10 years ago, Star Wars had an awakening. For a few blissful weeks at the end of 2015 and into the start of 2016, there was a sense of balance in the fandom, the likes of which we haven’t seen since. That’s because J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens brought the franchise (dormant on the big screen since 2005) roaring back to life with a megahit that, while flawed, was incredibly crowd-pleasing for fans new and old alike.
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In the years since, opinion has, like on everything in a galaxy far, far away, become more split. The movie’s issues have grown more apparent over time and rewatches – such as, yes, it is far too similar to the original Star Wars – and the general division over the sequel trilogy, the furore over Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and lacklustre ending with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker only serve to make the entire whole look worse.
In a sense, that’s a little unfair to The Force Awakens. Is it a perfect film? Not even close. Is it a well-directed, extremely well cast, and entertaining movie? Yes. Was it exactly what the franchise needed at the time, after 10 years away and the prequels’ own divisiveness? Absolutely. All of that still holds true, and it remains a fun watch, but given the backlash to the sequels started with The Last Jedi, that’s where The Force Awakens deserves more of the blame.
The Force Awakens Set Up The Last Jedi’s Luke Skywalker
“The sequels’ Luke Skywalker is nothing like the original trilogy version, the real Luke would never stay on an island while those closest to him are in danger and even killed.” If you hold that to be true, then there’s a good chance some ire has been aimed at The Last Jedi, but that is not the movie that made that choice. The Force Awakens did. The Resistance, including Leia Organa, fights against the First Order. Han Solo returns to the fray and gets killed by his own son. Starkiller Base destroys an entire planet. And Luke does nothing.
What justification for that could there possibly be? The Last Jedi could not have character choice and then suddenly throw Luke back into action, as though he were simply unaware of the First Order’s existence and, now that someone had finally told him, he was ready to take them on. No, there had to be an extremely strong reason Luke didn’t return in The Force Awakens, something Abrams never provided. By having Ben’s fall to the dark side intertwined with Luke’s own failure as a teacher, leading to him being cut off from the Force and having to find his way back, Rian Johnson backed-up that decision, giving it real justification, meaning, and weight.
The Force Awakens Kept Rey & Snoke As Mystery Boxes
Aside from Luke, the other major points of contention with The Last Jedi are its reveal that Rey is a nobody and that Snoke, well, he’s essentially a nobody too. Both had been subject to countless theories leading up to the movie’s release, and its handling of both were extremely divisive – and once again, rooted firmly in The Force Awakens.
Rey’s parentage could’ve gone in one of a number of directions in The Last Jedi, because it was a mystery box left unopened, but it’s not like The Force Awakens had set up something greater. There are a couple of things that could, in retrospect, be viewed as teases, be it actually does very little to hint at what her actual lineage is. What it does do, though, is establish very clearly that her being left by her parents, and realizing they aren’t returning for her, is a foundational aspect of her character.
And thus, it doesn’t matter who her family was, it’s the choice of being left that matters. The movie itself says it through Maz Kanata: the belonging she seeks is ahead of her. This isn’t about discovering she’s a Solo or a Kenobi or a Palpatine, it’s about finding her own place, her own friends and family, and the sense of purpose and belonging that she never had on Jakku. She was already a no one heading into The Last Jedi, but the hardest thing possible, as she clung onto hope, was making her believe it too.
Similar is true of Supreme Leader Snoke who, more so than Rey (who has a lot going for her as a character in The Force Awakens) was barely a character, he was just pure mystery box. One that The Last Jedi decided to cut in half with a lightsaber rather than open. And again, it was the more interesting choice.
If there were any compelling answers about Snoke, they could and should have been in The Force Awakens, at least in part. But there weren’t, because he was just a shadowy Palpatine-esque figure, and killing him off not only made for a shocking twist, but meant that the far more interesting character, the one who The Force Awakens had also invested in rather than Snoke, could make a step up.
Going Back To The Force Awakens Hurt The Rise of Skywalker
Fundamentally, I don’t think there’s any aspect of The Last Jedi that retcons or actively works against The Force Awakens. It’s a clear continuation of its story and characters, even if those choices were surprising, and while it’s entirely fair to dislike them on their own merits, it’s not because of it contradicting or wasting what Episode VII did. The same, however, cannot be said of The Rise of Skywalker, which is the nadir of the sequels (and arguably Star Wars movies as a whole).
Because of the response to The Last Jedi, Disney and Lucasfilm panicked, pivoted, and went back to J.J. Abrams, and back to The Force Awakens. Suddenly, we’re revisiting Rey’s parentage and, hey, she’s a Palpatine. We’re revisiting Snoke and, what’s that, he was created by Palpatine. Remember Luke? He’s back, this time in pog ghost form, and forget all the lessons, just go kill the bad guy, isn’t that what people want?
The movie tries to undo so much of The Last Jedi by trying to force its way back to The Force Awakens and evoke a similar feeling, and it becomes a bloated, incoherent, pandering mess because of that. It’s impossible to definitively state whether things would’ve been better had Lucasfilm stayed the course and properly followed on from The Last Jedi, but it surely would’ve been better, and more cohesive, than the trilogy we ended up with.
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Image courtesy of Tor Books/Macmillan -
Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme
