Well, it seems that my wifi wasn't cooperating yesterday, so today you are getting two posts from me. Let's call it keeping pace with my attempt at creating a new habit.
I've got to say, I'm a HUGE Star Wars fan. It started back when I was 4 heavily influenced by my cousins who seemed to own every Star Wars figure produced in the '70s and '80s and who often loved watching the movies. It was so neat being able to make my own Star Wars storylines with these toys and using cardboard boxes to make buildings for the figurines. I was hooked!! Fast forwards a few years and just as I was starting to want more Star Wards content, books were being published about all my favourites (Luke, Leia, Han, Chewy, R2 and to a lesser extent 3PO) and my imagination was going wild! Then, my biggest dream came true: George Lucas announced new movies, prequels to the ones that he had made years before, that would complete the Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader storyline. (Just to show how steeped into our collective culture Star Wars is, I wrote Drath and the computer asked me to check my spelling, but Darth is ok).
So many people were disappointed with Episode 1,2 and 3. But not me. This was it. The definitive vision George Lucas had for his creation. I saw some great new vistas, aliens and plenty of futuristic looking vehicles, devices and weapons. But most importantly, it answered quite a few questions I had regarding how the Empire came to be and gave an insight into the Jedi council and it's role. You start Episode 4 and see Darth Vader for the first time and you want to know his origin story and there it is set in a trilogy of movies. I was in Star Wars heaven.
A few years ago, I learned that Disney has made an offer to buy Lucasfilms and many of it's smaller companies. Knowing that George Lucas was older, and probably not looking at making more movies, I was cautiously optimistic. This could be a great way for the Star Wars universe to live on. George Lucas even said that he never expected Star Wars to live on after his death. This could be the answer.
When Episode 7 was in production, there was so much hoopla surrounding it that I cut myself off from anything that could possibly give me more information about the story and the characters which would in turn ruin the movie experience. Even in my Facebook feed I would remove anything related to it. When the movie came out, I had very little information about it going in. The most I had allowed myself to do is watch a few trailers and a few actor interviews (like Harrison Ford on The Late Show) knowing there wouldn't be spoilers. I watched the movie with a certain degree of awe as the text scrolled on the screen and the John Williams score belted out of every speaker in the theatre. The very first scene caught my attention right away. So secretive at first and then it turned so explosive! Wow! Then, we find ourselves on what seems to be an arid, desert like planet. We are introduced to a young woman who has no idea of the destiny that lies ahead of her. My reaction to all this was "Aw, man... I'm watching Episode 4..." and thus my dreams of something bigger were dashed. Not to say that I wasn't entertained. I definitely got bang for my buck as far as the story goes. It's just that I'd paid to see that story a long time ago in a galaxy far away.
Knowing what JJ Abrams was all about (after seeing his reboot of the Star Trek universe), I was thinking to myself that this could be him setting up the other two movies. Maybe it's his way of connecting the viewers to the original movies so that things don't seem so out of place for what's to come. And then, I saw The Last Jedi. From this point on I can't seem to shake the feeling that these three movies are strictly about Disney trying to recoup the cost of buying Lucasfilm and very little (if nothing at all) about the fate of the galactic heroes from Episode 6. Allow me to explain. Just as the movie starts, we find ourselves watching the New Order (read Imperial) fleet arriving at the location of the Resistance (read Rebels) as they are evacuating their base. Sound familiar? That's because it's pretty much the exact opening sequence of The Empire Strikes Back. The biggest difference? In Empire, "the first transport is away" as the fleet arrives in the Hot system. In Last Jedi, it's the last transport. We are also brought back to the end of The Force Awakens with Rey and Luke facing each other. Luke, who had exiled himself on a hard to find and remote planet, is now much older and in no mood to teach a student the ways of the force but is somehow talked into it by an old friend. Can you tell where I'm going with this? Throughout those scenes I'm constantly reminded of Yoda, Dagobah and Obi-Wan's ghostly form. Last Jedi even has it's own version of "the failure at the cave". And of course, we find our young brash hero heading off to face her dark side nemesis with incomplete training. Kylo Ren (aka Ben Solo) fails, just like Vader did, to turn the hero of our story to the dark side. The slight deviations are the throne room scene that happened in Return is now in the middle movie and the Rebels stand inside their base happens at the end while the last stand inside of Echo base happened at the beginning (but even then, your first glance at the large door of the base and it's surrounding looks like Hoth until they tell you it's salt and not snow).
All in all, people are still going out to see these movies, but what's even better for Disney's bottom line is that merchandise sales are bringing in, from the latest tallies I've seen, triple the money that worldwide ticket sales have. And who knows, since so much of Return is found in Last Jedi, maybe they'll put out something original and fresh in the last and final instalment (as announced by Disney) in the Skywalker saga. Hahahahaha.... Who am I kidding?