raderun

So I gave it another watch and enjoyed it much more this time. Even the soundtrack and production quality didn’t bother me that much anymore.

I really liked how the show is structured like the first six films, with each episode mirroring one film. However, it did hurt the overall narrative, which was the most glaring in the fourth episode. Ironically, I enjoyed this episode much more in my initial watch, but now think it is mostly filler and repeating earlier story beats (i.e. having to rescue Leia again).

Speaking of filler, I think most of the first episode is actually unnecessary as well and can be scrapped completely. I fired up my video editor and took those scenes with Leia being stuck in the spaceship with the thugs and the leader talking to Reva into a small prologue and then went straight to the second episode. It worked surprisingly well and made for a refreshing and fast paced start. Everything is introduced much more organically. The tension between the inquisitors actually drive the plot forward. I’m thinking of making a single fast-paced story that gets rid of most of the first and last episode and focuses more on the Kenobi and Leia escaping the empire.

However, it still is pretty hard to edit the show into a single cohesive movie. Each episode is very distinct with its own tone and climax. And every episode aside from maybe the first and fourth is already pretty tightly edited. It was easy to combine the second and third episode. But the fourth episode drags everything down. The interrogation is way too long and they are rescuing Leia again. But it’s all necessary to set up the next episode.

I really like the show and it’s a good addition to the universe. It makes call backs, but tonally tries to do new things. The score really grew on me and I am glad they made something distinct and didn’t just recycle Williams. The show is not perfect. There a things that drag it down, but when it’s good it’s really great. I guess it’s similar to the Hobbit movies in this regard and will probably result in lots of fan edits in the coming years.

The show was off to a rough start, but I think they turned it around during episode 4 and really managed to stick the landing with the last two episodes. Haven’t actually watched any of the first three episodes in full, but I will do on a rewatch. It’s a nice show overall and works as a glue between the two trilogies. The last two episodes in particular gave me that OT Star Wars feeling in a way that no other thing since has ever managed to do.

The storytelling, production quality and soundtrack was on point for the most part during the later half. While I would have preferred the duels to be more toned-down and less like a cartoon-show, they still were engaging from a storytelling perspective. However, the post-production shaky-cam, cheap vfx and small-scale feeling of certain set designs still prevents this show from feeling properly cinematic. It’s just unfathomable why some shots look the way they do when the show supposedly had a budget of $25M per episode.

What the show lacked in technicalities, it made it up with storytelling. I really like what they did to Reva. But I thought the revelation of her past came too late and we didn’t really need the whole other characters outside the bald dude (I’m not familiar with the lore of the cartoon shows). The whole inquisitor thing muddled the first episodes and made it feel too meandering. Some of the dialogue was just plain bad. But when they revealed Reva’s past, I really liked her and it really ties in well with the overall theme of the show.

Vader was treated really well here. I like how he still struggles with his rage and comes off as immature, full of raw emotion despite wearing his suit. He’s not yet the cold, calculated killing machine from the OT and still yearns for Obi-Wan’s warmth despite what he says to his face. They really added another dimension to their relationship in the final episode and Vader’s arc in this show feels more engaging than his redemption in the OT.

I also really liked what they did with Obi-Wan and how they managed to regain his faith in the force. The way they tied in his guilt about Vader with the slaughter of the younglings in order to connect it with Reva’s character was really great. Better yet was the resolution of that conflict by showing how each character acts when it comes to protecting the young and what it does to them psychologically. It really drove home the theme of the show without telling another Hero’s Journey. However, like with the production quality, it all felt a bit too little too late. They should have highlighted the terror of Vader actions and revealed Reva’s past right from the start.

There are many people currently working on editing the show into a single movie, but I don’t see how that will work now that it has finished. Each episode feels like its own thing. Whoever said the episodes are reflections of the movies was right. Maybe you can shave off a bit from the first three episodes. But the later episodes are good as they are.

