The rise of Skywalker, the fall of storytelling

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

I WAS excited and hopeful as the movie opened with the classic prelude.

Then the first words appeared: “The dead speak!”

All I could think was: “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”.

So, I like the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) about 100 times less than the Star Wars franchise. And about a 1,000 times less than the Star Trek franchise (just for reference).

But I would say I liked Avengers: Endgame about 100 times more than I liked The Rise of Skywalker. And about a 1,000 times more than the ending of Game of Thrones (just for reference).

Endgame, and the first phase of the MCU, wasn’t perfect. But at least it feels like it had the benefit of being well thought out, and brought in for a home landing with just the right grace, gravity, and finesse.

I think of all these, gravity matters the most. “Substance” is another word that describes it.

Basically, the question here is one of emotional weight. How much do we care about the characters? How much have we come to invest in their struggle and their journey? What is it that makes us care about them?

I’ve never been an Iron Man fan, but damn if I didn’t feel close to tears when Pepper told him, “You can rest now.” I still get the feels just thinking about it.

So many key characters in Star Wars faded into nothing on screen – and nothing is pretty much what I felt watching it.

I suppose this is a critique of the sequel trilogy as a whole.

People love to pan the prequel trilogy, but I’m just going to come out and say it – they were my favourite three movies by far. Yes, I’m queer, and I’m here (please forgive any politically incorrect appropriation).

Yes, the acting was next level “kayu” (wooden). Yes, the dialogue was among the poorest ever written in the history of movies. And yes, the production value of the sequel trilogy was a million times better (to be fair, it probably had three times the budget).

All that said, I firmly believe the prequels – Revenge of the Sith in particular – still carried immensely more emotional weight than the sequels.

I suppose to some extent, it is about what we look for and expect from Star Wars movies.

The prequel trilogy for the most part was somewhat campy, and did not take itself too seriously – right until the end of course, where it brought out the big emotional guns.

The campiness though, allowed us to more easily enjoy what were far and away the most epic lightsabre battles of the saga.

I think it safe to say that almost every single battle – lightsabre battles especially, but not exclusively – in the sequel trilogy bored me to tears.

A notable exception is the Kylo/ Luke standoff at the end of The Last Jedi. That one was pretty good.

Otherwise, the sequel trilogy seems to have had precious little to offer. The Force Awakens was a painful, painful rehash of A New Hope – demonstrating the very worst in Hollywood’s lack of originality.

Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi, in my humble opinion, suffered from far too heavy-handed far left preaching. I’m all for progressive content, but for the love of the cause, surely some aesthetic subtlety is called for.

Johnson repeated this cringeworthy heavy-handedness in his most recent movie, Knives Out. If you want to watch a movie with a very similar theme handled infinitely better, I strongly encourage you to watch the brilliant Downsizing.

And then The Rise of Skywalker opens with Furcifer Ex Machina (I just googled the Latin word for ‘villain’).

I can’t possibly imagine a more random, context-free, sudden appearance of a villain. Zero build-up. Zero explanation.

Oh wait, maybe I can: Snoke. Another useless villain with as little screen time as raison d’etre.

This Order, whether First or Final, appears to have no genuine or complex motivation beyond domination or destruction of the galaxy.

Every bad guy here was the thinnest, flimsiest and most hollow caricature of a villain imaginable.

If we don’t care about the villain, how much can we care about the “struggle” against him?

Yes, the show’s surprises did surprise me. I didn’t see Han coming. I didn’t see the Emperor’s granddaughter thing coming.

This whole origin story thing also seemed hollow though. We were mercifully spared any yammering about prophecy, but we were still put into this neither here nor there position regarding lineage. Did it matter who Rey was? Did it not matter? Does anyone care?

I try not to be that crazy old man yelling at kids on the porch, ranting and raving to himself. I like to think I’m not a hater.

I suppose if I were to hazard a guess at the moral of this sequel trilogy, it would be: don’t make movies for the sake of making movies, or cashing in on franchises.

Make movies only if and when you have a genuinely good story to tell. Good stories, like the Force, run through us all – take your time, and let them find their way through you.

NATHANIEL TAN is trying his best to boldy go where no one has gone before. He can be reached at [e-mail].