Many good thoughts here — ones I agree with — in this New York Times piece by essayist and cartoonist Tim Kreider. The headline and subhead give you a taste:
We Can’t See ‘Star Wars’ Anymore
The cultural industry that the 1977 film spawned has ground its original charm and wonder out of existence.
I especially like and second this:
Subsequent sequels, tie-in novels, interstitial TV shows, video games and fan fiction have lovingly ground this charm out of existence with exhaustive, literal-minded explication: Every marginal background character now has a name and a back story, every offhand allusion a history. But Mr. Lucas’s universe just doesn’t have the depth of Tolkien’s Middle-earth; it was only ever meant to be sketched, not charted. Sequels and tie-ins, afraid to stray too far off-brand, stick to variations on familiar designs and revive old characters, so there’s nothing new to discover.
This was the problem with Solo: A Star Wars Story, and it’s a big problem with Rise of Skywalker… my review of which soon, when I can rouse myself from my disappointment in it is here.
h/t reader Danielm80
Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Rise of Skywalker; I suspect they will mirror mine. “Disappointment” is probably the best word.
That was an interesting read – as the author hints at in his explanation of the appeal of the original film, one of the problems with making sequels to something as broadly appealing as Star Wars is that different groups of people liked it for different reasons.
For those who value community and social bonds, it offered religious and moral ideas in the guise of technology, suggesting that the positive life energy surrounding us all, the power of friendship, and familial love were the keys to defeating evil. For those who prioritize exploration, it offered the novelty of strange aliens, cool futuristic technology, and bizarrely beautiful scenic vistas on alien worlds. For those who value personal power, it presented unstoppable new military weaponry and vehicles, swords that could slice through anything, planet-destroying lasers, super-human strength, and the ability to dominate the minds of others. And for those who value tradition and social hierarchies, it offered rigid, established power structures of emperors, generals, princesses, servant droids, Jedi masters, apprentices, each with snappy uniforms and sharply defined roles.
This is not to suggest that any one person is purely driven by a single value, but people tend to lean more strongly on one of the four. Those that value social bonds need characters they can identify with and/or care about with arcs that make them feel emotionally connected. Those that value exploration need fresh ideas and images, novel places and scenarios to explore. Those that value power need to see the violent defeat of the weak by the powerful. Those that value social hierarchy and achievement must see a clear difference in rank and class with a predictable climb up the social ladder taking place within the confines of a well established formula.
The first movie offered a little something for each of these four groups: the characters, the hero’s journey, and the Force for socializers, the new special effects, aliens, and crazy future tech for explorers, the swashbuckling destruction of storm troopers and the Death Star for killers, and the structure of the Imperial army with knights and princesses all encased in a comfortable serial package for achievers.
The problem with every sequel except Empire (and most sequels in general) is that they sacrificd their explorer and socializer appeal to cater to killers and achievers (values that naturally dominate the lives of the very wealthy). In order to construct compelling characters, stories and exploration, one needs pacing, both narratively and visually. More specifically, one must use negative space, silence and darkness. The images need time to breathe – we see the vast darkness of a starfield, then slowly the Star Destroyer floats in overhead.
Conversely, to appeal to the killer and achiever in us, no negative space is required. Just show the heroes killing a bunch of bad guys and slightly upgrade/alter all of the uniforms and tech from previous popular films. Twenty spaceships last time? This time make it a thousand. The prequels and this new trilogy completely lack negative space. There’s no time to explore, no time to pause, no time to breathe, no time to think. In this way, much like the original, they are perfect products of the time periods of their creation. When I look around, I see every moment filled to the brim with discontinuous noise. Perhaps stories aren’t told in the way we remember anymore. I’ll be curious to see if, just like the twenty-somethings now who love the prequels of their youth, children who grow up watching this new trilogy will identify with it more strongly than the other films, despite flaws that seems obvious to people like us, people born a long time ago.
