'Star Wars' Is Dead

So let me start by saying that I used to love Star Wars. Space wizards with laser swords!? I had no chance to resist. From the moment I watched ‘A new hope’ with my Granddad I was hocked. I’d wear my dressing gown and jump round my room holding a torch pretending I was fighting the evil empire.

The extended universe did nothing but further my love, and yes I even love the prequels—even if young Vader was more whiny than a tower of terror. The rich universe and fan theories made the whole things just so tantalizing. It was so easy to escape into the galaxy far far away. The comics and novels gave so much information and great stories that honestly, I find hard to find elsewhere.

So when The Force Awakens was announced I was so excited. When I watched I loved it. Or, at least I thought I did.

The first of the reboots was just the original trilogy condensed into one movie. (I would go into why but honestly, better people have made that case much better than I can.) This is why I and so many others like the film so much. It was the tried and test formula but when you start to analyze it you can start to see where the writer(s) of the new movies clearly don’t understand Star Wars.

The Death Star was a colossal waste of money. So why did the emperor have it made (twice)?

Power. The fear that thing gave off put more power to the Dark Side and more power to him.

So why was Star Killer base made? Well the original movies had it... So of course they need it now.

While I don’t pretend to assume the Lucas had thought it all through before the films came out, there were a couple of reasons why the Death Star was built; but as those reasons aren’t explained in the films, they were ignored by the writers of this new trilogy. And that leads to the hollow nonsense that we have seen since The Force Awakens.

The Last Jedi is where I walked away. The comically bad ‘fight’ scene was the kind of thing you would expect to see in a low budget spoof film, not something in Star Wars. While I have said before that audiences don’t really know what we want, there should never be an occasion where every single fan theory is far better that what we get.

If Luke’s character had been played by anyone other than Mark Hamill, there would have been nothing that suggested this was Luke Skywalker.

And yes I understand that the broken aspect of Luke forced him to be an isolated recluse, but his actions throughout the film (until the very end) seem like such poor writing. And that is the theme of the entire movie.

A space-ship chase scene that is meant to be at incredible speeds yet a handful of characters can leave the ship, go of to a casino and get back before tea? At this point the story is just insulting.

Who are Rey’s parents? Why have there only been two character in the whole of Star Wars to ever speak with an English Accent (Rey and the Emperor)? Well, who cares?

They had a chance to make something truly great. Instead we got a poorly written sequel to a film that copied the movies that came before it without understanding them.

And now, in the third installment, we know that The Emperor is coming back.

When I heard this I threw my hands up and wondered how incompetent Disney truly was.

They have an extended universe that comes back thousands of years, fan favorites that could have been brought into the fold. They could have made this trilogy their own. But what did they do? They wrote a story with almost no imagination. Rehashing things that have been done to death—and again, without understanding why these things happened in the first place. The Sidious was a power hungry sociopath—but he was also preparing for a war with a species coming from the uncharted regions of space. He had a vision that made it clear to him if they arrived and no one was ready, they would wipe out the galaxy and just keep going.

But all this has been lost on the writers and directors of the new trilogy. Instead we bad guys who are bad because they are bad. Don’t over think it, it’s only a film. But look, here is a load of special effects—it all looks so pretty. Insert face palm.

Star Wars was a story of good and evil, of redemption. Character flaws and arrogances that leads to downfalls. A political game and campaign of terror with people that compromised—and some that didn’t. We cared because these Space wizards with laser swords are human and relatable. We followed them in their journey and grew with them. We yelled at Vader, we shook our heads with Qui-Gon Jinn, we cried Obi-Wan—and we all loved Plo Koon because he is simply amazing, and if he had trained Anakin, the Emperor would have failed!

But all of that, everything that made us fall in love with Star Wars, is gone now. The past has been destroyed by this new breed of depth-less story telling.

I am done with Star Wars.