Return of the Jedi: STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

And now we arrive at an ending, although we’ve been here twice before. Star Wars is now a collection of three trilogies: George Lucas’s great founding original and a largely terrific (divisive) prequel, and a sequel trilogy composed of deliberate echoes and remixes non-Lucas stewards have made. Back in the hands of writer-director J.J. Abrams, whose Episode VII: The Force Awakens was a skillful reboot in bringing the world back to life with new characters meeting the old, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker’s biggest disappointment is that it’s in such a big hurry to end the story just as it was getting good. It has to rush to tie up loose ends while letting others linger, and making new ones along the way. The previous entry, Rian Johnson’s Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, was an astonishing work, about as striking, surprising, and enriching as a corporate-mandated intellectual-property extension could be. It boldly deepened the stock personalities of aspiring Padawn Rey (Daisy Ridley), stubborn pilot Poe (Oscar Issac), and fresh recruit Finn (John Boyega), complicated the stormy interiority of villain Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), lovingly sent troubled old heroes into the sunset, and picked up the plot threads Abrams left dangling and ran with them. The future was wide open. After that film, it felt like the story could go anywhere in the galaxy. But now it’s time to end, and to do so we need a plot that moves at the speed of light, as spaceships moving at the speed of exposition need to hop planet to planet setting up the end game. Abrams simply steps back in, telling us right away that the conflict between the Imperial wannabe First Order and the woefully underpopulated Resistance is now, all of a sudden, at a tipping point. What’s new is old again. And vice versa.

As surface satisfying as it is to stage one last big galactic blowout, a confrontation of good versus evil with lineage stretching back across the trilogies, I found myself missing the characters already and wishing we could’ve set it up more thoroughly. Time spent zapping hither and thither is crammed into the first hour to set up the whiz-bang finale, each stop having the typically Star-Wars-ian menagerie of delights: fun creatures, cool robots, and a hodgepodge style all its own. There’s so much, cut so quickly, that there’s no time for this to settle, little patience for the character work of previous entries. That’s because the stakes are suddenly very high (although Abrams’ vision of the State of the Galaxy has nothing on Lucas’s brilliance at suggestive scope). This concluding chapter finds the evil Sith spirit of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) trying to come back to life and claim his place as leader of the Galaxy. (The gaps in narrative to make this make sense are begging to be backfilled with the ancillary materials this franchise has long enjoyed.) There’s high-energy action, zippy quips, reverent symbolism, and tearful goodbyes. (The narrative write-around for Carrie Fisher’s real-life death is strained, but better than writing her out entirely.) And yet, as it should, the film finds its center not in the voluminous fan service, a cast so overstuffed that great figures from past films are sidelined, or quickly, sparsely characterized new personalities destined for spinoffs of one kind (the usual books and comics and video games) or another (Disney+, here they come?). No, it’s in the faces of Rey and Kylo as they wrestle with the same old struggle their ancestors have in the stories told before.

There’s the push and pull of destiny and expectation, the draw of the dark side and the call to the light, the yearning for balance and the cravings for power. That their stories have been allowed to exist across three films as this peculiar connection — the one truly, beautifully unique addition to the canon in all this — gives these films their own power. Not just drafting off the hero’s journey architecture of the earlier trilogies, they gain from letting two fine actors play the psychic connection and the spiritual torment. Sure, it’s still in the context of space opera done up in glorious style with all the digital sturm und drang Disney can buy, but there’s a real charge between them. The movie’s at its best when it steers into the pulp fantasy spiritualism and romanticism — when the sky opens up, and there’s nothing but stars, and the voices of the past swirl and call. And though the past is fading away, and the present holds the promise of just more conflict like the ones we’ve seen before — dogfights and laser blasts doomed to repeat forever — in many iterations, the future is still unwritten. Ridley’s wild, vibrant eyes and Driver’s moody stares, her steady calm even in distress, his electric unpredictability even in control, bring them into two halves of a whole, the balanced force personified. They’re attuned to the film’s metaphysical undercurrent, even as Abrams world-building remains both imaginative and under-explained, a constant churn of movement and MacGuffins. It has this ice-and-fire emotional center latent in The Force Awakens, brought to the fore by Johnson and now taken to a fitting conclusion here. Abrams, always a fine technician of a filmmaker, here, with cinematographer Dan Mindel and the artisans in the effects departments, finds some of his loveliest images, and in the midst of the hurry and bombast brings it back to Rey. Fittingly, the hero of this trilogy is a scavenger, introduced digging in the wreckage of a story that came before her, and, by the end, has found something to hold onto.

