The Star Wars Sequels: Disney's Anti-Trilogy

0:04 this will begin to make things right and that is where things started to go wrong everyone seems to agree that the disney star wars sequels were something of a mess even people who do happen to like one of them or the other or the other really still don't think of them as a coherent trilogy but as is always the case with star wars looks can be deceiving and these three movies actually do share an important characteristic one fundamental trait that in retrospect completely unifies them as a trilogy all three of the sequels think of themselves as an antidote to things that had come before them you could even call them the antidote trilogy but that's just a little too long isn't it let's shorten it just this

0:54 perfect at first the force awakens didn't seem to be anti-anything maybe it looked a little over familiar but all the early images made one thing very clear star wars was back and this movie was here to celebrate everything about it was tailor made for lifelong fans of the franchise both in the way it brought back old things and in the way it introduced new ones for instance not only did this movie bring back han leia and the millennium falcon but the casting

1:40 process to find rey and finn was designed after the way lucas found young unknown actors for a new hope there are some familiar story beats but they come from familiar writers lawrence kasdan came in to work on the screenplay just like he did on the empire strikes back echoes of classic star wars are everywhere and not just in the obvious places like the rundown technology practical effects and real lived-in sets but even more obscure elements like the specific camera and film stock they used on the original trilogy and okay we can admit that something is missing here in a movie that's almost two and a half hours of references none of them include the prequel trilogy this celebration of star wars is really just a mashup of a new hope and the empire strikes back trash compactor and

2:26 it's not too hard to imagine why that might be a lot of fans just didn't like episodes one through three and jj abrams is clearly one of them for us at the very beginning it was really about why we were telling this story and it was to give people that sense of possibility and magic that we all felt uh when we first saw the original star wars that's what lines like this are about this will begin to make things right well because of you now we have a chance abrams is here to get right what george lucas got wrong the point of his revisiting the legacy of star wars is to take the prequels out of it meaning it's not a nostalgia trip we had to go backwards in order to go forwards more straightforwardly the force awakens is anti-prequel that's why it's

3:12 making a big deal out of things like the practical effects after hearing them talk about it you would think the production was going back to the old way of making star wars movies obviously they weren't and actually the phantom menace had fewer visual effects shots than the force awakens which uses all kinds of digital effects and not everyone knows this but each prequel used more miniatures than the entire classic trilogy and it's not like they stopped using makeup puppets or real life location work the biggest difference was marketing when the prequels came out all that digital stuff was new so they became known for it and anything the prequels were known for is something the force awakens ran away from as fast and as far as they could this was a mistake in doing so the movie misses the point of what these effects are even for it treats

4:00 them like it treats references to old scenes or props or c-3po goodness han solo it is i c-3po it just sticks them in there for no reason other than to have a practical effect or c-3po on screen excuse me general sorry and that's just not how star wars has ever worked in that scene where r2d2 is ambushed by jawas lucas wasn't trying to show off his practical effects he was trying to show that r2 was in danger likewise when luke is stopped on his way into jabba's palace it's not to show off these costumes it's to create a parallel between him and darth vader unlike similar moments in the force awakens

4:46 there's a whole scene here these are actual characters and like it or not so are all of these this may seem like a small issue but it's just one example of how running away from your own franchise causes more problems than it solves the prequels were also thought to be too serious and too stuffy in comparison to the old star wars abrams wanted more of what he calls the comedy that lucas put into star wars but the comedy and a new hope comes straight from the characters and conflicts look your worshipfulness let's get one thing straight i take orders from just one person me so one day you're still alive the comedy and force awakens comes from we need more comedy and it keeps accidentally undercutting its characters

5:36 and its conflicts at the climax of finn's arc he's literally told not to take himself so seriously i'm in charge i'm in charge now phasma i'm in charge bring it down bring it down the same thing happens to the context of these conflicts you may recall the prequels had a storyline built around the careful development of a political crisis apparently that's complicated and boring so force awakens does what it always does the opposite it doesn't explain anything it's not going to answer questions like who's the first order how does this connect with the previous movies who are all these people what just happened to this place because any scene where the characters sit around and discuss politics might remind viewers of a new ho the phantom menace but look most of these issues could be forgiven in a movie that got the important things right

