I guess at the end of the day that's all they are to me too to be honest. Fun b movies. In many ways they're like team sports (apart from hockey which I enjoy for its own sake) to me. I've been interested in the fans passions and the glamour that their emotions over it engender. I enjoy experiencing creative geeks gush over their theories and passion. For me theyre fun(shallow -_- sorry but they are) stories that aesthetically inspire my own varient ideas that often have little to do with the actual anything of the franchise. What gives any of it life for me is what y'all (the big fans) make of it.
When I look back at the actual Star Wars FILMS... actually, compared to films I truly love.. yeah, I guess you are right. The film executions have always been more shallow than my connection to the SW universe. I think I'm in love with the themes and ideas far more, and so I keep wanting the films to "step it up" and keep being disappointed. It's why I feel much more connection to the games -- same universe I love and respect, but the concepts are embodied SO MUCH BETTER in them, on a more mature level.
Was it wrong to hope for some actual maturity and depth to the films?
I love fantasy and scifi, it's one of my earliest loves along with dinosaurs. (Hmmm. Force wielding velociraptors? hold that thought...) it's because you can take the rich inside worlds of people and project them out into a tangible reality. The philosophical and ethical elements, the battles we fight internally, our struggles, our desires, our loves and pains. It's all made manifest, rather than having to live in two worlds at once (our inner life and the outer pressures that so often demand dominance). It's "where I live" and where maybe many of us do.
So this has never been light fare to me. I have always loved when a fantasy or scifi series / film takes it SERIOUSLY rather than just making it irrational fluff. It's not that I don't enjoy some of the fluff (for example, I actually enjoy the first GI Joe movie, the first Pacific Rim movie, and whatever else... because they never aspire to more than action/eye candy).
The ideas of Star Wars were different.
I feel like we were promised more here with this last trilogy, and it TRIED for awhile... but due to a creative war between two directors, a corporate that doesn't seem to give a shit aside from cash flow now, and a fan base who wants to be baby fed... it just gave up. I'm feeling like what happened at the end of Game of Thrones, and especially if GRRM dies before completing the books so we can find out what "really" happened. This movie felt like fanfic / 12 year olds writing the film.
Nothing that's happened in the movies or the business around the franchise is surprising to me. I can typically call the plot and twists of a movie from the opening credits. (The prestige had no twists or surprises for me as soon as I saw the multiple hats in the OC. (It's still a fantastic film)
The hats telegraphed it earlier and I think the whole Angier thing was obvious way before the last shot -- I think the real cathartic mystery was Borden, which I loved how the entire film is about misdirection even when there are answers. But yeah. That and "Pan's Labyrinth" are my favorite films ever, and I typically don't narrow things down like that.
I suppose being a writer, Ive passionately studied writing and stories mythology folklore and cinema since I was a small child. So much so I genuinely believe life is a literal story, and we're all characters etc etc... I watch movies only for aesthetics. Theyre eye candy with a brain tease.
I believe film and novels can make stories that emulate reality and in so doing become real themselves.
In fact, we don't have omnipotence, like our notion of "God". maybe "God" could create people (it's an analogy, so don't veer into that bit), but we cannot create physical people (aside from reproduction). What we can create are people in stories, not in physical reality. So to me, stories are the pinnacle of the human experience, and our purest form of creation. To the characters we create, we are "God."
I long for people in stories to feel real to those who experience them. To me, they really feel like real people, in the best stories.
It's killing me. I did feel like Rey and Ben were real (in great part due to the acting of Driver and Ridley). This last film... nope. This story felt like a lie that the actors did they best to sell (they had no choice) but, well, they couldn't pull it off. Because the narrative was a lie.
back to point, there's no real dissapointment for me here, because there are no surprises. I lost my emotional attachment when they killed Han Solo (he was the character I identified with when I was a kid and discovered the series) but I leaned over to the isfj in the theater when Solo and Chewie entered that facility. I said "I have a bad feeling about this." Then I said. "ah snitch theyre gonna kill him." I didnt like it. It hurt. But it wasnt a surprise. I think he should have force ghosted later, and been totally flumoxed by it, ime that would have been a true character arc considering where we see him begin in Ep 4 but I digress again.
it's funny, you made me think -- what character in the SW films have I identified with / really been in love with?
