The State of Star Wars or: An Elongated Reaction to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Like millions, I grew up watching A New Hope or, as I prefer to call it, Star Wars. Luke Skywalker, to my very young eyes, was the essential hero figure. He was an underdog who was wet behind the ears, but he came through at the end because good beats evil, no matter how powerful the latter is. He got to kiss Leia. He got to learn powers. He also reminded me of myself. I was a Mississippi kid who grew up in an unincorporated area called Cascilla (population of about 500). At the time, I had no idea I was, in addition to liking Luke, subconsciously identifying with Luke’s rural roots, his isolation, and his sense of obligation to a home that doesn’t fulfill him.
The other thing that made Star Wars interesting, before ole Georgie did his Special Editions and Prequels, was that it depicted advanced technology but nonetheless had a grimy, tough aesthetic. People called it a space opera, but that didn’t really tell you how humble the movie looked despite its eye-catching special effects. The down-to-earth look of the film complemented Luke’s salt-of-the-earth vibe.
Where is Star Wars now? In a context far, far away from what I describe above. The films look glossier, so they can’t quite channel an underdog spirit like the original trilogy could. Then there’s the reality that Star Wars itself is an assumed fact of life. We would consider it odd for any main entry in the film franchise to bomb financially or to fail to attract attention on a broad level. The movies used to seem like legends, now they seem like products that are destined to be followed by more products.
And yet, if you listen to many fans and detractors of the last major Star Wars film, The Last Jedi, you would think this status quo was somewhat upended two years ago when Episode VIII hit theaters. The term people tend to use, whether in complete seriousness or not, is “subversive,” as in “The Last Jedi is subversive” or “Rian Johnson is a subversive director” or “This Star Wars subverts audience expectations” or “subversive, subversive, subversive.” It’s a case where people’s usage of the word subverts my expectations about when the word should be used, for there is hardly anything subversive about The Last Jedi when one looks beyond the surface.
Many times when people misuse that word, they’re referring to The Last Jedi’s handling of Luke. They’re perhaps surprised that he’s away from everyone else, that he’s grumpy, that he drinks milk from an alien, and that he lacks that go-getter spirit he had in A New Hope. If people looked at the context of the whole Luke Skywalker story, they might consider none of this is shocking. Luke isolates himself because he grew up isolated and because he takes cues from Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, who also isolated themselves. He’s grumpy because isolation adds to his frustration just like it did in A New Hope. He drinks milk from an alien because he’s used to rough, unprivileged conditions. He lacks that go-getter spirit because, well, I doubt that needs explaining given everything above. There’s also nothing weird about Luke wanting to kill his asshole emo nephew Kylo Ren. If you had that asshole emo nephew, you might consider killing him, too. But Luke didn’t, and for that he’s a saint. The fact here is that The Last Jedi would have been more subversive if good old Luke Skywalker had become an intergalactic pop star. As it stands, the film’s treatment of Luke is more logical, as well as more psychologically predictable.
People also misuse that word when they suggest The Last Jedi is more morally ambiguous compared to its predecessors. This perspective buys into a mirage that Rian Johnson constructs, a mirage that Rian Johnson cowardly (and obviously) abandons by the end of the film. The Last Jedi draws heavy attention to a psychic bond of sorts between Kylo Ren and Rey. Rian Johnson presents this bond as strange (as opposed to something one could easily imagine happening to Jedi). The idea is to make audiences think there is a gray area to the story to make the overall proceedings appear less predictable. When Kylo Ren kills his (boringly written and portrayed) master, he doesn’t show a gray area so much as his full-blown asshole emo potential (as he did when he killed a self-parodying Harrison Ford in The Force Awakens), which is further illustrated when he gets upset about Rey not wanting to participate in his egomaniacal plans. Well before and when The Last Jedi concludes, Kylo Ren represents evil, and Luke good. Rian Johnson simply puts you on a merry-go-round.
