incredibles 2 — I’ve already seen this trailer, but it remains good-looking. I am hopeful it will match the original.
— Solo — Same trailer as before, but I’m still liking it. The actor does look a bit “prettier” than Harrison Ford, but I’m willing to put up with that.
So seven trailer, with just the last two likely theater revisits. Not bad.
Welcome to Star Wars Resistance, set in the pre- Force Awakens universe.
StarWars.com is thrilled to announce that production has begun on Star Wars Resistance, an exciting new animated adventure series about Kazuda Xiono, a young pilot recruited by the Resistance and tasked with a top-secret mission to spy on the growing threat of the First Order. … Featuring the high-flying adventure that audiences of all ages have come to expect from Star Wars, Star Wars Resistance — set in the time prior to Star Wars: The Force Awakens — will feature the beloved droid BB-8 alongside ace pilots, colorful new characters and appearances by fan favorites including Poe Dameron and Captain Phasma, voiced by actors Oscar Isaac and Gwendoline Christie, respectively.
Though David Filioni and a bunch of other Clone Wars and Rebels folk are in charge again, there’s no word (yet) about the dangling Rebels story lines that remain out there. Still, given the folk involved, I’m definitely on-board.
A Star Wars caper flick starring everyone’s favorite roguish smuggler and how he got into that life? There’s no reason why that shouldn’t work, and this trailer definitely looks like it should.
[No spoilers, I hope, but I can’t speak for the comments.]
The kid and I watched the final six episodes of Star Wars Rebels last night, which were tremendously fine, lots of fun, wrapped up a ton of plot points, set up some new ones for a future David Filoni production, and revealed the secret behind the voice of Chopper.
When Rebels started up (in the premature ashes of Clone Wars), I enjoyed it but was a bit disappointed for the narrower scope, the focus on the kid, the apparent Disneyfication of the tale. But even if that was an accurate description at the time, the saga grew substantially over the years into something really, really cool, pulling in elements from Clone Wars (and other bits of Star Wars lore) and making a something quite enjoyable.
I’ll miss it, but I’m glad it had an awesome wrap-up.
Mission Impossible: Fallout — Look like another M:I film. I actually enjoy these (though not so much that I haven’t fallen one behind). Probably will catch it streaming sometime.
Hurricane Heist — It’s not clear to me that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts (a hurricane movie! a heist movie!). In fact, it might well be worse. The music / sound / cuts / graphics of the trailer look like a Fast & Furious movie, which makes sense because it’s from the same person/people. No thanks.
Rampage — Dwayne Johnson and a gorilla that knows sign language and is a friend of Dwayne’s but then gets hit by some sort of genetic weapon that turns him into a huge, savage gorilla who is seen as a menace but may be the only hope of saving the world against even more savage mutations sounds like it should be an amazingly awful idea for a movie, but the trailer sure works. I wouldn’t dream of seeing it, mind you, but …
God’s Not Dead — I don’t shy away from public discussion about religion in the movies, but this trailer sure seems to lay the piety on thick. Not my cuppa.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom — People who like this sort of thing will find it the sort of thing they like.
Ready, Player One — I loved the book, but for some reason each time I see a trailer for the movie I get less and less enthusiastic about it.
Ant-Man and the Wasp — Okay, this will not have the thoughtfulness of Black Panther, but it will almost certainly be fun to watch. I’m there.
Solo — I’m really liking what I’m seeing here. Maybe because it’s about Han Solo as not played by Harrison Ford, and therefore can be something fresh. I dunno — but I’m there.
There’s nothing here not doable or damaging to the franchise, and lots that would be both cool and, I think, helpful.
As the MCU has shown for Disney/Marvel, it’s possible to tell a variety of stories in a variety of tones. The one-shots — Rogue One, Solo — are part of that, and all of the below could easily be part of that variety of a film world/franchise that is getting richer, not on a single railroad of epic trilogies.
13 Things We’d Love to See in a Star Wars Movie
Yoda would hate us. Just like Luke Skywalker, we’re never in the present. We’re almost always thinking about the future of Star Wars. It’s a future that’s mysterious—but also, especially with the release of The Last Jedi, more wide open than ever. And while most thinking right now is focused on what we might see in Episode IX, we wanted to go even bigger.
So it’s probably (past) time for me to talk about Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
We went and watched it right before Christmas, and the last two weeks have been … diverting from anything approaching normal social media interaction. Now I’m ready for something more spoilerful.
1. Damn fine fun. Certainly in the Top 3 of the franchise, along with Empire and Rogue One.
2. Gorgeous FX (from the grand to the subtle), great sound editing (remarkable use of silence), and some nifty non-talking-heads direction.
3. Subverts a both a lot of tropes and expectations for the series, and expectations from me as an audience member. Stuff I kept expecting to have happen didn’t. Stuff I wasn’t expecting did. And, for the most part, that was awesome.
Very glad I saw it. Can’t wait to talk with more people about after they’ve seen it.
Here’s a cool film school project showing what Star Wars might have looked like had some of Lucas’ earlier concepts, as illustrated by Ralph McQuarrie, actually ended up as the movie. Fun stuff.
Margie was out of town on business this week, which should have meant lots of movies for +Kay Hill and myself. Alas, Marching Band practice and an actual competition mid-week limited our movie-watching … but we did get a few in:
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
An iconic classic of science fiction, it’s a great movie but not necessarily a regularly enjoyable one. ★★★★½
So this looks like … well, a continuation of The Force Awakens, except we already know all the characters and can just go right to it. The FX look nice, the menaces look menacing, the emotions and shipping look appropriate, the focus on Leia gives me the sniffles, and I’m definitely planning on seeing it in the theater, which is, after all, the point.
That said, as with The Force Awakens, I’m not overwhelmed or wide-eyed ecstatic. I’m “just” looking forward to it.
![Movie Review: “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019) [SPOILERS segregated]](https://hill-kleerup.org/blog/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/star-wars-9-the-rise-of-skywalker-poster-1200x1777.jpg.webp)
