Control: Rise of Skywalker Pre-Review

I, Dalton Lewis, haven’t seen the new Star Wars movie, but I want to talk about it before its release. Star Wars was an essential part of my childhood — I watched the first one constantly on BetaMax — sort of like an old video cassette player — sort of like a DVD player. My sister and I would sit, after school, playing it over and over. It was the most fun I had while watching movies. Luke Skywalker was a great hero that I could love and emulate.

Then, during college, the rumors were that a new series of Star Wars movies were going to be released. We saw the first preview and everything looked great — fantastic even. Natalie Portman, every geek guy’s favorite actress, had been in The Professional and now was in the new Star Wars. Anakin Skywalker seemed like a great subject for three movies. He was a badass character of legend. That didn’t work well for him — or John Connor from the Terminator stories. The legendary characters weren’t all legendary when you had to see them in a trilogy of movies.

Anakin was a bratty kid who was way too sanctimonious and perfect to be a character we could identify with, and he wasn’t in the right role — in the first one he wasn’t the lead, and in the further ones he wasn’t charismatic or flawed. He was perfect, and people think they want perfection but can’t identify with perfect people. When he broke down he seemed like a spoiled brat instead of a badass villain or hero. The movies also had Jedi as nice, kind, and appropriate heroes — and the lack of emotion really hurt the Jedi Order.

Then they brought out a new series of movies — episodes seven through nine. Episode seven was pretty good, a series of action sequences which introduced us to new characters like Rey and Kylo Ren and Finn. Kylo Renn is a character I liked because he felt full of rage and anger at the Jedi — he was a walking ball of angry emotions. This even reflected current feelings by angry young people — such as budding incels or people who shoot up their high schools or workplaces. I really thought that this character nailed it. The new movies were pretty good. Then Rogue One came out, and the movie was awesome — an amazing heist story without many lightsabers. Then things, ahem, fell apart.

I didn’t understand Episode Eight. I appreciate that Rian Johnson, the director, tried to make interesting and different choices, and that’s nice. That’s admirable — he wanted to make a work of art. He didn’t want the same old story we’ve had for seven previous numbered movies. This is amazing — a director who doesn’t want to spew out the same things over and over. I cannot praise this enough. However — some decisions were, well, odd. There was a very long and slow chase sequence for about two hours or so. Also Luke was interesting in the movie, but he could have handled things differently. The evil leader didn’t get the proper backstory to be an interesting and effective foil for the characters. Kylo Ren mostly had a fit and wanted to sleep with Rey — both plausible motivations.

Now this has turned into a situation in which Star Wars decided to play it safe for the foreseeable future. The didn’t take any chances with Solo and it sucked. They aren’t making any tough decisions or surprises with the rest of the movies, and I’m upset. They should have made interesting and different choices that worked with audiences instead of backtracking and trying to make money off of good guys beating up bad guys. I’m sorry — that’s how I feel. We will see if my mind changes when I see the movie.

Thanks, and take care, friends.