Screenplay by JJ Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Michael Arnot
Best Buy had all the Star Wars movies on 4k for $12.99 and I thought what the hell, let me watch Episodes 7-9 again and see if my opinion has changed about the movies in the last 6 years. Just think, 6 years ago I was rewatching episodes 1-6 in anticipation for The Force Awakens coming out. I knew nothing about the plot, just what I had gleaned from the trailers and did not WANT to know anything. Wanted to go in as blind as I could.
Back then, I remember really enjoying this movie. Up to a point. Towards the end when the rebel forces are talking about Starkiller Base and one guy says, almost bored...."So it's another Death Star" and I think Poe replies "No, this is the Death Star....and THIS is Starkiller Base" as a hologram shows that the new base is like a gizillion times bigger!
At that point I was like OHHH, this is just a remake of the original Star Wars with some tweaks. And I was ok with that. I understood that Disney was introducing the Star Wars mythos to a new generation...... the same story updated but with new demographics, ethnicities, and races symbolized by the casting choices. And it worked. Kids that did not like Star Wars thought this movie was cool and saw characters that represented them. It seemed like the sky was the limit.
When the movie closed with Rey offering Luke his father's lightsaber, I was disappointed that that was where it ended, with not even a word spoken, but also excited about what would happen in Episode 7! There was a lot of goodwill built up with this movie, but it wasn't long after this that rumors of reshoots and directors being replaced on Rogue One started popping up and then Star Wars movies would be like Call of Duty games, with one coming out every year, regardless of quality. The cracks were already forming in the franchise when this movie was released. And then The Last Jedi came out and destroyed everything this movie created.
If you can just sit back and enjoy JUST this movie, without any connection to the two that followed it, Force Awakens is quite enjoyable. It has a great flow, lots of action, and sets up a lot of mysteries....unfortunately a lot of those mysteries were never solved or developed.
I LIKED the characters of Rey, Poe, Kylo, and Finn and felt that this would be an ensemble trilogy, but by Rise of Skywalker, this was clearly only about Rey and Kylo and Poe and Finn were going to be simply scenery. In fact, even Luke, Leia, and Han were cardboard props and served very little function in these movies. I think Lawrence Kasdan probably only got involved with the bribe that his son could help write the Solo movie.
Maybe Last Jedi was the fault of fans like me. I saw Force Awakens and thought ok, they had to remake the original Star Wars, but hope they go in a different direction with the next episode. But I never wanted that direction to lead to HELL. In a direction that was HATEFUL towards what had come before. Malicious. Destroying someone else's work just to do it.
I will be watching The Last Jedi later tonight and posting my thoughts about it.
My Grade: A-
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