Interesting idea… I do think I can really see the trend you describe. I think a lot of shows and movies in general are trying to appeal to power and hierarchy lovers more so than ‘socializers’ and ‘explorers’. (Or maybe I just haven’t found the right movies and shows, lol.)
I don’t know if I have the will to write the essay about why 10-year-old me loved “Star Wars”, and why every decision that was made from very late in Empire until the present has gradually diminished the things I originally loved about it.
Kreider notes the root of my problem: Lucas chose to go down a story path that required a certain depth to the universe that it wasn’t suited to, and he wasn’t the writer or director he needed to be to pull it off. In the process, he took away (or ignored) his creation’s biggest strengths, and locked himself and his successors into a mold that emphasizes its weaknesses.
On top of that, whatever the failings of the Prequels (and they are legion), they were made because Lucas thought he was ready to tell that part of the story. It didn’t end up being a great story, but I don’t believe that the impetus to tell it was entirely commercial. With the Disney Trilogy, no matter how much I like and applaud the greater diversity in casting, the undeniable chemistry between many of the leads, and the technical brilliance of the production, there is no getting around the fact that the movies exist because, from a commercial standpoint, they simply have to. Disney needed to earn back the $4bn they paid for the property, and continuing the existing story was the surest route to that outcome.
For me, the Disney Trilogy never rises above the level of very expensive fanfic (no offense to fanfic intended). I never really got over the thought that, yeah, this is one way things could have gone post-ROTJ, but it certainly wasn’t anything near what I would call the best or most interesting path to take. From a commercial standpoint, it would have been hard to make a safer choice than essentially remaking, to a greater or lesser degree, Episodes IV-VI. It seems that every generation needs new Star Wars characters to buy action figures of.
It will be interesting to see what direction they decide to go in the future. Having made a big show of hiring hot young directors (all white dudes, of course) for the planned series of non-Saga movies, then taking the first two away from said directors when they brought too much of their own style to the productions, then pulling the plug on the whole idea, this chapter of the Star Wars cinematic universe has ended after only four years and five movies. Whatever the weaknesses of “Rogue One” and “Solo” (certainly more in the case of the latter), I think a strong case could be made that they suffered from an oversaturated market for “Star Wars” movies – every 18-24 months would probably have been more prudent.
Will “Star Wars” become primarily a Disney+ property, with the occasional theatrical release? It seems likely, at least in the short run. I haven’t watched “The Mandalorian” yet, but what I’ve heard so far gives me some hope, though tempered by the knowledge that even here, they’ve leaned heavily on very recognizable Star Wars IP to get traction. Having burned their bridges with young directors already, what are the odds that they’ll entertain anyone who comes to them with a really original idea that just happens to be set in a certain galaxy far, far away?
I’m probably being cynical and elitist, but I don’t believe most fans want truly original ideas when it comes to Star Wars. We’ve become used to it over time and have forgotten that Empire was a pretty weird movie. People slicing open snow camels and warming themselves in intestines, taoist telekinetic midgets, a father who slices his son’s hand off, heroes getting freeze dried and Fedexed to mobsters. TLJ has a little bit of that genre-mixing weirdness, but there are way too many characters to develop any of them well or tie the ideas together in a satisfying way. All of the other prequels and sequels including Jedi are retreads devoid of any new ideas.
If you’re right and Star Wars becomes mostly Disney+ shows with more spread out film releases, it should be good for the brand and for the quality of the shows. Without the pressure of having to bring in a billion dollars every other year by appealing to every demographic in every country on Earth, there’s a chance that a genuinely weird, lower budget take on the SW Universe could make it to production, and with a couple more years in the oven, there’s hope that future film scripts will come out more polished and coherent with stronger planned ties to eventual sequels.
It’ll be very difficult though, because such a large chunk of the fanbase is made up of achievers, due to the path Lucas chose for the prequels. As you and Kreider note, this fantastic, surreal universe was not meant to be fleshed out in minute detail, but now that the political back story and “scientific” and technological lore exists, future films are locked in to honoring and elaborating on it ad infinitum, slowly constructing a boring “hard” scifi fractal of ever more specific Storm Trooper uniforms, space council meetings, and military designs.