Love that it feels like a Indiana Jones film during for the first half. Love that it focuses on the trio. Love every scene with Palpatine. Love that Rey actually has a strong motivation and a hidden desire to join the dark side. Love the pacing. Love the visuals. Love that Kylo’s attack in the desert feels like that scene from Lawrence of Arabia. Love the Jedi talking from space scene. Love the acting from all actors.

I can empathise with people who couldn’t connect with this movie. If you can’t, you just can’t and that’s fine. Art is subjective and we all perceive it in a million different ways.

I went with a cautious attitude into this movie. The opening on the planet felt like a loud clap and it enjoyed its abruptness. It was something new for the Star Wars universe as was the visual of the nebula. From then on out the movie flowed like a small river, with me sitting on the sideline and observing whatever passed by. Watching this movie was like entering a plane of warmth, hope and optimism. It felt more like a meditative experience, where you just let whatever happens on screen pour into you without being critical. I know this sounds pretentious, but that’s how I would describe my viewing experience. We all have flawed movies that we like. If I zoom out, I can see the flaws of TROS, but that doesn’t change how I feel about it.

I had time to think a bit about TROS and how it compares to ROTJ.

I’ve seen TROS only once so far, but I’m already ranking it higher than ROTJ. Btw, I also rank TFA higher than ROTJ. ROTJ feels similar to TLJ in that only the story-line between the central protagonist and antagonist is interesting. Leia, Han and Lando all feel like shells of their former selves, just like Fin, Poe and Rose are not real characters in TLJ, but robots to fill the story. Which is ironic, because TLJ was desperate to be the most inclusive Star Wars film, while TROS just focused on getting the spirit of Star Wars right and managed to be much more inclusive this way by accident. Every characters is a living and breathing human being, much more so than in both TLJ and ROTJ.

I also think that TROS takes the themes and controlling idea of ROTJ and plays with them in an interesting way. To me, ROTJ was about choosing family over power. That was the core choice that both Luke and Vader had to make. Yes, it was also about saving your friends for Luke, but that always felt like a secondary goal to me. The climax of ROTJ was all about saving your family for Luke. In TROS the choice is further muddled as Rey has to choose between her true powerful family and her friends, the surrogate family she developed along her journey. We also get to explore some of Reys darker needs, as behind her motivation to have a family lies a desire to be powerful and strong, to the point of wanting to dominate others. We see this when she stops for a moment to contemplate the offer Palpatine is making. It’s a great dilemma that really hits at the core of her character. It’s not really a family that she wants, as she already has that with the Resistance and her friends, but a hidden need to be powerful, which is probably the result of a lifetime of abuse she had to endure on Jakku.

It’s everything good storytelling is about. It’s also better than what ROTJ did, because there was never really a question about Luke’s choice. Luke never wanted to be powerful and dominate others, so the Emperor never had leverage over him. His rage when he defeated Vader was just something that came up at that moment, but was never really something that he had to struggle with during his arc. Luke always was a good guy. Rey on the other hand wants to be good, but she also has a really strong and selfish need to belong to a family, which I interpreted as a desire to be powerful. This desire to dominate came out in all her light sabre fights of the ST. You already can see it in TFA when she displays a predatory body language while defeating Kylo. It’s a weakness that can be exploited by a manipulator like Palpatine. And it’s this weakness that really makes her choice in TROS more interesting than the one Luke had to make in ROTJ. Yeah, Rey really was physically much more stronger than Luke, but it’s the psychological realm where she is much more vulnerable than Luke. Luke always was committed to the good side and his self-assured aura displayed in ROTJ is never matched by Rey, even at the end of TROS on Tatooine. Luke never really had to suffer the same kind of horrors during his childhood as he had a sheltered and protective upbringing. Luke had love during his childhood. Rey on the other hand had to survive on her own and naturally there is much more rage inside her, which results in a desire to be self-reliant, powerful and dominant, which is perfectly expressed by the writing and her acting.

So yeah, I think TROS is way better than ROTJ. Not only is it better at capturing the spirit of Star Wars, but it also has better writing and more interesting characters.

Tack said:
There is simply an energy that I feel when watching the film that makes me able to accept much more of what other critics are finding issue with. I came in wishing for an emotional experience, and I do think that’s what I received.

