Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, 04 May 2020, streamed via Disney+
This whole shebang started because the Trade Federation wants to cancel the galactic post office or something, so this is, uh, shockingly relevant for our time? Also, so, like, do you think Senator Palpatine is already playing clones now? Do you think he keeps his Sith robe next to the holo-phone and sometimes mixes up who he’s calling and ends up telling the Jedi Council that he just came out of the jacuzzi? Also, Jar-Jar would have been at least half-again bearable if they hadn’t had him do the “how wude” thing over and over. Also, there’s totally a rich vein of Amidala/Handmaiden fic out there, right? There’s gotta be. Anyway, “Anakin was fathered by midichlorians” remains insultingly ridiculous, but “Duel of the Fates” still slaps.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, 05 May 2020, streamed via Disney+
Most of the weirdness of this movie is due to a 100% lack of exposition montage in the beginning, Lord of the Rings-style. There’s too much for us to process before even starting in on the story proper! The Republic is only now on the brink of fracturing? Jar-Jar has been a diplomatic envoy for TEN YEARS? Padme has transitioned to Senator and seems to be doing pretty much the same thing anyway? Anakin apparently is a snotty over-achiever? Obi-Wan doesn’t regularly smack Anakin upside the head in exasperation? Neither Padme nor the Jedi have mustered up the empathy to check in on Mama Skywalker, Virgin Jedi Mother?
Star Wars: The Clone Wars, 06 May 2020, streamed via Disney+
See, THIS is the kind of interstitial the prequels needed. What happens between the movies to account for the drastic character changes? Oh, here’s a movie and six-season animated series to get us from Petulant Teenager Anakin to Philosophically Unsuited to His Job Anakin! Plus, Ahsoka and Rex are a gift to us. A tragic, tragic gift.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, 07 May 2020, streamed via Disney+
Man, Anakin would never have flipped if the Jedi Council had any philosophical flexibility. Let a dude have some feelings, y’all, come on. (Don’t form any attachments to people, BUT ALSO you will spend the entirety of your adolescence modeling yourself on one authority figure who is wholly responsible for your existence. *eyeroll*) Also, no way, no how did Bail Organa not know about Padme and Anakin, because those two are a complete failure at being on the down-low. You are sleeping sharing quarters! That is QUITE NOTICEABLE. Also also, the one downside of having Clone Wars in the canon is that Order 66 is, like, 3000 times more horrific than it already is. And the younglings, Anakin? WTF. YOU HAVE NO BRAINWASH CHIP TO BLAME. Poor Padme, dang. She only had one weakness--terrible taste in partners--and it brought down the entire galaxy. (But, okay, seeing the babies delivered to their new homes got to me, oof.)
Solo: A Star Wars Story, 08 May 2020, streamed via Google Play
#Solo got such a bad rap, largely for the sin of not being especially intense. But it’s a fun romp! One can't do anything with Han Solo but have fun romps! This movie teaches us nothing about him except that he’s largely always been who he is, and I kind of think that’s enough.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, 09 May 2020, streamed via Disney+
It would have been so rough going into this movie not knowing it’s a tragedy. But also, perhaps otherwise we might dwell on how this delightfully portrayed collection of walking D&D tropes has been plugged into a skillful depiction of every heist movie ever made, except in space. But also, how DARE they weaponize Diego Luna against OUR HEARTS? (I also have a distinct memory of seeing a promo still for this movie and being like, hey, those are almost all POCs! What magnificent era are we about to enter? How young I was.) Anyway, I cried a lot.
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, 10 May 2020, streamed via Disney+
Preceding this immediately with Rogue One works super well to intensify the urgency of Leia’s mission, even though the shift of filming style is pretty jarring. The Rogue One folks did a stellar job in making that last sequence flow into A New Hope’s first sequence. AND, having watched the prequels just a few days ago, everything that happens on Tatooine, and pretty much all things Obi-wan, are multilayered quite beautifully/tragically. (So, like, Ben Kenobi used to hang with the family a ton until they caught him starting to train young Luke in the Force. After a bitter argument, Owen banned Obi-wan from the farm, though Beru kept quietly in touch through the years. And I’m just going to pretend Ahsoka visited Alderaan from time to time, just to ensure Leia’s Force sensitivity remained below the surface--though Leia showed potential, even early on, Bail Organa was still too well-known to avoid the Empire’s scrutiny entirely.)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, 11 May 2020, streamed via Disney+
Can you imagine how aghast Vader must have been when he found out a frickin’ Skywalker blew up the Death Star? And he probably found out through, like, inter-office email. (Which makes it even funnier that Palpatine calls to tell him, months later, that hey, that Skywalker with the rebellion may be the son of Anakin Skywalker, like maybe nobody’s put those clues together. Good thing Vader’s got a mask, because Anakin had zero poker face whatsoever.) Meanwhile, Luke’s bopping around like a Malamute puppy while Han and Leia are Beatrice-and-Benedicking all over the place. Everyone must be all eyerolls whenever they storm through the corridors yelling about how much they don’t like each other.
