. . . TROS Part II Criticism of Criticism (Bonus column)

What's Wrong With

STAR WARS

Criticism of The Rise of Skywalker

I have a compulsion to correct people on things; couple that with a mild case of ODD, that manifests itself most in a writing style that is vindictive, insecure and verbose and you have got to cut me some slack.

My intent with this column was to select all kinds of TROS reviews and counter low hanging fruit assertions that I thought were well off-base. I read 4-5 reviews and was struck by one in particular that I couldn't get away from. Now, I concede the reviewer, Scott Mendelson, a senior contributor for Forbes, is generally far more qualified than I am to write a movie review. But I believe his conclusion for TROS, and as I soon found, his assessment of a couple other Star Wars movies, is pretty out there. 

The title of his review- "Star Wars: How the desire to erase 'Last Jedi' doomed 'Rise of Skywalker," not to mention some of his assertions, was a bit more than I could tolerate. In his byline, he boasts 30 years of experience in writing about film. With my superior math skills, assuming he's not as "gifted" a film critic, as Anakin was a Jedi, let's say he started when he was 15; that puts him in his mid 40s- not too far behind me. If he's giving himself credit for reviewing 1985's Ghostbusters as a pre-teen, and a hard-hitting comment in that review is something about how realistic Slimer looks . . . my bad.

Yes, yes, everyone is entitled to their opinions. But I also think that mainstream criticism gets a bit too much credit, with its high-mindedness and its legitimacy. My takes are underground, cave-dwelling bastard children my own friends don't even pay attention to, because they think someone with a volcano full of interconnected touchstones bouncing around in his mind should be able to keep them under wraps or unveil them while in twitter-mode. Well, I can't, because, you know- that compulsion thingy.

Before I started writing the review for TROS, which I posted a few days ago, I meant to start it with a call-out to someone a bit more talented than the men behind Charlie's Angels, but it fits better here anyway. Alexander Pope published a 20 page poem in iambic pentameter "An Essay on Criticism" at the age of 21, which begins with this:

'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill 
Appear in writing or in judging ill, 
But of the two less dangerous is the offense 
To tire our patience than mislead our sense 
Some few in that but numbers err in this, 
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss, 
A fool might once himself alone expose, 
Now one in verse makes many more in prose. 

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none 
Go just alike, yet each believes his own 
In poets as true genius is but rare 
True taste as seldom is the critic share 
Both must alike from Heaven derive their light, 
These born to judge as well as those to write 
Let such teach others who themselves excel, 
And censure freely, who have written well 
Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true 
But are not critics to their judgment too?

Brilliant! Genius! I don't throw either of those words around irresponsibly.

Now, I'd be suffering from an extreme case of a lack of self-awareness if I didn't turn those words around on anything I've been critical of, not just my opinions on Star Wars. So, mindful of that, my purpose with this offering is to present the other side of the story, to the extent that whiners like me haven't made their true feelings known about the wreck into which this generation of writer-directors has turned this franchise. In short, I don't write for Forbes, but I too have been paying attention for decades to this franchise and if this review of a review goes unread by the masses, or by people I know, at least it exists, and it is their fault for not paying attention to it.

Mine is the reflexive protectionism of a child whose pride in family takes a hit when someone passes judgment on his mother. My "mother" in this case, is the original trilogy. Anyone claiming I've got a blind spot, and think I'm too willing to forgive the franchise any of its numerous missteps, would have a hard time proving that- as I've already written reviews of the original trilogy, and pulled no punches there.

People short-sighted enough to contend that the below is a deluge of insecurity which proves some critic's point that a mass of people weaned on Star Wars have overreacted with their backlash is missing the whole story. I have done well more than rail against the creative overreaches; I've justified why I think that way, and often what I would have done instead. If that doesn't separate me from the convenient box, those like Mendelson would put all old-timer Star Wars addicts into, I can't help that.

This will be painfully obvious, but the below is a review of Mendelson's assertions, almost all of them are directly quoted from his December 18, 2019 review of TROS, followed by my rebuttal, and in some cases, an additional concession on my part.

1)
Assertion: “The Last Jedi didn’t retcon or undo anything from The Force Awakens”
Rebuttal: The Force Awakens didn’t propose much of anything. When you haven’t started any ingredients in a stock pot for a soup, or even turned on the stove, the soup has no chance to burn.

2)
Assertion: “ . . . what exactly did fans think was going to be Luke’s reaction to a random nobody showing up on ‘exile Island’ with his old lightsaber?”
Rebuttal: not throw a Jedi’s weapon over the side of a cliff. And if Luke is as strong with the Force, he is capable of Force Ghosting, the person handing him a Jedi’s weapon, isn’t a nobody (meaning, he's psychically aware of who she is). If Rey is friendly and found him, perhaps she is a member of the resistance worth hearing out, and if an enemy who is that spatially close to him, maybe having a weapon isn’t a bad idea.