6:26 this is a millennium falcon you're han solo i used to be han solo is about the most star wars thing ever and not just because he's cool in fact that cool disaffected gunslinger persona is there to hide the fact that he's broke always on the run and can barely keep his ship in the air through the original trilogy han's loyalty to his friends starts to crowd out his selfishness eventually conquering his fear of his past he becomes an actual hero and a crucial part of the rebellion and this movie takes all of that away from him han solo the rebellion general no the smuggler force awakens is desperate for the old star wars and if han is allowed to grow he won't be like the old star wars what's the problem it's just that han solo is a real character

7:14 so undoing his storyline means all of his triumphs are now his failures he's lost his standing and his career he's lost his relationship and his son he's even somehow lost the millennium falcon this version of han is a 66 year old loser he's no longer an anti-hero he's just an anti-hero and it was to give people that sense of magic that's right the magic of learning your favorite character peaked 30 years ago threw away everything good that ever happened to him and dies pointlessly and alone in front of two people he's never met before being thrown off a bridge and it's worth repeating the reason this happened is because abrams wanted to fix the things lucas

8:01 messed up when he made star wars movies that didn't feel like hope or empire in his mind those two movies are everything star wars should be and the prequels were unsuccessful variations on them but george lucas was never trying to make six of the same thing they wanted to do a retro movie i don't like that i like every movie i worked very hard to make them different i make them completely different with different planets with different spaceships you know to make it new in fact one of the coolest parts of the lucas saga is it contains a children's fantasy a noirish political mystery an apocalyptic opera a serial adventure a dreamlike tragedy and a classical morality play ironically making a movie that truly felt like star wars would have probably meant making something different than anything star wars had been before but since abrams either

8:50 didn't understand or didn't like the saga's big picture project the creator of star wars had to be taken out of that picture they decided they didn't want to use those stories they said they were going to go do their own thing they weren't that keen to have me involved anyway in a very literal way this anti-prequel movie had to become anti-lucas and that turns out to be anti-star wars this one is obvious the last jedi is anti-force awakens which honestly doesn't sound too bad even if star wars did survive the force awakens nostalgia trip there's no way it

9:39 could have handled two in a row ryan johnson does the things jj abrams was afraid to try he brought a new story and a new tone to star wars it's just that in the process he derailed the entire project we'll get to that the phrase everyone associates with the last jedi is subverting expectations it's not the best phrase to describe what this movie is doing but it sticks because it's exactly the way watching this movie feels now this channel has already talked about how george lucas built star wars on a series of dramatic inversions both from movie to movie and from trilogy to trilogy and so some people think subverting expectations is something star wars does all the time but the big difference is that

10:25 lucas's approach takes an idea and makes it more important to the story what johnson keeps doing is taking something that seems to be important and then saying no it actually doesn't matter he's not very subtle about it either admittedly there's something thrilling about watching a blockbuster do something like this especially to a movie as lazy and predictable as the force awakens stop enjoying this stop enjoying this and it helps that last jedi is handled in a for lack of a better word a more artful way than its predecessor there's a lot of intent in the ideas and imagery it puts on screen including a lot of these subverted expectations some of which are there to solve unsolvable problems left over from the force awakens this is what happened with luke skywalker if if that's actually who this is maybe he's jake skywalker

11:16 it doesn't really feel like him we've seen luke learn that he could turn to the dark side just as easily as vader and be willing to die if it gave his father a chance to turn back to the light this is impossible to square with a luke who seriously considers murdering his nephew in his sleep but it's just as impossible to imagine luke abandoning his friends which is the only thing he does in the force awakens the series of narrative subversions in the luke storyline of this movie are basically ryan johnson's way of reverse engineering the explanation for why he would do something so out of character however it's not fair to pin all this whiplash on jj abrams the expectations last jedi keeps subverting are just as likely to be set up in the last jedi

12:06 yes it's true that some of those reversals do serve key story points but a lot of them are just the movie kind of messing around and look a lot of it is meant to be funny and a lot of it is funny but it also means most of this movie's setups are built on it misleading the audience in other words the last jedi is lying you can call me whatever you like i just want to know what's going on of course you do this whole string of deception climaxes hilariously with the admission that even the movie's title was a lie and i will not be the last jedi not the last jedi's fundamental dishonesty is also why it feels like the movie never gets anywhere we've talked about this too but star wars has always been remarkably straightforward which is how it crams such an