I think the answer, once I look back, is probably none? I don't personally feel represented in the SW world. I LIKE many of the characters but they are not me. Luke, I could connect with a bit, but he also usually drove me a bit batty with his heedless optimism and blind faith that somehow worked out for him. Han was a charming rogue (not me). Leia was too in charge and caustic, although I loved her wit and focus. And not really among the secondary characters either. MAYBE with Qui-Gon Jin? Personality wise? But... never "felt" a lot towards him.
I think I really did love Ben and Rey, though. I am neither of them ... but (i have mentioned before) they both felt like orphans, lost in a huge universe with no one to depend on, and feeling the weight of that loneliness. (and Ben's parents weren't even "bad" people -- it's just that they were fallible people, who couldn't be what he needed at the time.) I guess that is me. So you learn to be resilient, and independent, and you have to be really brave in order to find your way because you might long to take a more established way so you can be with everyone else taking that same path... but it still feels like loneliness if you do and you know it isn't going to where you need to be. So in the end you have to go alone.
Rey, despite her friends, is still basically a loner; and Ben has embraced that he will be alone on this road a long time ago. It's why I was so struck by his comments in The Last Jedi -- he recognized this and had embraced it and moved to some higher existential level of self-awareness and self-responsibility.
Sorry, I'm getting off-track. I guess this was my long way of determining if I connected with any of the characters. I guess I do have an answer -- it was Ben and Rey. So this movie to me was the same as the first movie was to you when they offed Han.
personally, I felt like it was an actual conclusion to Han's arc, from the outside. (I mean, Ford wanted him killed off 27 years ago.) When Han doesn't know what to do, he leaves. he detaches and goes somewhere else. He runs and loses himself in external action and excitement. He loses himself in challenges against other younger roguish characters, to feel good about life and feel like he has control over his life again. One thing he never knew how to do was be a father.
He still loved Ben and has been hurting over him, and he knows he let Ben down. When he saw him on Takodona, he couldn't stop thinking about him. And he wanted to help Rey after initially brushing her aside, because he sensed she needed a father. etc. IOW, he recognized that even if he does not want these bonds consciously because they leave him feeling inadequate, he has them and he cares about a few select people (besides Chewie of course).
he loves Leia. I love their last scene, because you can see she has embraced being more direct about her feelings (she is very much willing to tell Han exactly what she feels towards him, even though you can tell it's hard for her) but Han just dances around it. I just wanted him to SAY it, and Leia and the audience could tell her was feeling it (Ford is great) but he just cannot voice it directly.
So it's a huge deal when he chooses to go after Ben and stake his life. He's not only admitting his feelings and need for his son, he is willing to go after it rather than running. And he tries to be Ben's father, because Ben seems lost. When Ben kills him, Han also could choose to pull back, curse him, hit him, a number of protective responses.... but he doesn't. his very last act is to caress his son's cheek -- "You have killed me, but still I love you." And he never has to say it, because Solo is a man who can't say stuff like that but he can show it.
I don't know. That is why for me Han's arc felt complete, despite it hurting. And it was a death with high stakes. His biggest trial in life was living for himself + running when he wasn't sure what to do, and he overcame that out of love for his son and his ex, to stay true. I *liked* Han a lot up to that point, but it was then that I actually felt love towards him.
I guess you are also seeing why this is not just "light fluff" for me, these stories are the external representation of our deepest struggles with our own humanity in the attempt to grow and become more cohesive people.
Hell, they did it with Tony Stark and Steve Rogers (if you look at their starting and ending points over many films). Why not here? Maybe Feige? At least he has come on board SW. I wish Kennedy would just leave.