3)
Assertion: Abrams had no intentions of returning for an additional Star Wars movie, so by association- he could afford to not care about Snoke’s origin, Rey’s parentage, and the respective futures of Finn and Poe.
Rebuttal: that doesn’t give the next writer-director the power to torch all that is holy and not suffer the consequences of having his reputation suffer. Just because Gary Glitter’s reputation suffered as much as his royalties since we found out he was a pedophile, doesn’t mean Rock and Roll Part I is better than Rock and Roll part II.

4)

Assertion: “What I was expecting, at worst, was a well-made and character-driven action fantasy that perhaps contained plot threads or story beats for which I didn’t care.”

Rebuttal: I knew not to expect that. I was hoping for that; "Hope is the last to die" is an Italian proverb that comes to mind for some reason. Unfortunately, both of us (Mendelson and me) were disappointed. As mentioned in my review- the characters lost.

5)

Assertion: “ . . . The Rise of Skywalker is a genuinely bad movie . . .”

Rebuttal: It isn’t “bad”, but it isn’t good either. Since I was close to declaring TLJ a great movie if Johnson hadn't made some key mistakes, I can't be too high-minded.

6)

Assertion: “The problem with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker isn’t just that it absolutely walks back a number of potent reveals and plot threads from the last movie . . .” 

Rebuttal: Potent reveals? The writer-director revealing there was no plan for Snoke, has a revered Jedi toss his own weapon over his shoulder and over a cliff, which is symbolic that he has given up, are not “potent” reveals.

7)

Assertion: “. . . but rather that the 142-minute movie spends almost its entire running time retconning its predecessor and adding painfully conventional ‘plot twists’ and patronizing reversals in the name of mollifying the fans who merely want to be reminded of the first three movies.”

Rebuttal: Think we covered most of this, but I’d made it clear with The Force Awakens that being significantly reminded of the first three movies (since TFA was Star Wars in disguise) was not something I endorsed. Think of a long piece of music- playing a sequence of familiar notes, in different ranges, keeps one mindful and appreciative if there are slight variations, but not if it turns the composition into a completely different song. Beethoven’s Symphony Five transitioning into something from Pit Boss is not going to earn praise from people expecting to hear classical music for the whole concert.

Concession: the plot twists were “conventional” and yes, they were also painful.

8)

Assertion: “It [TROS] inflicts additional damage to the legacy of the first six Star Wars movies.”

Rebuttal: Let’s keep the legacies of the original and prequel trilogies quite separate. Nevertheless, I’d still contend it does no damage to either. The writer-directors of all of them to date seem glaringly unable to rectify the missteps of their predecessors with a consistency that severely challenges my willing suspension of disbelief.

Note- The Empire Strikes Back, the consensus best of the bunch, was written and directed by two different people, neither of whom was George Lucas. Maybe give that another shot.

9)

Assertion: “It [TROS] undermines the previous two ‘episodes’ in the name of giving (some but not all) original-trilogy Star Wars fans a reassuring pat on the head.”

Rebuttal: I would likely fall into both categories. As I admitted, I don’t go for melodrama or sentimentality, which is what we got with the returns of Han and Luke. I don’t have a problem with their returns, but I didn’t necessarily enjoy the treatments. I would also argue that Mendelson's ilk received a “pat on the head” two years previous which prompted him to compare The Last Jedi to The Dark Knight in his 2017 review of the former. That line is as offensive as anything Rian Johnson did wrong with the script, tone, story or character motivations in TLJ. See Forbes Last Jedi review

10)

Assertion: “It [TROS] even shies away from The Force Awakens’ darker real-world implications." 

Rebuttal: This is a science fiction movie, supposedly set in the past, and nowhere near the universe we occupy. I don’t want it to have any real world implications, excepting those it violates which come from scientific and natural laws it hasn't previously established, for good reason, are worth violating.

11)

Assertion: “It is so concerned with character reveals . . .”  

Rebuttal: Spending a combined five minutes on bringing back Han Solo and Luke Skywalker is not a pre-occupation worthy of complaint when you sanctioned two years previous in TLJ review- “Boyega [Finn] and Tran [Rose] make a fun odd couple, as their subplot offers a look at those living high on the hog while tyranny reigns.” A movie that features a ten minute romp on overweight camels racing through a casino, (a much bigger attempt at social commentary/real world implications than anything in TFA) is definitely a “concern.”

12)

Assertion: “. . . and ‘chase the MacGuffin’ plotting that it finds no time for any real character work.”

Rebuttal: I thought a MacGuffin was either a Shakespearean character or a sandwich available at McDonalds for a limited time. Turns out that a MacGuffin is this: an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance. A creation of Alfred Hitchock’s way back in 1939. There are more "MacGuffins" (writing, casting, editing, story development, plot) in the making of TROS than in the actual movie.