A New Hope: STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

I didn’t know they had it in them, but I’m grateful to be proven wrong. Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi is the first great Star Wars movie since creator George Lucas sold his company to Disney. Though run by Lucas collaborators and acolytes – from an ILM and Skywalker Sound stocked with Wars veterans to a story group built out of the prequel days, to a longtime producing partner in Kathleen Kennedy overseeing it all – the results thus far have been mostly successful recreations of franchise sensations past. They were nostalgic, fleet, and fun enough. JJ Abrams managed to introduce a handful of bright and promising new characters along the way in Episode 7 – the searching Rey (Daisy Ridley), stewing dark-sider Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), turncoat stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega), and hotshot pilot Poe (Oscar Isaac). Gareth Edwards and company cobbled together a decent margin note in the franchise’s canon with the heisting of the Death Star plans in Rogue One. But for all that potential, it took writer-director Rian Johnson (whose Brick and Looper marked him as an original voice to watch) to return the sense of surprise to the galaxy. He makes a movie following Abrams’ new characters and some of Lucas’ classic ones into a roller coaster of creative developments.

Where Johnson succeeds is in his molecularly precise evocation of the Star Wars style, not by simply copying faithfully what’s come before, but by returning to the source. He realizes the series is a suis generis blending of Westerns and World War II movies, gangster pictures and samurai films, high fantasy and low serialized sci-fi. He returns to these inspirations for whip-smart visual language, spirited tone, and adventurous spirit, shot through with zen portent and seriousness of mythological import. So once more unto the Star War we go, the sinister First Order seeking to crush the rebellious Resistance once and for all. General Leia (the late, great Carrie Fisher), hoping for the return of her brother Luke (Mark Hamill, soulful and unpredictable), leads the surviving rebels across space, pursued by the evil Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis). The usual sturm und drang of space battles and aliens worlds follows, with a healthy dose of Jedi mysticism on a far-flung planet where a Master hides from his mistakes and an earnest would-be Padawan desperately seeks his help. He’s their only hope. The Rebels assemble for dogfights and showdowns; the Dark Side and the Light ready their laser swords with patient, spiritual connections in The Force; nefarious characters plot backstabbings and pure-hearted beings become the sparks that will light up the darkness. In the middle is Rey, an ever more exciting new hero movingly unmoored from a sense of destiny, hoping to find her place in all this while Kylo Ren, similarly lost, circles with roiling bad vibes. 

This is rich emotional territory mined with crisp, clear storytelling in painterly precision and elegantly lensed filmic cinematography. It’s big, broad, immediately satisfying storytelling in the tradition of the series’ best moments. Every step of the way, Johnson finds visual invention for his gripping sequences and compelling settings – a bombing run is so crisply, efficiently unfolded, the fate of a character we’ve never before met and who hardly speaks is intensely felt; a dazzling casino world drips in military-industrial power and is larded with slimy monsters of all sorts (and a jazzy alien band to boot); a colony of frog-like nuns caretake a crumbling village surrounded by a sea of squawking bird-beings; a salt-covered planet is streaked in billowing red dust as a battle rages; a red-walled throne room is draped in ominous Dark Side intent; a hyperspace jump shatters plans – and minds. In these thrilling images and places are a host of creatures and more new characters, from a mysterious pink-haired admiral (Laura Dern) to a big-hearted rebel recruit (Kelly Marie Tran) and a slippery thief (Benicio Del Toro). Johnson imagines fun adventures, tense escapes teetering on massive stakes, and pleasing grace notes – First Order office politics, a melding of prequel lore in sequel minds, loving glamour shots of vehicles and tech – while never stepping wrong. 