I don’t kid myself. I could write all day about this and it wouldn’t convince any fan or detractor that The Last Jedi isn’t subversive, different, progressive, or what have you. Rabid debate is part of the Stars Wars context now, partly because people get off on rabid debate, especially when it goes in circles, just like the Star Wars franchise.
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As much as people love arguing, they get exhausted after a while and long for a return to normalcy. Some are hoping order will be restored with the next Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker, a title that shamelessly teases a restless audience (it’s almost as if this latest trilogy is part of a well-constructed marketing plan to manipulate our emotions!). But in the meantime, you can play the video game called Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
One observation about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order that keeps coming up is how it borrows parts of other games and puts them in a single functional package. Somehow, this is notable and worthy of praise, as if big-budget releases rarely cobble together mechanics in overly derivative yet playable ways. Further, the notion that this amalgamated quality makes Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order different from other Star Wars games only works if one disregards the tradition of developers mixing genres and types of action in Star Wars games, as in the 1991 adaptation of the first film and 1996’s Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, to name two easy examples.
If you took away the Star Wars branding and kept everything else the same, I believe more people would be critical of or less glowing about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. I primarily say this because it’s among the most unoriginal pop games of 2019, if not the last few years. If you didn’t know any better, you would swear you’re controlling Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series when you climb walls and swing on vines. The connection to Nathan Drake is also confirmed by the fact that if you fall into a pit, you conveniently get to try again from a nearby platform after a brief blackout, a la Uncharted. The routine is so familiar that big chunks of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order lack suspense altogether. The game’s protagonist, Cal, seems to announce this himself. At an early point in the game as he climbs on a conspicuously marked part of the wall — note: allowing players to climb on any part of a wall would betray the spirit of plagiarism — Cal says, “This is bad,” suggesting that developer Respawn Entertainment could have done much better than copy one of the most overrated game series of all time.
What’s so frustrating about Respawn Entertainment’s involvement here is it’s clear they’re still a very capable development team. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is an effective copier. But recall the creativity, kineticism, and humor of Titanfall 2, and disappointment is sure to follow. Titanfall 2 also, incredibly, predicts the future artistic failure of its own developer with its fourth stage, Into the Abyss. During that level, the player enters a factory, and as the player goes deeper into it, they have to jump on and around what is being produced and pieced together: a prefabricated neighborhood, complete with houses, cars, terrain, the whole shebang. In multiple ways, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order feels as easily and as efficiently assembled as that fake suburban-looking place.
It’s not just the Star Wars brand that’s important to people, who are willing to lob tomatoes at Star Wars-related entertainment, from Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones to Star Wars Battlefront 2. Many fans want reasonably executed and noncontroversial Star Wars material, now more than ever in the extended wake of The Last Jedi, and so Respawn Entertainment’s competency at implementing ideas, whether collected from Uncharted, Dark Souls, or Titanfall 2, is enough. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order also pays constant homage to the original trilogy’s Luke Skywalker story. Despite being a Jedi, Cal has that same boy-scout quality as Luke. Thanks to “RPG elements” and a plot contrivance, the player gradually gains powers, a process that recalls Luke’s slow transformation into a formidable warrior. The game even throws in a short quirky droid. Given this almost religious dedication to formula, people have relatively little to argue about when they discuss Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. For a lot of fans, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order must provide some relief from the neverending, superficial, and non-evolving argument about The Last Jedi.
But to use a terrible pun to tell a terrible truth, I have to force myself to play Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order; to pass a climbing section that I must have passed 1,000 times in Uncharted, Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3, Uncharted 4, and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy; to lock onto an enemy, wait for it to attack, and perform a diagonal roll behind it, as in Dark Souls and the lesser Hidetaka Miyazaki-directed games that followed; and to run on the wall like I did in Titanfall 2. These familiar and serviceable gameplay patterns don’t improve the state of Star Wars for someone who doesn’t fit into the larger collective of fans whose contentment with pop culture hinges, at least partially, on the continued existence of the franchise.