Concession: hard to disagree with the point, which I also already made multiple times, about how much the characters suffer because of the frantic nature of the plot.

13)

Assertion: “ . . . you have huge chunks of plot that are written and edited around deleted scenes of the late Carrie Fisher. That’s when things start to implode.”

Rebuttal: If a wax figure of Carrie Fisher were included in TROS and a one dimensional image of her Father Eddie dressed as a woman, with the voice of Bobcat Goldthwait was lip-synched out of a lip cut out, it would have been an improvement over any work Dern or Tran did in TLJ.

14)

Assertion: “ . . . resulting in some genuinely goofy filmmaking . . .”

Rebuttal: That’s an opinion about any of these sequel movies and needs no context.

15)

Assertion: “The Resistance immediately gets word that Palpatine is alive and has raised a world-killing army of super-ships, news that everyone takes pretty well.”

Rebuttal: Agreed. It is difficult to forgive the writer-director for so quickly glossing over the doom the Resistance should have collectively felt after learning this news, unless we are to assume that this is the  second week or month living under such horror.

Concession: again with the world-killing mechanism? For the original boasting the line, spoken by Darth Vader: “the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force” everyone involved in story development aside from those responsible for The Empire Strikes Back, which did not feature, nor refer, to a world-killing mechanism, should be ashamed of themselves.

16)

Assertion: Mendelson compares Palpatine to Hitler.

Rebuttal: Couldn’t he have gone with Lance Armstrong, Harvey Weinstein, Satan, or a general contractor about to rough in the plumbing of your fourth bathroom or frame in the utility room, so those of us not alive when Hitler was have a much more granular feeling of doom?

17)

Assertion: “. . . the filmmakers seem to think that the mere idea of Rey, Finn, Poe and Chewbacca on a journey together is in itself incredibly compelling.”

Rebuttal: It may have been compelling, though not incredibly so, if there were more dialogue and character development.

18)

Assertion: lesser movie franchises share something in common with Star Wars, so Star Wars is just as guilty of a tired plot device sin.

Rebuttal: Hey, when you’re trying to clean up red wine spilled deliberately all over the white carpeting hours before an interested buyer is coming over to check out the property, using corn starch and white out to hide the mess might be your, ahem, only hope.

19)

Assertion: “It’s not just that Rise of Skywalker undoes Last Jedi’s ‘it’s not your franchise anymore’ metaphors—aimed at a generation that grew up loving Star Wars . . .”

Rebuttal: Thankfully it undoes enough terribly irresponsible story telling and replaces it with mediocre. I’ll take it.

20)

Assertion: “ . . . one cannot escape the fact that Rise of Skywalker has turned this entire new Star Wars trilogy from a kids’ franchise into one aimed at nostalgic adults yearning for a time when they believed they were the most important generation.”

Rebuttal: What, because we don’t like a movie? Unless I was tasked with staying alive through dismal Colonial winters, firing muskets in Revolutionary or Civil Wars, or taking back European hills and farmlands for our contemporary allies, or our future generations, hedgerows and yards at a time, I learned a long time ago I wasn’t a member of an important generation. 

Mine is a problem of an overtaxed willing suspension of disbelief. When that psychological imperative, particularly when judging a science fiction story, has been purposefully (let alone accidentally) violated with as much gusto by the creative decisions and unwarranted goofiness Mendelson applauds, I side with an update to the thrill that is less about honoring the past than it is about, showing some respect, or at least, showing your disrespect in more meaningful, responsible, subtle, artistic and adult ways. 

Hell, I have more suspended incredulity in reserve for the ridiculous scientific and natural law violations, horrible acting, strung out inconsistencies and nonsensical plot devices than for the decisions of trashing everything that made the earlier movies iconic. That said, if Johnson would have made five different decisions, of my choosing, given my trade and my Star Wars DNA, TLJ could have been saved- it could have been a great movie and it would have turned The Force Awakens into the black sheep of this three movie set.

21)

Assertion: “The Rise of Skywalker is possibly worse than any prior Star Wars ‘episode’."

Rebuttal: C’mon, now you’re just trolling. The Phantom Menace is almost unwatchable, aside from character introductions to R2 and 3PO, Liam Neeson, Ewan Mcgregor, and a few Darth Maul scenes.

22)

Assertion: “It ends a legendary franchise with a thud while denying this new trilogy its artistic reason for existence.”

Rebuttal: TLJ largely ended the franchise with a thud; TROS, via the Emperor's return, does what it can to bring back any faith in the Star Wars universe for subsequent generations. The New Testament didn’t do any favors for the old, which still stands just fine by itself.

23)

Assertion: “It represents the cultural theft of Star Wars from today’s kids by today’s arrested-development-stricken adults.”