What a deeply felt outpouring of the finest Star Wars anyone not named George Lucas has managed to get on the big screen! This isn’t a film entirely coasting on old nostalgia (though the familiar sounds of lightsabers, TIE fighters, and the like are powerful generators of it). Nor is it content to simply doodle in the margins of the expected. Johnson uses the old as a runway for new adventure to take off. In the end, I found it poignant to consider how he’s skillfully built in an old franchise a space for new imagination, while connecting to the childlike wonder at the sense of grandiose unfolding mythology that makes it evergreen. Johnson has pulled off a perfect balancing act – a reverent brand deposit that pushes all the right nostalgic buttons while fearlessly unfurling satisfying surprises. It’s a sensation as pure and as real as a kid, head swimming in the galaxy far, far away, picking up a broom and, for a fleeting moment, imagining it a lightsaber.

The Next Generation: STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

The only way to properly enjoy Star Wars is to be in a mindset with a precisely proportioned combination of deep engaged reverence and light distracted escapism. It's both the greatest of all modern myths, and, per Todd Hanson’s affectionate but sharp assessment, "a big dumb movie about space wizards." Consider its sources: The Hero with a Thousand Faces and Flash Gordon; Akira Kurosawa samurai films and B-movie WWII pictures; epic fantasy and Poverty Row Westerns. More than the sum of its parts, the magic of Star Wars is in its cohesive combination. But if its high-low synthesis is responsible for this space opera's wide-ranging popularity, its staying power is in the details. Creator George Lucas is a great fantasy filmmaker: a sharp visual storyteller and a nonchalant conjurer of fantabulous jargon, densely packing these films with robots, aliens, planets, cultures, vehicles, weapons, and gadgets, suggesting a world far beyond the frame. Put him on the shortlist with the likes of Baum, Tolkien, Roddenberry, and Rowling, creators of popular fantasy worlds with their own internal logic, striking design, and unshakable pull. Their creations are lasting for their narratives, but even more for the places they allow us to visit.

The famous opening text tells us Star Wars takes place in a galaxy far far away, and the images that follow live up to its promised scope and history. Through six films, Lucas used dazzling special effects, energetic action, quasi-mystical spirituality, and sweeping pseudo-historical fantasy worldbuilding to inhabit massive striking artificial vistas with, in the classic original trilogy (1977-1983), a triumphant hero's journey, and, in the unfairly maligned prequels (1999-2005), a tragedy of political machination and curdled idealism. His saga contained an entire ecosystem of the imagination, rich soil on which fans and writers – from little kids playing with action figures to sci-fi writers tapped for tie-in novels – grew new stories.

Now Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens is the first real test of whether this galaxy can survive on the big screen beyond its creator's eccentric and brilliant vision. The answer is a resounding “mostly.” Director J.J. Abrams (with Mission: Impossible III and two Star Treks, no stranger to franchise caretaking) takes over from Lucas and creates an energetic entertainment. He’s not inspired by the series’ inspirations, but by the series itself. Thus it lacks the velocity in and personality of Lucas’s imaginative imagery and ideas (identifiably his all the way), but creates a piece of skilled imitation, sure to please the crowds. Abrams is an expert blockbuster craftsman, and here proves himself a talented mimic as well, recreating the feeling and sensations of Star Wars past while finding new characters on which to focus.

From the opening blasts of John Williams’s score to the slow pan to a distant planet stalked by a massive Star Destroyer, it’s clear we’re back in a recognizable space. For those of us whose Proustian madeleines are the snap-hiss of lightsabers, and for whom the Doppler-effect howls of TIE fighters and X-Wings are guaranteed to instantly activate inner 9-year-olds, the familiarity will be instantly transporting. It feels and swells and sounds like Star Wars, a factor of Abrams’s hard work, and the continuity represented by several series’ staples (like concept artists Iain McCaig and Doug Chiang, sound designers Ben Burtt and Gary Rydstrom) in the crew. Full of echoes to previous installments, we’re on a desert planet where a young person (this time a resourceful scavenger named Rey (Daisy Ridley, a newcomer in a star-making turn)) is about to be drawn into galactic-wide conflict with a dramatic call to adventure.

