Tag Archives: Star Wars

Why the Acolyte’s Cancellation is Good News

A model of the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars. Used under Creative Commons.

I sort of have difficulty believing that I’m writing a post about Star Wars. There’s one other that I’ve written to my knowledge, a review of the Force Awakens (spoiler: I wasn’t impressed), which I ended by affirming my stance that there had only been three Star Wars movies. When I introduced my daughter to Star Wars, I began with A New Hope, and sort of pretended that the rest hadn’t happened. The prequels were of very poor quality (you can’t have Jar Jar Binks and a good movie…they’re just mutually exclusive), and it was obvious to me with the Force Awakens that Disney was just recycling stories to squeeze more money out of the franchise.

I was perfectly content with that perspective for years.

Then, there was a pandemic, and while exceptionally bored one night, we decided to try the Mandalorian. This brought me back into the newer Star Wars programming in a positive way, because the Mandalorian is excellent. Since then, I’ve found the small screen adventures overall have been hit and miss…there are complete wastes of time like Obi-Wan Kenobi, and exceptional standouts like Andor. I’ve watched most of the Star Wars canon through the latest series at this point. I still have little room in my life for the prequels, and I’ve never seen (and don’t intend to see) the last two films. In general, though, a new series will get me in front of the television.

The first episode of the Acolyte grabbed my attention. I’m largely unfamiliar with the High Republic era, and this episode did what a good first episode should…left the viewer with so, so many questions and pondering how this fit into the larger timeline. By the halfway point, though, I was tuning in out of a determination just to finish what I had started, not because I had any interest whatsoever.

The reason for this isn’t any that I’ve encountered among blogs and podcasts of the Star Wars faithful. There are rants everywhere in that very vocal community, including the inevitable accusations of racism and intolerance being thrown at Disney leadership. Everyone has an opinion, and the Internet allows the vocalization of those opinions, but there is something deeper at play here, I think.

My issue with the direction of Star Wars in general is its departure from Lucas’ original vision in a fundamental, metaphysical way. Star Wars, at its core, is about good vs. evil, which is why it resonated with so many viewers at its debut. The Jedi and the Rebellion were good, the Empire was evil. Now, let me say that I’m not arguing that the canon should never have expanded. Lucas’ genius was dropping small references to events of the past or other people in the characters’ lives without ever digging into them, which leaves so many potential story arcs for a generation of new writers. More than perhaps any other franchise I know of, he set this up for continuation from the beginning, and that was brilliant. With these new stories will undoubtedly come new perspectives. When those perspectives depart from the original world-building at such a foundational level, though, we run into issues.

The most recent iterations of Star Wars…I would argue even going back to the prequels…have been increasingly obsessed with the fact that the Jedi can’t actually be as good as we’ve been led to believe. This isn’t unique to Star Wars, either.

For the past decade or more, it seems that most heroes are antiheroes. The dominant opinion of our cultural moment is that no one can be good, that there is actually no such thing as good. All is subjective. Postmodernism has reached its conclusion. This cynicism makes its way into the writing of our popular culture, and deconstructs fictional character groups like the Jedi. A group that originally stood for good in the universe is now revealed to have been so hopelessly flawed from the beginning that our faith in them is found to have been misplaced. That sort of good can’t exist.

So, what to do, then? If we allow this cynicism to carry us on its current, then the Rebellion must be cut of similar cloth. So, why resist the Empire? Perhaps Thrawn should be our new role model. Give in to the evil, this thought process would tell us, because the good is an illusion.

Nihlist, much?

A lot has happened in the world over the decades since Star Wars first made its impression on my generation, much of it bad. My glasses are not rose-colored. I don’t blame anyone for reaching a point of pessimism in their lives. To give up on the concept of good, however…to refuse to believe in heroes…is to give up on what makes us human.

My issue with the Acolyte is its embracing of evil. My issue with the Acolyte is its message that all attempt at good is doomed. My issue with the Acolyte is its lack of hope, that it left me feeling empty at its conclusion.

