Be Excellent To Each Other

Here is the problem. Most of the Star Wars movies are not good, but bad. Betting on this one to be good—to be the best movie of all time—is betting against the trend. The overall mean grade of the six existing Star Wars films is, like, a D.

Of those six, two (the original Star Wars, plus The Empire Strikes Back) are unqualified classics. Three others (the prequels) are among the worst films ever to receive wide theatrical release. That brings us to the sixth, Return of the Jedi, the one nearest to The Force Awakens in the narrative chronology. I am very sorry to say that Return of the Jedi is butt.

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With that in mind, let’s return to the scene from Return of the Jedi, in which a completely unafraid Luke Skywalker kicks skin-crawling televangelist game—I feel the conflict within you! Let go of your hate! Don’t you have somethin’ you wanna say to Jesus? Somethin’ you wanna ask Him for?—at the giant evil cyborg who chopped his hand off the last time they were in each others’ presence. Who is this soggy piece of shit wearing Darth fucking Vader’s clothes? Who is this whiny, slumping sad-sack, mewling about how he must obey his master?

This is neither the absolute cruelty nor the equally frightening true-believer zeal of the Darth Vader we knew. This is the angsty, vapid, self-pitying emo shit-for-brains we’d later come to know in the prequels—the pathetic, un-frightening goomba henchman who for all intents and purposes gets pranked into becoming a villain in the first place. This is not the bad motherfucker who gleefully slices his own kid’s extremities off and then owns him all the way to attempted suicide; whose flair for cruel showmanship led to the memorable scene of him having Han and Leia delivered to him at a dinner table. This is a defeated, excuse-making heap of garbage.

I’d want Luke to give this cybernetic Robert Smith a wedgie, but where the fuck is Luke? Gone is the sweaty, athletic, ballsy young insurgent of Empire, replaced by this neutered megachurch-pastor bag of crap. The hammy, cackling Emperor is the only motherfucker in this Force-sensitive triad who has any spunk, any zest for life. I wish he’d Force-lightninged both of these impostors to hell.

This one scene completely ruins the climactic clash between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor—what’s supposed to be the crux and emotional peak of the entire epic trilogy. Vader, one of the great terrors in film history, isn’t frightening anymore; he’s already all but explicitly told us he doesn’t like his job and doesn’t want to do it. He’s just a big weak-willed bodyguard acting out of a sense of duty. My God, he’s already Hayden Christensen’s Vader.

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Return of the Jedi is not good. C’mon. You’ll feel better when you just put it out there and name it. And the ways Return of the Jedi sucks are the ways the prequels suck: The prequels are not a betrayal, but a coherent expression of where the original trilogy was headed in 1983. It was already sprouting cutesy sidekicks and miserable plotting; the Jedi were already shifting from wise warrior monks to bland New-Age self-help gurus; it had already ruined Darth Vader.

Once you acknowledge these undeniable truths—you can do it!—the next step is recognizing that mostly, the Star Wars universe has given us movies that are bad. The prequels are not the aberrations. Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back are.

Maybe The Force Awakens will be great! I sure as fuck hope so. J.J. Abrams is at the controls, and his crack at the Star Trek franchise yielded one terrific film followed by a frustrating misfire. If that 50-percent success rate doesn’t look all that much like a reason to feel confident, it’s a hell of a lot better than the 33-percent Star Wars is batting so far. That’s Naked Gun territory, for chrissakes.

Two great movies, one mediocre one, and three of the worst major motion pictures ever made. The odds are against The Force Awakens. Minimum bet is the cost of one movie ticket, and I kinda feel like a sucker already. But I’ve already bought two.

I'm not sure comparisons to the previous films are all that valuable either way given that the weakest link in, and biggest influence on, the entire endeavour has always been George Lucas; and he's now been taken out of the picture.

Quite. A friend of mine said yesterday "Well, don't get excited about it, remember how disappointing it was that Indy 4 was cack", to which the response was, yes, well, that was Lucas wasn't it. Although I disagree it was cack, of course.

Don't get me wrong, it's still going to be awful and break your little heart, just not for the reasons everyone's saying.

So why do you think it will be awful?

A friend of mine said yesterday "Well, don't get excited about it, remember how disappointing it was that Indy 4 was cack"... Although I disagree it was cack, of course.

It actually probably won't be, but the chances of it being 'amazing' are no more than for any other blockbuster film of recent years and Hollywood doesn't have the best track record here. I have no doubt it'll be at least competent but I would strongly advise not expecting any more than that as you'll be courting disappointment. The genuinely constructive comparisons that article does make is to JJ Abrams other adventures with an aged and much loved franchise (i.e. Star Trek) and although I enjoyed both of those films they couldn't really be described as amazing or anything. Also, with Star Wars, I'd be much more concerned of studio interfering (given that Disney will want to milk the shit out of this) and that rarely results in a cohesive narrative.

WHAT?!

I loved the new Star Trek, came out of the cinema feeling like I'd seen a big, magical space film. It's that feeling which is all this new Star Wars film needs to have, nothing can survive some picky, miserable, point-missing tosser tearing it apart scene by scene on the Internet. It's the sum of the parts not the parts themselves.

WHAT?!

I loved the new Star Trek, came out of the cinema feeling like I'd seen a big, magical space film.

I loved the new Star Trek, came out of the cinema feeling like I'd seen a big, magical space film. It's that feeling which is all this new Star Wars film needs to have, nothing can survive some picky, miserable, point-missing tosser tearing it apart scene by scene on the Internet. It's the sum of the parts not the parts themselves.

Why can't we be allowed to look forward to anything anymore?

True to an extent but, similarly, excusing something that's badly put together and poorly plotted just because it's a "big, magical space film" isn't a brilliant position to hold either and that's something that tends to happen when it comes to Star Wars. A good film's a good film regardless of whether it's set on a variety of alien planets or a caravan park in Grimsby.

True to an extent but, similarly, excusing something that's badly put together and poorly plotted just because it's a "big, magical space film"

That can be arranged. I'm currently adding an Xbox one category to it so it's exciting stuff.

I think my point is that however good some people think this film is overall there's going to be other people that don't enjoy it because opinions.

I loved the new Star Trek, came out of the cinema feeling like I'd seen a big, magical space film. It's that feeling which is all this new Star Wars film needs to have, nothing can survive some picky, miserable, point-missing tosser tearing it apart scene by scene on the Internet. It's the sum of the parts not the parts themselves.

It is almost as if the suspension of belief required for immersion in these films is a lot easier when you are a child than an adult. That a child can more readily overlook flaws, and probably miss them completely.

My inner 8 year old, the one who saw Star Wars in the cinema on its release in 1977 would love to have that same feeling of excitement and pumped up elatedness I felt back then. However, the 46 year old guy writing this, who hasn't watched any of the original trilogy in, oooh, 20 years and when he did, thought they were all pretty crap, the minor exception being Empire, doesn't have any expectations. I might go and see it in the cinema if it gets good reviews.

Still, it'll have to be really fucking dire to surpass the legendary awfulness of the "prequels", well, the two I've seen, anyway

That is the downside of Disney owning these now, they have no shame when it comes to merchandise.

Because LucasFilm would previously never have released anything like that...

http://www.theforceawakensblog.com/the-force-awakens-extended-trailer/

EXTENDED TRAILER!

LUKE!

BEARD!

ROUSING MUSIC!

OMFG!

Although, can anyone hear what Luke actually says?