Over the last couple of days, there’s been a large event in Europe celebrating Star Wars. Anybody who knows me, knows that I’m a huge fan of the franchise. The Original Trilogy, which started with the 1977 film, are among the most beloved films in cinematic history. Empire Strikes Back took the franchise to a whole new level with a major reveal that Darth Vader was, in fact, Luke Skywalker’s father, Anakin who fell to the Dark Side. It blew people’s minds. The trilogy ended with a solid, yet uneven Return of the Jedi. George Lucas would deliver the first new Star Wars movie in nearly 20 years with the release of The Phantom Menace in 1999. Initially, people loved it, but over time, people really turned against it. Attack of the Clones would follow in 2002, and…yeah. 2005 would end the Prequel Trilogy with Revenge of the Sith, which many people consider to be the best of the prequels. Lucas would eventually sell his company, Lucasfilm and Star Wars to Disney for a whopping 4 billion dollars in 2011-2012. While Lucas had ideas for a sequel trilogy, Disney pushed those aside for their own sequel trilogy featuring Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac. The Force Awakens opened in 2015 with the largest domestic opening of any movie in cinematic history. While a lot of people felt that the movie played it too safe by adhering to the same structure as the original film, the follow-up movies were far more divisive. The Last Jedi took a lot of risks, with some paying off and others not so much. The love/hate dynamic of The Last Jedi was split evenly down the middle. Half the people that saw it, loved it(myself included), but the rest hated it. The Rise of Skywalker, which was supposed to close out the entire Skywalker Saga, was poorly received, and for good reason. It was a very bad Star Wars movie. I enjoyed it to a certain extent, but it was a narrative wreck, retconning things that Rian Johnson had done in the previous film. Aside from the sequels and two spin-off movies, Solo and Rogue One, we haven’t had a Star Wars movie in nearly 4 years.
There were a lot of things that were announced at Star Wars Celebration, but I’m focusing on the movies here. The first one that’s expected to be made first is the one that I feel shouldn’t be made at all. This new movie is supposed to be set 15 years after the events of Rise of Skywalker. Daisy Ridley is set to reprise her role of Rey as she tries to re-establish a New Jedi Order. I don’t think this is a good idea. First of all, the response to the last movie was abysmal. One of the reasons that people hated that movie was that for the first two movies, it was suggested that the character of Rey was not connected to be anybody else from the previous movies. She wasn’t supposed to be a Skywalker or Kenobi. She was a nobody. That gave the impression that the Force was strong with her, but not because of her bloodline. That idea was even more evident in The Last Jedi, especially during her confrontation with Kylo Ren and Snoke. But Rise of Skywalker makes her a Palpatine, betraying everything that the first two movies had established. Not only that, we had to deal with the fact that Palpatine had “somehow” returned, without actually explaining it. This made it painfully clear that there was NO plan with the sequel trilogy. Don’t believe what Kathleen Kennedy and the PR people say about it, there was no plan. Rey adopting the name of Skywalker at the end of the previous movie was lame. There was no need for that to happen. So, in a way, this new movie seems like an extension of the Skywalker Saga. Just…no. Look, if the character and story are written well for this movie by the time it comes out, IF it comes out, I’ll be the first in line. But considering how many projects were started and cancelled by Kathleen Kennedy over the past 4 years, I’m expecting this movie to get cancelled within 6 months. This movie is set to be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who absolutely next to no experience with effects-heavy features. This one’s going to struggle.
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Here’s another movie announcement that really begs the question of why. The first season of The Mandalorian was outstanding. We got new characters and new stories set between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, and it was pretty good. Season 2 kind of started going off the rails, but the appearance of fan favorite characters like Ahsoka Tano(from the Clone Wars and Rebels shows), Boba Fett, and the legendary Luke Skywalker himself, it was decent enough. The Book of Boba Fett was awful though. It took the bad-ass bounty hunter and turned him into a weak shell of his former self. It was horrendously written, with weak action scenes and it also felt that Boba was simply a guest star in his own show. Don’t get me started on season 3 of Mandalorian. This new movie is supposed to conclude Mando’s story with Baby Yoda/Grogu. This movie will be Dave Filoni’s first film as a director. He’s the guy that helmed the Clone Wars and Rebels animated shows. I don’t know. I’ve gotten to the point where my interest in the character of Din Djarin and Baby Yoda is at an all time low.
Now THIS is exciting to me. The third Star Wars movie to be announced will be directed by James Mangold, who is directing the upcoming Indiana Jones film. He’s also directed excellent movies like 3:10 to Yuma, Logan, Ford V. Ferrari, and Cop Land. The movie is set to take place 25,000 years before Episode 4. It’s supposed to explore the origins of the Jedi and the Force. This movie I want the most. First of all, it’s so far removed from everything else that we’ve seen, they have to create new characters and new stories. So, what are we talking about here? Someone discovering the Force, therefore laying the foundation for what would eventually become the Jedi Order. This would also be around the same time as the founding of the Old Republic, if the comics and Expanded Universe are anything to go by. I LOVE this idea. That means the early Jedi would most likely not have lightsabers(yet), but actual swords. But along with the founding of the Jedi Order, we may eventually see what would become the first schizm of the Order, in which a group of Jedi would split and head off in search of the secrets of the Dark Side. This is far more interesting to me than revisiting old characters and locations. This has been a huge problem with modern Star Wars: The shrinking of the universe. We need to expand. There’s so many stories in this universe that can be told. We’ve never truly seen the Old Republic era outside of comics and video games. Sign me up. If anyone can make this work, it’s James Mangold, who is one of the premiere film-makers of the last decade. I think this one will be the movie that people will respond to the most.
Only one out of three movies announced that I’m actually interested in? Ouch. The only problem that I see is that as long as Kathleen Kennedy remains as the head of Lucasfilm, the future of these movies is in doubt. Lucasfilm is responsible for killing Rian Johnson’s trilogy, as well as Patty Jenkin’s Rogue Squadron movie under Kennedy’s leadership. Time will tell if any of these movies get made. In the mean-time, we’ve also got shows like Ahsoka and The Acolyte on their way, which I’m quite interested in. However, as a Star Wars fan, I’m remaining skeptical that we’re going to see anything worthwhile happen over the next few years. Disney’s Star Wars has been rife with questionable decision-making at best, and idiotic choices at worst. One other thing that I should mention before ending this post: Return of the Jedi is coming back to theaters at the end of this month for the film’s 40th anniversary. I saw Empire Strikes Back in theaters back in October of 2020 for THAT film’s 40th, so I want to see this really badly. Now, if we can just get the original film re-released in theaters, then my life will be complete.