Rebuttal: The “kids” of this generation got their movie when Abrams remade the original in TFA. And since Mendelson genuflected about both The Phantom Menace (see his review on the 20th anniversary of TPM) and The Last Jedi, how many movies, or parts of movies, must adult Star Wars connoisseurs concede to the world that brought them alive in the imagination department as children?

24)

Assertion: “ . . . the kids who grew up with Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and the MCU [Marvel Comics Universe] have embraced harsh truths and challenging narratives.”

Rebuttal: I’m sorry, but again, comparing any of those universes to Star Wars just isn’t going to work. Fine, yes, cause us to embrace harsh truths and encounter challenging narratives, but hire people who can demonstrate they are capable of doing that. 

One more here- how have fans of Harry Potter and MCU embraced harsh truths? Harry beat Voldemort. Snape died, but so did Obi-Wan (in the original). In Avengers: End Game, all of the good guys who were killed in Infinity War were resurrected, or they will be. If you think we've seen the last of Captain America on film, think again.

25)

Assertion: “ . . . now yesterday’s geeks who have taken over pop culture feel entitled to have the kid-friendly franchises aimed at them as well.”

Rebuttal: Disagree. Hire people qualified to tell compelling stories and develop meaningful characters, who say memorable things and we wouldn’t have this chasm of opinion between what is good and what is horrific.

It isn’t the audience paying to see these movies that has the problem; it is the people making them. The reason adults aren’t going to see movies aimed at adults anymore is because there are too many movies, and yet still too few good ones worth the price. Oh, and our entertainment dollars are spent on services such as cable, Netflix, Sling, Dish Network, Apple TV, and Disney+, etc. Those didn’t exist thirty years ago. There is plenty of material for adults to consume to trouble with most of the tripe playing in movie theaters these days. When we do plunk down $10, $12, $20 expecting, at least, competence, and get trash, why would we keep doing it again and again.

Full disclosure- I was fortunate enough to watch this movie, The Rise of Skywalker, with some friends I’ve been going to see Star Wars movies with since TPM, and my teenage son. On my right was a boy, whose mom flanked him on the other side, who wasn’t much older than I was when I saw the original. In the second half of the movie, some old standbys make appearances- Han, Luke, Ewoks and Jawas, that the kid noticeably appreciated. He likely has no real sense of how impactful those characters are to adults who first encountered them two generations ago. But he had some idea, as I saw he and his mother show the bond they had developed (looking at each other, clasping hands, raising arms) every time a character made famous by other episodes in the saga came up on the screen. Undoubtedly, she had made him aware of how important those characters were to her, and he was probably excited she got to see them one last time as well.

26)

Assertion: Mendelson made a special point in his TPM re-review to state that kids are still on playgrounds playing Star Wars. "The Phantom Menace' At 20: In Defense of a Merely Okay 'Star Wars' Movie", May 20, 2019-Forbes Rise of Skywalker review

Rebuttal: Well, it ain’t because of TPM. Oh yes, it would be fun to sit around the swing set discussing no-confidence votes and midichlorian counts, pretend to jabber like a racist amphibian, caricaturizing himself and pretend to wear regal gowns that light up when visibly plugged into an electrical outlet. All kinds of impactful dialogue could be recited- “you believe it is this . . . boy?” “now there are two of them,” and “Are you an angel”? Gah!

When considering which movie to show my son as an introduction to Star Wars when he was 6, the original was the only option. There was no way I was showing him TPM first. I actually wanted him to enjoy the movie, so he would watch the others. You don’t go all in at the poker table on five unsuited, non-consecutive cards when there is a lot at stake; you go all in with your four-of-a-kind (Star Wars) and follow that up with the royal flush (The Empire Strikes Back).

27)
Assertion: " . . . as a gateway drug that successfully ensnared an entire generation of young kids and turned them into Star Wars junkies . . ."
Rebuttal: If you think TPM is a gateway drug that brought a new generation of kids on board the Star Wars freight train- ok, but that gateway drug is crystal meth. 

28)
Assertion: ". . . it [The Phantom Menace] is an unqualified success."
Rebuttal: TPM was not, and remains, unsuccessful, excepting by the box office it claimed from a Star Wars starved world. TPM is an unqualified success in the same way that Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Part I is. Went back to the well there.

29)
Assertion: "You don't hear them complaining that 'Jar Jar sucks!' "
Rebuttal: Too . . . many . . . options . . . "give it time" and "your hearing sucks" are just the first two that come to mind.

30)

Assertion: "You don't hear them protesting that "George Lucas raped my childhood!

Rebuttal: Then they don't know any better. And, "raped"? That's a little strong. I should have led with that in the rebuttal.

 

31)

Assertion: "For a generation of kids who came of age 20 years ago, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith ARE their childhood."

