Star Wars

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Racing to the End, and Backpedaling from the Middle

Jeremy BeckReviews
The band is together one last time in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"

Helmets matter in Star Wars. The Walt Disney Company knows this; The Mandalorian, the flagship series of Disney’s new streaming service, begins each episode with a retrofitted logo, a montage of recognizable head coverings from our favorite faraway galaxy. J.J. Abrams knows it too. So when an early scene in The Rise of Skywalker, the ninth and (supposedly) last entry in the Star Wars saga, features Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) donning a re-forged black mask—the same mask that he destroyed in a fit of pique one film ago—it is impossible to miss the metaphor. Every modern franchise production must to some extent honor the loyalty of its patrons, but The Rise of Skywalker exhibits a peculiar brand of fan service. It appears designed to cater not to Star Wars enthusiasts at large, but to the small and vocal sect of devotees who adored the seventh episode, Abrams’ The Force Awakens, yet who simultaneously despised its follow-up, Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi. If Johnson wielded spunk and irreverence to blow the franchise template to bits, Abrams deploys nostalgia and traditionalism to put the pieces back together.

This is not all too easy. Just as that reconstructed helmet still shows visible cracks, The Rise of Skywalker is a seamy and uneven movie, laboring to bring the saga to a stirring close while also frantically course-correcting toward a more conventional version of the Star Wars mythos. Rather than boldly exploring new worlds (whoops, sorry, wrong franchise), it retreats inward, taking refuge in the safe and familiar. This is disappointing, but it is far from devastating. Abrams’ narrative choices may border on cowardly, but he remains a skillful supplier of big-budget imagery and exciting conflict. That he lacks Johnson’s daring and imagination has not precluded him from making another boisterous adventure, with moments of glorious spectacle. Read More

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Solo: A Star Wars Story: Getting Cocky, Even as a Pup

Jeremy BeckReviews
Alden Ehrenreich is a young hero in "Solo: A Star Wars Story"

There’s a quick shot in Solo: A Star Wars Story of someone in a spacecraft sliding into the copilot’s seat, ready to help guide the ship out of danger. Taken in a vacuum, it’s an unremarkable image, just a basic establishing shot of the type we’ve seen in countless sci-fi films. But while this fun and frisky movie may take place in outer space, it most certainly does not take place in a vacuum. Instead, it is set within the Star Wars mythos, which means that the pilot is a cocksure grifter named Han Solo, the copilot is a gigantic walking carpet called Chewbacca, and the spaceship is none other than the Millennium Motherfucking Falcon. And for viewers of a certain generation, the image of Han and Chewie sitting side by side in the cockpit of one of the fastest ships in the galaxy carries with it a frisson of elation, because we are witnessing not just the usual collaboration of roguish outlaws, but the birth of a partnership that served as a cultural touchstone of our youth.

This is almost unfair. By telling a story about characters I grew up with, Solo is capable of hard-wiring into my lizard brain, remapping my neural pathways and convincing me that it’s a good and meaningful movie simply by reason of its existence. So perhaps the happiest surprise about Solo is that it does not coast along entirely on nostalgia. There is some of that, sure—hey, do those dice look familiar? What’s that adage about Wookiees pulling people’s arms out of their sockets?—but there is also a breezy sense of adventure, along with a winning atmosphere of wonder and discovery. By and large, the film gets by on its own merits; there’s no mystical energy field that controls its destiny. Read More

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi: As a New Hope Emerges, an Old Fight Rages On

Jeremy BeckReviews
Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"

For all its deafening noise and frantic activity, Star Wars: The Force Awakens concluded with a quiet and surprisingly stirring image: the aspiring Jedi named Rey (Daisy Ridley) tentatively approaching the long-vanished Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill, as if you didn’t already know), reaching out to offer him his cherished lightsaber. It was a tantalizing ending, one that sent Star Wars fans—a sect that, according to the box-office receipts, appears to constitute most of the known world—into a state of delirious anticipation that has persisted for two full years. So it is difficult to exaggerate the audacity with which The Last Jedi, the eighth episode in the Star Wars saga (excluding the standalone Rogue One), chooses to resume this fateful encounter set on the verdant island planet of Ahch-To. Rather than expressing gratitude or even curiosity toward Rey’s arrival, Luke simply accepts the weapon, grimaces, and promptly flings it over a cliff.