12:53 insane amount of story into just 6 movies not the last jedi's constant backtracking basically means that it has to take one step backwards for every two steps forwards for its entire run time and if it starts to feel like this is somehow the point of the movie well it is instead of subverting expectations this is the phrase that should be associated with the last jedi we are what they grow beyond it's a more fundamental rejection of the way the force awakens refused to move forward sort of an anti-nostalgia sentiment and again this sounds like a good or even necessary thing but the way it goes about this idea doesn't just reject the force awakens

13:39 this subplot with luke reckoning with the broken legacy of the jedi order realizing he needs to face his own weakness and embodying the true nature of the jedi by refusing a lightsaber duel has already happened it is the plot of return of the jedi last jedi doesn't just undo luke's flawless character arc from the classic trilogy because of jj abrams it does it so it can haphazardly redo it and then act like it's moving beyond something this is why luke skywalker is now a coward it's tough to move beyond your heroes without tearing them down first oh look another lie that's how we're gonna win not fighting what we hate saving what we love the last jedi is constantly fighting things it's not just anti-force awakens it's anti-meat

14:29 it's anti-war it's anti-po it basically can't make a single point without being anti-something impressive every word in that sense was wrong it doesn't know how to say anything without scolding someone there are things that you cannot solve by jumping in an x-wing and blowing something up that line makes it sound like it's silly to expect space battles from star wars again that title thing really a struggle not to mention half the saga has already done this without patting itself on the back for it kind of like how despite what the last jedi seems to think it's not the first star wars movie to tackle the dark side of things like greed or war and when lucas did it he was able to say things that were a little bit more interesting than greed bad or war bad partially because he filled those stories with actual characters while

15:20 the last jedi seems to prefer nameless symbols like in its last shot which clearly shows that star wars is moving on that the force in these movies are for everyone not just the skywalkers but the reason we follow the skywalkers isn't because they're more important than other people it's all about generations and it's about you know the issues of fathers and sons and grandfathers and it's a family soap opera come to think of it that both anakin and luke start out as nobodies is a story point that hits on the exact same idea as the ending of the last jedi but it does it in a way that treats them as people not just as symbols just give it to me one more time simpler you could think of it like this the point of this kid is he could be anyone the point of this kid is that he's

16:09 someone i'm a person and my name is anakin and look maybe star wars moving on is a good thing but arguably if you love what star wars could be more than what it already is you don't actually love star wars when last jedi takes what the saga has been and shoves it in a drawer well it's very anti-force awakens in that way but looking at this whole saga and only seeing something that's there for you to grow beyond winds up feeling very very anti-star war oh yeah you see where this is going in rise of skywalker it was time for a course correction of a course correction of a course correction we've passed on all we know so jj abrams came back to fix star wars

16:59 again a thousand generations live in you now in short disney's sequel trilogy needed a miracle it uh did not get one by this point the series had literally lost the plot and the problems show up immediately no seriously they start in the first paragraph of the crawl that's where they put the reveal that somehow palpatine has returned and that strange decision makes even less sense when you see the opening sequence which dramatically shows us that somehow palpatine has returned the dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural then 10 minutes later and just for good measure we get this somehow palpatine returned

17:52 that shocked gasp is hilarious but if you can imagine a movie that spends 2 hours and 15 minutes explaining itself without ever actually clearing anything up you can imagine rise of skywalker this is terrific you're not gonna believe how well this is gonna turn out it's gonna be great it's clear at times that abrams is trying to redo what last jedi undid the jedi's weapon deserves more respect the problem is well the problem is the movie's a jumbled mess just as an example let's look at the sequence where our heroes search for the first clue to the sith wayfinder it's right after they bring back carrie fisher with old footage just so rey can refuse to listen to her i need to finish what luke started no i don't want to go without your blessing but i will anyway here's how this sequence of the movie goes