Rebuttal: And that is great. I care about whether someone thinks The Phantom Menace is a good movie, or that The Rise of Skywalker is a bad one as much as I care about when people think they've found religion. Good for you, if you want to deceive yourself, but don't try to convince me if I have very well-conceived, consistently thoughtful and resolute reasons for not believing, while not writing for a nationally syndicated column in a well-respected newspaper, magazine, or online source of entertainment or information.

. . . TROS

What's Wrong With:

STAR WARS

The Rise of Skywalker

The void of cable in my house in the last year has been filled with Sling, high definition broadcast television captured via the same broadband cable inputs that used to bring overpriced Comcast offerings and soon, Disney+, so that I can re-watch as many of the Star Wars movies as often, and whenever, I'd like.

One of the channels on this "high end" version of "cable", is called "Decades." The day after I saw The Rise of Skywalker (TROS), a mini-marathon of Charlie's Angels, a small screen contemporary of the original Star Wars, was playing on the aforementioned station. I tuned in for several episodes because I remember the show with fondness from my youth, and because Kate Jackson, Jacklyn Smith and Farah Fawcett are still not difficult to look at, like, at all. Farah was niptacular back then. Bosley was a lucky, lucky guy. Charlie's Angels was the original babe-watch, long before filming running in slow motion on the beach was in vogue.

Moving along. At the end of every episode of Charlie's Angels, the title character, voiced by John Forsythe, whose face is never seen in any of the episodes- (he's usually getting a back rub poolside or in his posh office), calls the beauties to congratulate them on the success of that episode's mission- of running in skimpy outfits from bad guys, probably future Stormtroopers, who can't shoot straight. While watching, I am reminded of all kinds of characters whose presence was important to certain programs despite their relative absence.

In Home Improvement, we never see the bottom half of Wilson's face, though he volunteers wisdom  via historical anecdotes, which propels his tool man neighbor to almost immediately misappropriate that wisdom for comedic effect. In shows like Cheers and Frasier, we never meet Norm's wife Vera, nor Nyles' wife Maris; we never, and this is fine with me, see the Friends' ugly naked guy. Every TV generation (that's every 7-12 years), boasts a character whose presence is noteworthy despite their absence- the Honeymooners, The Andy Griffith Show and The Mary Tyler Moore show also support "missing" characters.

Unfortunately, the movie-watching public of the last three sequel episodes in the Star Wars franchise weren't treated to that kind of premeditation. The Emperor, whose absent presence, or before TROS, present absence, fixes a couple critical flaws from TLJ. Could it have been done better- yes, but we'll take it nonetheless.

There is a bonus coming (see my next post)- a criticism of criticism centered on reviews of TROS. Even I am aware of how long-winded I am, so I won't include it here.

I've seen the movie once to date, so I'll be updating the below eventually.
That was too much ado, here we go, the Star Wars DNA QA's view of TROS:

1) The words in the previewing synopsis text crawl were very well written. I remember thinking that whoever wrote them was channeling the word choices and tone of the best of them.

2) Nothing wrong with the opening action sequence of seeing the Millennium Falcon used to smuggle information and jump from one instance of hyperspace to another. Visually, the action sequences through most of the movie are magnificent, and there are plenty of them.

Low
3) It would be nitpicking, but a quick montage of Ren's violent attempts to find Palpatine on multiple planets would be more appropriate than a misguided, fruitless endeavor of slaughtering dozens in a snowy forest. Still, something that has remained consistent with Ren is his uncontrollable rage. So this isn't as much out of character as it is limiting in scope- that is why it is only a "low".

4) I'm going to give Abrams a pass on a certain number of things because he had so much to fix from the misadventures and terrible decision-making of the last film.

5) Including Carrie Fisher, even at her supposed, pain-killer-infused worst, was a necessity. Abrams can't help that she passed away after The Last Jedi. She is the general/leader of the Resistance. Telling us she died off-screen, and not honorably in some kind of selfless sacrifice, would have been an unfaithful ending for Leia. We're not killing South Park's Kenny here. Fisher's Leia is the grand-daughter of strong female leads like Katherine Hepburn, and Bette Davis.

Severe
6) Including Dominic Monaghan (Charlie from Lost), is a mistake. If Abrams had a special favor he owed the actor, or the director lost a bet, give old Charlie a shave and a helmet, or turn him into an alien and give him the commendation for appearing in the film, in the credits. I've already written about Laura Dern's inclusion in the TLJ. Making this same mistake again is a higher severity because casting keeps doing it. I love Charlie, and Lost is one of my favorite shows of all time. But I don't like someone from contemporary television to appear in a timeless mythological space epic. Doing this kind of crap is like putting cookie monster in The Matrix, or adding Judd Nelson's John Bender, from The Breakfast Club, into Frozen 2. Let's add Seinfeld's Kramer, dressed in floods and a hipster dufus Hawaiian bowling shirt into an episode of Game of Thrones and see if anyone notices, or not care when everyone does. Closed circuit to GOT show runners who put Ed Sheeran in an episode. It didn't work for them; making a similar decision definitely doesn't work here.