Yeah, it comes down to this for me as well.

Both TFA and TROS live and breath Star Wars. I’m quite critical of Abrams outside of Star Wars, but he knocked it out of the park both times. He just gets Star Wars on an emotional and spiritual level. Both of his entries are heart-felt, genuine, adventurous and give you a sense of warmth, optimism, and happiness. I’m surprised to say this, but he cemented himself as one of the most important contributors to the franchise, as he’s the only one who made two great Star Wars movies. If you had told me that I would ever say something like this about Abrams five years ago, I would have asked you if you are out of your mind. But here I am and I couldn’t be happier. I’m just glad I can feel this way about Star Wars again.

Just came back from a screening and…

…I had a great time.

Before I go into it, I briefly summarize my feelings about the Star Wars franchise, so you can judge for yourself from where I’m coming from.

I liked TFA, but didn’t really care about TLJ. I admit that I enjoyed people ranting online about TLJ, but I myself was rather indifferent. I clearly remember walking out of the cinema feeling confused and wanting to forget what I just saw. It did what no Star Wars film ever should do: it killed my interest in the Star Wars universe. TFA on the other hand felt like a fresh restart. I get the complaints about it rehashing Star Wars end Empire, but for me it is an awesome blend of everything that makes Star Wars great and I have a blast from start to finish, every-time I revisit it. TLJ on the other hand, I’ve only seen once, which is funny, because I do consider Rian Johnson a better director than Abrams. He just wasn’t the right guy for Star Wars. Which brings me to Abrams and TROS.

The leaks are all correct as far as I can tell, because I only saw the major ones and wasn’t religiously following everything about Star Wars leading up to this movie. But the major ones that have been mentioned here are correct. Palpatine is back and all his scenes are fantasitc. It’s probably my favorite performance of him as Palpatine. The movie opens with his introduction and the way it was handled already put a big grin on my face.

Like with TFA, the movie feels like Abrams is apologizing for the sins of a different director. But this time he managed to catch the feeling of Star Wars without borrowing so many things from the movies before. The movie makes many wrongs of TLJ right again in the right way. They managed to transform Luke back into his old self with just a few lines at the right moment of the story. I was impressed how well they were able to include Leia into this movie. It’s obvious that they wrote her scenes around the lines they still had from her and feels a bit clunky at times, but it still worked for me. There’s also a great heart-warming flashback-scene with a young Luke and Leia training in the forest.

Finally the ST character trio spend enough time together for us to see them playing each other off. There are some bad jokes and most of their scenes are carried by Oscar Isaac, but their scenes are fun and lighthearted. They almost feels like an Indiana Jones movie during two sequences of the movie. Rose is reduced to a few small appearances and towards the ending we get a much better character for Fin to bond with. Rey and Kylo Ren are again the heart of this movie, but unlike TLJ they are not the only thing that is enjoyable in this movie. Adam Driver again delivers a great performance for a great character. Unfortunately, the resolution of his character is one of he few things that didn’t work for me. After he became good his character-development was done. His sacrifice not only felt stereotypical, but lacked the emotional resonance he had during the scene with his father, when he reconciled with Han.

The movie is full of heart-warming closure scenes. I left the cinema feeling like things are right again in the Star Wars universe. And while I knew what would happen, I still felt way more emotionally engaged than I did with TLJ. Not every joke landed and the horse riding in space scenes was as ridiculous as it looked like in the trailer, but it also wasn’t a woke propaganda film that some people make it out to be.

TROS is a really good closure to the Skywalker saga. It is a return to the hero’s journey without rehashing the OT. It is movie for the big screen, more so than TFA and TLJ. Some shots are truly breath-taking and it’s the visuals where this movie is the most original.

There are so many things I still want to get out, but I think I leave it at that. This movie delivered everything I wanted. It gave me closure. It made me accept TLJ. I was neutral about the leaks going in and left the cinema with this trans-formative feeling you get after watching a good hero’s jouney.

8/10