Star Wars films have a built-in checklist now, and by the time all the boxes are filled in, and all the target demographics are represented, however superficially, there’s no room left to make a movie with a world worthy of exploring or tell an interesting story. And even if by some miracle someone was able to produce an interesting, original film set in the Star Wars universe, a large chunk of fans would revolt because it wasn’t Star Wars enough. I’m afraid only weirdo explorers would be happy, and we are a tiny minority.
I suppose all franchises burn out and run into this problem eventually, but I had hoped that Star Wars would find a way to reboot successfully a la Spiderman or Battlestar Gallactica, especially after the embarrassment of the prequels. Dr Who had several successful reboots before fizzing out – it’s definitely possible to keep an core idea fresh across many decades. Oh well, maybe fourth time’s the charm.
And then some days I think maybe the world has just passed me by – the movies are profitable, maybe I’ve lost touch with storytelling trends, and in this fast paced world of memelords and tweets, rushed staccato sketches and muffled echoes from a distant room are what connects with the majority of humanity. I’m sure most people who grew up in the 1950’s think the original trilogy is a bunch of high speed, crazy nonsense – my own parents walked out of Empire at the theater because it was too ridiculous and nonsensical. Maybe these movies just aren’t made for us anymore and that’s okay?
It’s funny you should put it that way – I said almost that exact thing to a Facebook friend two years ago (“these movies aren’t made for me, and that’s fine”). And it really is fine – those of us who grew up on the original trilogy were a small generation, so I guess we should have expected to have only a brief period of social cachet between the behemoths that preceded and followed us. Also, it’s fine because it makes my life so much less expensive, what with not feeling the need to buy merchandise with each movie release, seeing each movie twice at most (just once for TRoS), and not buying them when they come out on digital. I did just buy “Rogue One” and “Solo” during a ½ price sale, though.
I remain thankful that we got the original, an extreme stroke of luck largely constructed after-the-fact by genius editors, special effects artists, and the greatest composer the movie industry has ever known. Empire remains a miracle, the one “Star Wars” movie that departs fully from the formula of its predecessor at a time when that was basically unheard-of. Lucas wanted out of Hollywood, and Empire was his ticket if it succeeded, so he put everything into it, and everybody involved was operating at the absolute top of their game, with all of the resources they could ask for (as much as it pained George to take out the loans at the time). In the end, he hated the loss of control and hired a much more pliant director for Jedi and, now knowing that “Star Wars” was a license to print money, played things much safer third time out.
I do hope that Disney+ allows some of the weirdness to creep back into “Star Wars” – it needs it. “Rogue One” had a bit of that – it’s easily my favorite of the Disney era. As you note, TLJ also had some of it, and was visually and thematically audacious, but there were elements that didn’t work for me – the humor really hit me the wrong way, right from the start, and it suffers from a common space/time issue shared by all of the sequel trilogy films. From TFA’s “let’s look at the sky and watch superlasers destroy other star systems in realtime” to both TLJ and TRoS insisting that their core events happen over a period of merely several hours, space just doesn’t feel very big in the Star Wars universe any more. I know that Empire can be read to take place over a pretty short period of time, but there are also easy explanations for how it could be much longer. For an “explorer” like me, zipping effortlessly to several planets in a few hours takes away the feeling of scale and scope that I loved – I want a big galaxy with untold wonders to discover.
Thanks for both of your comments – they’ve given me a lot to think about. Also, I just realized that your earlier comment ends with “a long time ago”, and mine ends with “in a (certain) galaxy far, far away”. Not intentional, I swear!
Maryann… please…. I need your Star Wars review…. I neeeeed it…
Sorry. I’ve been taking a much-needed break, and also dealing with some personal shit, such as moving. Hope to post a review this coming week.