7) Rose is treated like Jar Jar. In Attack of the Clones, Jar Jar barely makes an appearance compared to his major player status in TPM. That ostracism was a welcome change; so was this one. I could do the Ewok dance, dance with an Ewok, hug an Ewok, or fornicate with one, in celebration. This is huge. Dub, Dub.

Low
8) Could have just been wishful thinking, but it seemed like there were more aliens represented in the Resistance in the huddle of their makeshift forest base. There weren't enough aliens however, and still not enough of them in positions of influence (i.e. allowed to speak at logistic military meetings). Still, this is a low defect for under-utilizing the volume of systems, galaxies and planets at your disposal filled with freakish revolutionaries in terms of political leanings and physical appearance.

9) Comedy and Jokes were much, much better. This was not over the top contemporary humor. The one exception was when Chewie, Finn and Poe were all going to be executed. Finn and Poe make light  of the moment by playing another note of a running gag before Hux shoots the troopers who were tasked with the aforementioned execution. This scene reminded me of the "hilarious" exchanges between Anakin and Padme, in the pit on Geonosis in AOTC.

Low
10) Speaking of Hux. The fact that there was another level to the character = good. The idea that this was a bad guy selling out the bad guys rather than a conflicted guy making life for the good guys more difficult was a welcome change. However, his motivation, of simply wanting Ren to fail, isn't reason enough to do it. Only a low for the effort. If the creatives hadn't spent so much time in dizzying action sequences and had focused more on character development, this could have been an interesting subplot.

Medium
11) Richard E. Grant, plays a somewhat alluded to Sith underling to the emperor, judging by the waxiness of his eyes. He was under-utilized. His is the type of character you can build on over the course of a couple of films. Since you had two different directors with two separate visions, one playing chicken with common sense and the franchise's lore and with that- wasting all kinds of screen time, leaving time for character development isn't possible- see #10 above.

12) Lando! Excellent. You just waited one movie too late. Also a nice touch to have him allude to the mission he and Luke were on together. That is a comforting thought to all of the nihilistic aloofness perpetuated by the lack of story development through the first two installments of this trilogy- Luke on an island throwing lightsabers over his shoulder, Han and Leia separated by time and resentment, all of the new cast barely sharing any screen time together.

13) Keri Russel/Zorii- I knew that voice from somewhere. The difference between her role and Monaghan's is that she's in costume. Felicity and Elizabeth Jennings (from The Americans) didn't just pop up on the screen. Monaghan is sporting the equivalent of the Darth Vader costume I wore for Halloween when I was 8; by the end of the night, the strap around the back of my head was ripping into the mask, doing a Mike Tyson impression on the top of my ear, and the cape looked like something that would do better to keep dust from falling on a jello mold than lend authenticity to the menacing guise of a candy beggar.

For a reason I'll get into later, I decided against giving this a low, but here's a hint- her character was believable because of the quickly touched upon back story between her and Poe. Also, she was allowed to act decisively for herself- giving Poe the medallion and deciding to stay on her planet. I think it was a mistake to not have her join the band out on a mission. In that way, she would have been like Lando, who significantly added to the dynamic of the group in the first trilogy.

Note: Like numbers 10 and 11 above, not having more of Keri Russell in the movie was a miss, even if it were only because we could see more of her running in tight pants which would have reminded me of Charlie's Angels.

14) New little droid- D/O and Cheech and Chong miniature guy . . . superb! And hilarious.

15) I mentioned the jokes, particularly at 3PO's expense earlier, but bringing up again under its own number because of how effectively they fit in with the characters and the story. Anthony Daniels, inside of that golden costume, is still hitting the right notes and brings one back to how amusingly high-maintenance he was in the originals.

Severe
16) Still no aliens in the First Order. Are members of the alien races all over the galaxy just more intelligent and less gullible than white supremacists? I guess that is a universal truth. I think I saw a black man or two among the leadership on First Order cruisers however. A step in the right direction- must be affirmative action. I'll take it, but leave this defect severity where it is. I can't believe how much the writer-directors are getting paid despite this oversight.

17) Jannah, the strong-willed, young lady trailing along with Finn is a welcome improvement in a role that would have been given to Rose if Rian Johnson had written the script. Nice call. I led off this review with a comment on presence; Jannah's got that.

Critical-Unconscionable
18) Let's put more people on the Falcon, or at least trailing behind in other ships on the missions, so that we can have more Resistance fighters become casualties, making it more realistic. I'm thinking specifically of those instances when clumps of characters are running through hallways, not getting hit by hundreds of bullets. Given this late date, as often as this has been cited, and by how many people, particularly by this QA, this can't have any other severity, but critical. The movie should not have been released with this defect. The severity above critical would probably be "unconscionable." You just can't put a dozen good guys into all kinds of life-threatening situations, have them all come out unscathed (Jannah, and Finn running in the Lithosphere on a Star Destroyer with lasers fired all around them) and expect to be taken seriously as a film-maker. At this point in movie history, and in the franchise, I have no more disbelief to suspend.

