So I know I'm diving off the board into a sea unpopular opinions here but what the heck: unless Episode 9 is a hell of a movie I think the prequel trilogy (I, II, III) will be better than the latest one.
The Force Awakens wasn't a bad movie, it just really underwhelmed me. The fact it was a damn near carbon-copy of Episode 4 was forgivable because it was really meant to be a set up. It introduced some compelling characters in Rei, Finn, Poe, Kylo and Snoke with such promise that I was willing to forget it was a retread of the original movie. I was having fun with all the questions about the future that I never bothered to wonder how we went from the Empire being all but destroyed and the galaxy celebrated to back at a massively resourced new Empire and why they decided to build a third Death Star.
But the first movie is just setting the scene, it's a freebie. By the second one it's time to get real. In that respect I think The Last Jedi is a dud. It is such a nonsense plot with holes big enough to park a star destroyer. But the biggest crime is they waste so much of the character potential from the first film. Why they choose to keep the amateur admiral of the entire First Order who is inexplicably 25 years old and throw away the mysterious brooding Emperor like figure before he could use anything was bizarre. I guess it makes sense, the other generals are brain dead and let a fighter get within spitting distance of their capital ship and decided not to scramble any fighters or do anything. Also, how did a 20-something half-trained Jedi go from running away from Luke to being the new Vader of the oddly powerful Empire Order? I mean Vader at least earned it, the guy killed a bunch of Jedi, got in at the ground floor of the Empire and spent a couple decades building it. Kylo runs away from Luke's school and walks into a CEO job of the galaxy dominating organization that doesn't know to stop building capital-intensive massive ships which get destroyed by a single small craft. It's so bad now it happened twice in a movie. Also, how to you drop bombs in space? Seriously I'm okay with explosions in space because it's fun but can we at least remember they're not enough gravity in space. Anyways enough with this movie.
In defense of the prequels:
For all their faults, and there are many, they did something these new movies didn't do. They took a chance at being different. They didn't have so much fan service crammed in that I felt like a Disney exec was watching over my shoulder constantly hitting me and saying "Hey, remember that from the originals? Give us more money". But mostly they had a sound plot. Sure, the acting of the prequels was largely awful, along with the dialogue and editing but the core story was great. It had a very World War I feel to it. If the original trilogy showed the greatest war the galaxy had ever known then the prequels showed how it all started. How a dispute on a planet of not much importance turned into a series of moves that created a conflict that dragged all the major pieces in until total war was achieved. Meanwhile there was a great little detective story with the Jedi trying to figure out who the sinister forces were pushing all the pieces on the board.
This new trilogy is a retread of evil empire vs rag-tag bag of misfits without any interesting direction. At this point I really don't care that the First Order needs to be stopped or how it happens. They're seemingly winning despite a hormonal junior Sith and bumbling fool of an Admiral, neither of whom seem to have motivation to rule the galaxy. I'm assuming they just move back into their moms basements. At the end of the prequels I had a great explanation for how relative peace eroded and set up the pretext for the galactic Empire about to snuff out the final group of Rebels story we all know and love. At the end of this trilogy I have a feeling I'll end up saying "What was the point?" as Disney just tries to spin off some of the characters stories to perpetually releases Star Wars branded films like they're Marvel movies until I'm skipping half off them.
Submitted December 18, 2017 at 10:24AM by pie_mac http://ift.tt/2kcnmn7