Working with screenwriters Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) and Lawrence Kasdan (a co-writer on Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi), Abrams has a story set 30 years after Episode VI that recombines ideas, lines, images, and plot points from previous entries. They’ve cannily (and maybe a smidge calculatingly) positioned the movie precisely between crowd-pleasing fan fiction and a rousing new heroes’ journey, both a loose remake of the original set-up and an introduction to (commendably diverse) new people. Wisely starting fresh before getting derivative, the movie opens with Rey, and others in a set of dramatic original characters: a conflicted soldier (John Boyega); a scheming masked villain of the Dark Side (Adam Driver); a brave fighter pilot (Oscar Isaac); and an instantly loveable ball-droid named BB-8. They fit in with the matinee adventure spirit, and the convincingly lived-in world, projecting happiness simply to be in one of these movies. Their awe is contagious.

It’s the galaxy far far away as we know it, but a generation removed from those stories, full of new people living lives we can be excited to discover as we don’t leave their perspective. While the plot blasts along, it picks up welcome characters, like Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and ships, like his Millennium Falcon, bringing old and new together in a race to prevent new bad guys from blowing up the galaxy. Abrams creates instantly compelling fresh characters with a talented cast – Ridley, Boyega, and Isaac are great likable heroes; Driver is a terrifically complicated villain – while leaning on nostalgia for sights and sounds and faces from earlier movies. Each classic character gets to make an impressive re-entrance, none better than Leia (Carrie Fisher), as tough and charming as ever. It’s nice to see them, even if the movie is occasionally too much like what we’ve seen before.

Abrams is clearly energized by moments that thrill him as a fan, playing with uniquely Star Wars images and ideas borrowed (reunions of long-lost icons, rhymes with other episodes) and invented (a tiny ancient pirate (Lupita Nyong'o), a shadowy villain (Andy Serkis), a stormtrooper with a flamethrower). It doesn’t always pop, a few sequences erring on the side of choppiness or overfamiliar beats, the action on the whole merely proficient, and the entire thing moving so quickly it can’t linger on unusual details like Lucas did. But cinematographer Dan Mindel (John Carter) brings filmic widescreen framing, finding some of the original trilogy’s visual flavor as he photographs displays of evocative lights, picturesque landscapes, and massive explosions in granular reality, bringing an unreal place to something like convincing life. When the film is showing us original contributions – mild redesigns, unfamiliar beasts, new-fangled weapons – its far more interesting and involving than when remaking previous plot in new packaging. Even its surprises aren’t too surprising as it goes.

In some ways a rather cautious extension of the brand, leaning on plot points and emotional beats we’ve seen before in this series – and a few too many times those connections are heavily underlined (a line about a trash compactor will irritate me for days) – The Force Awakens is nonetheless alive with possibility of new storytelling in this galaxy. Allowing the fresh faces center stage while giving returning characters supporting roles without feeling too much like a passing of the torch, it sets the groundwork for future success. Call it The Fandom Awakens, especially since it’s almost scientifically calibrated to tickle acolyte’s pleasure centers while remaining open enough for a younger generation of fans to fit right in, like an exuberant greatest hits remix from the best cover band in the world.

It’s nakedly manipulative and terrifically exciting Hollywood filmmaking of incredible competence. Platoons of talented artisans, animators, and puppeteers create remarkably tactile locations, dogfights, laser battles, and lightsaber clashes, swooping and stirring in all their fantastical glory. It’s big, energized, and enjoyable, making most of its competition look like Padawans. Without Lucas it’s removed from the spark of novelty it once had, but, as an attempt to find fresh characters through which to make old stories new again, it’s a fun admirable effort. Made with more love than cynicism, it’s happy to start another cycle of galactic history repeating itself, The Force forever seeking its balance. There’s nothing quite like Star Wars. It’s enough to have space wizards, interplanetary dive bars, and ginormous superweapons for a new generation. Even if it has to over-deliver on what it thinks old fans want, it's plenty entertaining for everyone.