18:39 they arrive on the planet pesana in the middle of a big festival the first order finds them because kylo force snatches a necklace off rey so that his necklace analyzing team can tell him where it's from we've had this analyzed it comes from the midian system and then stormtroopers were already there for some reason but so is a good guy with a bow and arrow follow me turns out it's the famous archer lando calrissian which even the script seems to find a little implausible this is general lando calrissian we know who he is they flee into the desert looking for an old jedi hunter ship there's a bit of a battle ray spots the ship but sometimes life has other plans they get thrown into this random quicksand tarpit there's a little character thing here with rey and finn i never told you what that never gets resolved so don't even ask the quicksand dumps

19:28 them into a network of underground tunnels and it just so happens they come across a oh hey is that a clue the location of the wayfinder has been inscribed upon this dagger there's also a gigantic snake fortunately it turns out he's just you know misunderstood so rey force heals him which is how we find out that there's such a thing as force healing and then the snake knocks a hole for them to get out not as a thank you or anything just on accident again there's 2 hours and 15 minutes of this rise of skywalker spends more time explaining powers and things than it does people so pretty much every major story beat feels either arbitrary i know exactly where the wayfinder is unfortunately it is written in the language of the sith pointless

20:17 there was another transport in the desert or unmotivated i'm the spy what you if you think too long about how cause and effect even work in this movie it starts to feel like a philosophical exercise because the effects in rise of skywalker are actually more causes than their causes that probably didn't make any sense let's try that again the way this movie is organized is clearer if you explain it backwards for example rey will need the sith dagger on indoor so she finds it down in the tunnels they need to be in the tunnels which is why they're derailed on their way to the ship by a group of stormtroopers lando saves them because later he needs a motivation to show up at the final battle okay admittedly it still doesn't look like the godfather but at least it gives a possible explanation for why this story here feels like such

21:04 such gobbledygook which way uh no idea follow me the movie is pure setup and payoff without any actual cause and effect in fact you know what this isn't a movie okay it's technically a movie the images are moving but exploring cause and effect is essentially the main point of a narrative so when this movie ignores them completely it makes it like an anti-narrative every story beat is mechanical just there to move us to the next beat kind of like disney just needed an episode 9 to exist so jj abrams had to mechanically assemble enough activity to take up two hours of every audience member's life if this mission fails it was all for nothing all we've done and ironically the whole star wars project started as a way to explore the

21:51 importance of narrative i consciously set about to recreate myths and the classic mythological motifs ignoring the foundations of a narrative is anti-star wars and that's just all there is to say about that so in the spirit of rise of skywalker let's just hurry up and get to the outro the whole thing turns out pretty anti-climactic palpatine is defeated the great love story of our time finds its natural conclusion and the most hilariously oversized fleet in the history of collecting vehicles is defeated in a very anti-star wars way by being somehow outnumbered but there are more of us pope there are more of us and chewbacca gets a medal even though all his friends are dead you know jj abram's whole career seems to be in some sort of weird benjamin button

22:39 mode where he gets actively worse with each movie he makes and now he's made an anti-movie and yes that might sound a little harsh but don't worry about abrams after all it looks like he got exactly what he wanted from this trilogy star wars free of george lucas some of you may be disappointed after seeing a channel built on a let's just call it what it is irrational love of the star wars saga turn up with a video that seems very anti-star wars the promise of this trilogy was that it would keep the star wars universe

23:27 alive for another generation but to keep a creative work alive you have to create things and it's clear looking at this trilogy that nothing was built here this is the star wars anti-trilogy everyone who made it just wanted to see their version of star wars and none of them ever realized that in their version of star wars star wars doesn't matter they didn't even leave anything for the filmmakers who came after them movies like the force awakens mean you can't make anything new and movies like the last jedi mean you can never keep anything old in short these movies have a lot of problems and it's best to leave them behind

24:17 when you break up with somebody you just say no gone history i'm moving forward it's sort of poetic though that for all these movies efforts to leave behind the legacy of george lucas he's the one who moved on and they're still standing right back where it all started thanks for watching there's still more to say about star wars some other day subscribe or drop a line below if you want to know when that day comes or if you want to see what this channel does in the meantime surely some of you think there are other filmmakers whose work deserves another look

25:04 me too i'll see you then