Were this to be the pattern of Star Wars moving forward, my opinion would revert to where it was prior to experiencing the Mandalorian. That is, I would be finished with the franchise in its current state. The fact that the Acolyte has not been renewed gives me hope that future stories will return to good triumphing over evil.

That is, after all, a message that we desperately need in our own universe.

Image attribution: Michael Panse under Creative Commons.

A Review of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”

Photo of Star Wars: The Force Awakens poster. Used under Creative Commons.Permit me to set the stage.

I was just old enough to accompany my parents to the movie theatre when Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back made its debut. The sweeping, epic nature of that story…larger than anything that I had ever seen, more captivating in its imaginative scope than I anything of which I could have dreamed…made me forever a fan of Star Wars. I read a novelization of the first film then, of course, because I wanted to know what led up to it.

One of my first recollections of devouring a trailer for hints of the future was Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. I had waited far, far too long to learn what had happened to Han Solo, to consider the revelations made by Darth Vader, and simply had to know what happened next to these characters.

While my mother was a Trekkie, I grew up a devoted Star Wars fan, and I always divided science fiction (really what we would later call the Space Opera flavor of science fiction) into two camps:  the ordered universe of Star Trek, and the swashbuckling adventures of Star Wars.

Nothing else was like Star Wars. Even years later, and despite the fact that Han did, indeed, shoot first, I eagerly awaited the re-releases of the original films.

I was hesitant, then, of the so-called prequels…episodes I, II, and III, respectively, because episodes IV, V, and VI told a complete story. Yes, the idea of seeing the history was intriguing, but I feared that the story would not be treated with respect, that artificial additions would be crafted in order to sell to an audience. Telling a different part of this epic story would be acceptable, but attempting to add onto it would not be. Certainly those three fell short, but I enjoyed seeing the Jedi in their prime, and I appreciated the fact that I felt sympathy for Vader in the end. As much criticism as these films drew, and despite the fact that they were in no way equivalent to the original, I found them generally acceptable because they were there to frame a story that had already been completely told, to add to our appreciation of it.

When a story is complete, when the story-teller has said all that needed said, then to attempt to add to that story is to cheapen it, to ultimately detract from it. The only greater insult to a grand story that I can think of is to re-purpose it, to attempt to spin the same tale again in order to attract viewers, to make it somehow more relevant to them, or to (and this would apparently always be the ultimate goal) make money.

A few days ago, I sat through the Force Awakens with the nagging feeling that I knew what would happen next, that I had seen this somewhere before. Of course, I had, because the best the film-makers seemed able to do was to recycle the original story arc with different characters, and without the epic scope. Not only did it completely disappoint in every way, it does violence to the original story with which we’ve all fallen in love by reducing it in scale to a few characters, stripping away its complexities and nuances (even, I would argue, its impactful themes of good vs.evil), and allowing a largely unbelievable story which is discontinuous of where we are left at the end of Return of the Jedi to rest on the strengths of some good casting and a strong female lead.

A female lead who, incidentally, is for some reason able to do things with a dormant Force that has taken every other Jedi significant training to accomplish. But, it’s awakened, I suppose.

This is a story with no pacing, with a single unique character amidst a sea of clever re-writes, struggling to piece together a map (the existence of which makes no sense), rolling with events that occur suddenly with no lead-in, and, oh, to make it compelling, a major character dies in the end. This is a rushed story, a predictable story, and story that relies on the staggered appearances of old characters delivering poor dialogue to carry the audience through. This is to be the next chapter in the Star Wars mythology. This is to be the beginning of the next part of the story. This is where Star Wars is now.

Which essentially means that its dead, the victim of unoriginal writing and a studio too interested in revenue to care about good art.

The Force Awakens is a tragic, tragic mistake. There have still only been three Star Wars films. I likely will never go see another.

Image attribution: wcm1111 under Creative Commons.