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, 12 May 2020, streamed via Disney+
- On one hand, Luke imploding what might be the entire economy of Tatooine is pretty ruthless. On the other hand, I suppose he of all people knows that, so.
- Yoda really half-assed Luke’s Jedi training there, dang.
- The Ewok culture makes no sense on an anthropological level.
- Leia having memories of Padme is another indication she might be somewhat more adept at some uses of the Force than Luke.
- Luke’s heart-to-hearts with Leia and Vader prove the Skywalkers also run strong with melodrama.
- I appreciate that every stormtrooper’s reaction to being mobbed by Ewoks is, “What? What the fuck?! OH GOD NO!”
- The added scenes in this one are hella jarring. And while I get adding in Hayden Christensen at the end there, it’s also very much SUPER WEIRD.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, 13 May 2020, streamed via Disney+
The Resistance really needs some cloud storage. Also, there is, like, a decade’s worth of emotions to unpack in that moment where Chewie zaps Kylo in the leg. Anyway, Finn and Rey are the purest of souls and I would have paid cash money for an entire series that was just Finn, Rey, Han, and Chewie smuggling across the galaxy.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi, 14 May 2020, streamed via Disney+
Poor Poe Dameron never learned there was more than one way to tank. I dig that the major conflicts are basically philosophical extensions of that: Poe and Holdo, Finn and Rose, Rey and Luke, Kylo and anger management. Action sometimes manifests in abeyance.
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, 15 May 2020, streamed via Disney+
Can confirm that Kylo Ren is just as extra as Anakin. That Skywalker blood is teeming with diva. Anyway, #RiseOfSkywalker is trash and shouldn’t exist, but I applaud the cast and crew for doing their best with the endless nonsense they were given. (When did I start liking Adam Driver? Who am I?) A listing of things I just cannot with right now:
- Palpatine? What the everloving hell does this bring to the universe except a strong sense of static desperation behind the scenes? Kylo Ren as the intemperate Supreme Leader training his own Sith--oh, sorry, “Knights of Ren”-- would have been a sufficient antagonist, honestly. Or, oh, the ARMY OF FASCISTS that swaps out administrators but never uniforms.
- Palpatine’s granddaughter?! NOT ALL GIFTS ARE NECESSARILY HEREDITARY, YOU MONSTERS. Why do Chosen One narratives always sound like an argument for eugenics?
- Where is my Rose? This narrative has, like, twenty bajillion ace pilots--can’t we have at least one engineer? Did you really have to cave to the forces of Comic Book Guy?
- Why are they so coy about Rey, Finn, and Poe becoming a space throuple? (Poe and Rey are still getting used to each other, but it’s happening, people.) I mean, they went to Burning Man and everything. If we’d ever made it to Episode XII, Rose would have been a fourth point in their polygon. PROVE ME WRONG.
- Not even a SINGLE interaction between Babu Frik and D-O? WTF?
- This fetch quest makes no sense. What sadistic cartographer decided to make a dagger that mimics the edge of a remnant Death Star which is, let’s make note, not actually a static platform? And how was that in the blueprints for the Death Star? In addition to that TINY reactor that was secretly a self-destruct button, they also had a special room for a bespoke triangular flash drive, but for some reason failed to build in any sort of keycode in the automatic doors? Meanwhile, another piece of the map is just hanging out in a navigation droid’s memory bank.
- Poe frickin’ Dameron is acting general of the Resistance? You mean the dude that was demoted because he got allllll the bombers blown up? You mean the dude who sent an ex-stormtrooper and an engineer on a covert mission to that casino planet that led to half of the Resistance escape vessels blown up? That Poe Dameron?
Next up, I think I’m gonna hit the Lord of the Rings movies, then the Alien series. I mean, I’ve got the time now, don’t I?
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