Note: Poe gets shot- that's something. But the creatives shepherding these movies to the screen should have learned something from Rogue One- simply, good characters can die and the story can be the better for it. I'm not advocating that Poe should die, but something more serious than a, let's be honest, off-target (because the troopers were probably aiming for his head) shot in the arm is in order. He should have gotten shot in the leg due to an incessant barrage of inaccurate shooting.

As an enlightened member of the paying audience, a customer, it comes to that, and a QA by trade, if you stop giving the customer what they want, and what they think they are paying for, eventually that customer is going to spend their money somewhere else. I would have thought Disney had learned that with Solo. If I were Kathleen Kennedy, I'd have stopped them from adding my name as Executive Producer to the credits after the TFA backlash.

Critical
19) Characters v Story. The characters lost . . . that is why you fail. How you sprinkled in the old cast was marginally well done. However, casting "The Dude" to stand in for Mark Hamill, was probably the wrong call. In fairness, you did a disservice to the new crew. For a story intent on featuring the dynamic of Rey, Finn, Chewie, C-3PO, BB-8, and Poe together, the story is busy, the visuals are overwhelming and the characters suffer because of it. You had something when Poe and Finn were playing Chewie on the monster chess board and in exchanges between the characters here and there, most notably when 3PO has his memory wiped by little Cheech, or little Chong. Linger- please god, not like the Cranberries, but roam a bit more, somewhat aimlessly, even if the new critical intelligentsia thinks it slows the pace of the movie a little. Abrams has proven he can do it, or at least sanction it being done, because he led the story and character development in the aforementioned Lost, for six seasons. There is richness, depth and value in that.

High Severe Critical
20) Do we need that many Star Destroyers to create the idea that the good guys are over matched from a numbers standpoint? Did we need 500 Star Destroyers on film? Couldn't we have had a more realistic number of Star Destroyers for our heroes to combat? I'm not buying, even after the Resistance brings in a galaxy's worth of gnat-sized ships to counter the Star Destroyer offensive, that the band of good guys stands much of a chance.

The idea that all of the characters we are supposed to care about survived after being put in continual long-odds situations is "unbelievable"; and if it isn't clear, I'm using that word in the dictionary sense of "too improbable for belief" not its connotative sense- that of something being incredibly fortunate. I would have an easier time believing drinking feral cat urine with a turnip blood chaser could . . . I got nothin' . . . see, Star Wars creatives, that is what it looks like when you edit your own imagination rather than assume the masses will swallow their own incredulity (or the concoction I just invented), in silence.

One more thing- what sense does it make for something indestructible through most of the firefight to suddenly be completely vulnerable just so the good guys can prevail? I just upped the severity to "severe."

See, if you didn't have a screen's worth of Star Destroyers, the Resistance's victory wouldn't seem so implausible. Imagine stacking all kinds of ceramic bowls on the counter in a pile larger than the turtle throne Yertle sat upon, and asking a toddler to clean them without unstacking them. Given all that frustration, I upped the defect severity again. And yeah, I get that in this instance the reason all those Star Destroyer's were more vulnerable because the generator was taken down, but who does this- ties the fate of all that hardware to one generator? We've seen this ploy too often in this franchise to tolerate it any more.

High
21) Knights of Ren. Their armor looks like what Oscar the grouch would put on before battling big bird. That's no inside joke at the size of Adam Driver's nose. Ren is able to stand on his own, almost, without the light saber. This is just another example of the villains not being utilized to their full potential so that the "hero", in this case Ren, can prevail via lazy storytelling. If the franchise wanted to subvert our expectations, give us villains, more consistently, (both Vader and Palpatine rank in the top 10 all time in movie history) capable of extending the skill set of the hero. Great villains make worthy heroes. The severity on this defect also could have been raised.

Severe
22) Because science, and, and, and nature. Ren and Rey, both humans, who, word has it, breathe oxygen, stand feet and inches respectively from the edge of space in the hangar of some outpost space station. To compound this problem, Rey leaps, passing into space, defying gravity.

No puny little human is successfully navigating to the Death Star for that distance, in those crafts/skiffs, with those waves. I think these characters have all watched Castaway a few too many times. The odds on two separate people making it to the Death Star (because Finn, not a Jedi, also makes it) alive given the natural impediment of a near tsunami are probably higher than C-3PO can calculate.

23) Speaking of the Death Star. I think it was a master move to include it in the film, so that we could also say goodbye to it.