This is a hilarious scene, a swift and brutal undercutting of fans’ long-gestating expectations. Yet it also symbolizes the refreshing streak of independence that Rian Johnson, The Last Jedi’s fearless writer and director, has brought to cinema’s most gargantuan franchise. The Force Awakens was a fun and spirited adventure, but it also felt somewhat safe, J.J. Abrams carefully returning the enterprise to the tracks that George Lucas’ (unfairly) maligned prequels so gleefully leapt off. The Last Jedi, by contrast, is a more interesting and exciting movie, flawed in its own ways but charged with genuine unpredictability and risk. In taking the reins from Abrams, Johnson pledges fealty to no one—not even Star Wars fans. Read More

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: Still Rebelling, Now with a Cost

Jeremy BeckReviews
Diego Luna, Felicity Jones, and Alan Tudyk in "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story"

Of the infinite memes that sprang out of the original Star Wars trilogy, one of the most random derives from a moment of startling quiet in The Return of the Jedi, when a rebel leader is delivering an expository info-dump. As she’s rambling about battle stations and deflector shields, she suddenly pauses, then drops her voice and solemnly murmurs, “Many Bothans died to bring us this information.” There are no Bothans in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but there is quite a bit of death, and not just involving hundreds of haphazardly slaughtered stormtroopers. This counts as a surprise. The Star Wars franchise isn’t devoid of darkness, but it has generally prioritized fun and escapism; while Rogue One largely stays on brand, it isn’t especially concerned with joy. Instead, the predominant theme of this interesting and frustrating film—which was directed by Gareth Edwards from a script by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy—is sacrifice. It’s a genuine war movie, one about the soldiers who wade through the mud, risking their lives so that the rest of us may glimpse a better tomorrow.

If that sounds turgid, don’t worry—this is still a Star Wars movie, with all of the excitement and mythology that such an undertaking entails. Yet Rogue One occupies a curious place within Disney’s newest and most profitable cinematic universe. Whereas the official episodic saga resumed last year, after a decade-long layoff, with The Force Awakens, Rogue One is the first of the studio’s “anthology” series, films that both take place within the canonical realm and simultaneously stand apart from it. (Continuing this pattern, 2018 will see the release of a Han Solo movie, starring Hail, Caesar‘s Alden Ehrenreich, while a rumored Boba Fett film is tentatively slated for 2020.) In theory, this concept will allow filmmakers to expand the Star Wars mythos into uncharted space, using the series’ existing, minutely detailed template to tell bold and innovative stories. But because the franchise’s fan base is so entrenched and protective of its collective property—and because directors must satisfy their corporate overlord’s commercial imperative to please those fans—veering too far off course is a dicey proposition. Read More

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Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens: Getting the Cantina Band Back Together, with New Faces at the Fore

Jeremy BeckReviews
Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in "Star Wars: Episode VII -- The Force Awakens"

Amid all the majestic sights and sounds of Star Wars: The Force Awakens—the dogfights and lightshows, the exotic environments and the aircraft careening through outer space—no image hits harder than that of a stormtrooper’s helmet smeared with blood. That shot, which comes during an otherwise typical firefight early in the film, clubs you with the force of a wampa ice creature, and it establishes that director J.J. Abrams is invested in bringing the humanity back to this towering franchise, with its legions of fans and its box-office dominion. The Force Awakens is as loud and actively busy as any Star Wars movie—this is the series’ seventh episode, in case you needed reminding—but it’s also rooted in its characters, trading George Lucas’s unparalleled mastery of action (and utter disinterest in actors) for some good old-fashioned storytelling. Obi-Wan Kenobi once remarked (somewhat infamously) that stormtroopers shoot straight. Abrams shows us that they bleed.

And so do filmmakers. The digital effects of The Force Awakens are impressively invisible, but you can still see the sweat that Abrams poured into this production, the heartfelt labor of a true fanboy. He’s undertaken quite the challenge, tasked both with servicing the masses of ticket-buyers who consider Star Wars their personal property and with propelling the franchise forward into uncharted space. It’s a line he straddles with extreme caution, but he mostly gets it right. The Force Awakens is not the best Star Wars movie, nor is it the most dazzling. But it remains a sturdy, highly satisfying production that flashes glimmers of true greatness, and it skillfully advances the series’ mythology while simultaneously reuniting us with old friends long gone. This may not be the work of a Jedi master—Abrams is more of a tinkerer than a virtuoso—but then, it’s the everymen who made Star Wars so appealing in the first place. Read More

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