I don’t know where to begin describing how much I love Star Wars.
Like every generation, I grew up on these movies, loved the original trilogy, and hated the prequel trilogy. And like every generation, regardless of the love/hate for these movies, they have always represented a cherished memory of the past. And like every generation, I was excited for the new line of Star Wars movies that were announced to be coming from Disney.
If marketing of these movies is any clue, Disney knows what the general audiences want: the greatness of the original trilogy and re-vamped scope and magnitude in its visuals. And by the looks of it, it seems it has succeeded in the two current movies: Force Awakens and Rogue One.
Though I have passionate negative responses to these movies for the way stories are being told and the way characters are being conveyed, the following is not a review of these movies. For someone who wants to know my thoughts, Film Critic Hulk and Red Letter Media both have extremely similar thoughts to mine regarding these films.
What the following is a single criticism that can only uniquely exist in a franchise such as the Star Wars franchise. Remember that the Star Wars franchise is the only franchise that was able to have a female, unknown lead in a $200 million blockbuster and the only franchise that has a movie grossing $2 billion. And also has a movie that is in the top 3 highest-grossing films when inflation is adjusted totaling up to $2.8 billion.
And this criticism can only exist towards the new Star Wars films. Not the originals or the prequels. Solely on Force Awakens and Rogue One. And it’s that
They close the door for expansion in a seemingly expanding universe.
Let me explain.
When Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope came out, the audience was awestruck with the originality and the scope of the universe. It wasn’t just a desert planet; it was a desert planet full of different looking creatures. It wasn’t just a spaceship; it was a planet-eater that looked like the moon. It wasn’t just lasers; it was a weapon that would now transcend all other sci-fi weapon that would ever exist.
When new Star Wars movies came out, it followed the tradition. Episode V: Empire Strikes Back had Cloud City — a city literally on clouds. It had AT-ATs that could only be taken down in creative ways. It had a planet made of snow. It had Obi-Wan Kenobi as a ghost.
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi had Ewoks, a forest planet, new death star, AT-STs, landspeeders, new-looking storm troopers, and it didn’t just have X-Wings; it had new diverse ships fitting different kinds of people.
When the prequels came out, it was generally met with extremely negative criticism, one of which was that it tried to constantly add in fan service for the sake of fan service. And in part, it’s completely right. Boba Fett, for example, felt very shoehorned in just for the sake of seeing something that is familiar to audiences. However, there is no doubt, the prequels have new, creative, memorable things that you would, otherwise, want to forget. Regardless of how dumb, nonsensical they are, the entire world of gungans, the double-bladed lightsaber, planets made of just water or just lava, new (albeit CGI) creatures, and new ships. They didn’t reuse the X-Wings or the Millenium Falcon, just because it looked cool.
And with this, these six movies set a precedent for what these movies should look like: new, expanding worlds. Star Wars, unlike any other universe, had a second responsibility on top of story development: world-building.
Skip forward 10 years, we get a new Star Wars film: something that would be even more expansive and something that would take advantage (albeit non-canonical) of the extended universe and ideas… but nothing. There’s nothing new.
It pretends to have a lot of new things. New desert planet… that could have been Tatooine. New sidekick droid… just like R2-D2. New ship designs… of old X-Wings. New evil base… that’s just a bigger Death Star. The Empire vs. the Rebels… with a different name. Everything we see, is the old, but refurbished a little to give the feeling of “new.”
We also see this in Rogue One. They show new planets with different names to give lip service to being new. The movie even stops so C-3PO and R2-D2 could say a line or two, as if to sell more toys. The film might as well just stop for them to say “hi” to the screen. The only ships and vehicles we see, are the ones we have already seen. To give one example, in Episode 5, we see AT-ATs, in Episode 6, we see AT-STs, in Episode 2, we see AT-ETs, in Rogue One and Force Awakens, we see nothing new.
Now again, this might sound like a nitpick because everything I’m saying is, admittedly, superficial. Despite that, however, they represent something bigger that’s going on in the making of these blockbuster films. It doesn’t show they’re out of new ideas; it just shows they‘re not interested in new ideas. And though the originality/creativity of battleships may be superficial, this kind of attitude, showing up in their storytelling, isn’t. And if it hasn’t been obvious to you, it soon will be. ◼