High
24) Sentimentality. Too much music made this whole movie into a melodrama. We don't care as much about these characters; they know it and we know that they know it. This is the first time, and I'll wager the last time, that anyone would ever say that John Williams' talents were overused. The music never effing stopped. It was actually sickening. It was the worst case of mush since the last thirty minutes of the Return of the King (the final Lord of the Rings movie). By the end there, I was ready to take Frodo out myself.

25) Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok- think Joe Pesci in the 2nd Lethal Weapon movie- I know what people are going to say. Dude, you can't have a problem with the science and nature violations and commend them on the mixed location interactions between Ren and Rey. In this third movie- Ren grabs a necklace from Rey's throat and she drops a lightsaber into his hands. Each time, Ren and Rey are miles or blocks distant. I don't see some of that interplay as too different than some of the time traveling stuff Abrams included in Lost. Also, it isn't like Abrams just made the dual spatial reality thing up in this movie. Unlike the Leia, being sucked into deep space and surviving sequence in TLJ, where it had never been established she was force-sensitive, it was perhaps assumed, Abrams' hand was actually made for him in the two earlier films that created the precedent of the two characters, Ren and Rey, connecting psychically, that force contact intensifying, and leading them up to its final use, into a physical manifestation and as a means to a Force Dyad partnership against Palpatine. Hell, this is one of the few things all three films have in common; I may as well give someone credit for it.

Severe- getting on to Critical
26) Palpatine's minions. Do we need an arena full of Sith, or followers of the dark side of the Force, to bear witness to Palpatine's culminating rejuvenation? Do we buy that he would have that many followers or that many followers who could keep his existence a secret? What purpose do they actually serve? Do none of his acolytes have force powers allowing them to escape the fate of being buried in rubble? If none of them have the means of escape, what possible use could he have for them? Were they members of the clone army? Future Snokes? Force ghosted into the arena? The scene involving the confrontation between the Emperor, Ren and Rey would have made more sense if it was a private affair. Again, what do numbers and size actually mean. These are old, cliched devices and I would think that Abrams was above that kind of tripe.

Note: I'm not penalizing Abrams for the missteps of Johnson's version of The Last Jedi. The notion of Palpatine as the overarching villain of these last three films was an idea that millions of fans could have come up with before the script for the first film, TFA, was underway.

High
27) At this point, I'm just indiscriminately assigning defects to things, which is kind of how it felt when the creatives leading this movie assigned melodrama to the characters, action sequences to the story and serendipity to scientific and natural laws. We knew heading into this movie that this trilogy was a train wreck crossed with a dumpster fire. But my god did you people eff this up. Rey is a Palpatine. The Disney team hired "professionals" to write, storyboard, direct, consult upon, cast, score, act in and edit three films. They wasted one on a repeat of the original, and a second on butchering everything beloved about the entire franchise. The third could only correct so many missteps.

Think what an entirely different group of professionals could have done with claws for hands and chimpanzee DNA, provided their midichlorian count was in a respectable range. That is an insult to chimpanzees and DNA, and believe it or not, whoever came up with the idea of midichlorians. This is a cumulative defect, one that considers the three films as a whole, because after the first movie we know Rey had a lineage question for the creatives to resolve.

This is a "high" because Abrams underused Palpatine. Abrams cleaned up Johnson's mess about Snoke; cleaned up Luke tossing a lightsaber over his shoulder, Rey's lineage and even made a comment about Holdo.

Medium
28) Ren and Rey kissing. C'mon. I'd rather watch Jar Jar and the Ewoks light each other on fire . . . see, at first, I was thinking of that happening sexually, then I got aroused when I considered them actually all lighting matches in one orgy of roasted amphibian and flaming bear midget fur.

29) Two women kissing during the celebration following the First Order and Palpatine defeats. I don't have a problem with that, but I still wish the out of box thinking (ha!) extended to Lando fondling Mrs. Ackbar, or that it was two of Charlie's Angels in their prime, even if one of them was Shelly Hack.

In fact, adding Farrah, in her prime, shot from the waste up, and on Hoth, into one of the scenes with Carrie Fisher, would have made a lot of sense . . . ok, not a lot of sense, but about as much sense as most anything else in the whole trilogy.

30) Voices of Jedi past in the credits and as inspiration within the film for Rey's rise to defeat Palpatine and the title of the film. Magnificent!


Before the good and bad accounting from above, I was about half way through the movie thinking, "I'm worn out on this stuff." I couldn't rate this movie, with any kind of letter grade. The only other movie I have never been able to rate besides this one- The Passion of the Christ- another movie that wore me out, about the resurrection of a supernatural being, not unlike the Emperor.

I started out the article by hearkening back to old television shows whose creators imagined real fake spouses, neighbors and bosses and how measured, responsible, clever and creative that was and I'm disappointed that as many highly-compensated Disney employees couldn't consider a well-meaning, honorable, thoughtfully-planned and credibly-detailed set of sequels, well before the third reel.