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Wherein I have opinions on a little indie film series. You probably haven't heard of it.
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Brevity, apparently, is the soul of wit. Polonius, mate, I’m not at all religious. I don’t believe people have souls, let alone abstract concepts. But I have to put my foot down on your fictitious and frankly irresponsible act of ensoulment. Anyway, you don’t even crack my top ten favourite characters Shakespeare stabbed to death, you dead loser.
Please enjoy this ramble, the fruit of literally hours of hard labour, disgorged for your pleasure. And don’t listen to that Polonius guy. What a chump.
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So hey, incest is weird and bad. I’m sure if they could turn back the clock, the powers that be would shuffle around some of the foreshadowing in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back into something more family-friendly. But alas, it cannot be. I would like to share with you a workaround. Leia is a committed workaholic with no time for personal interests, while Luke is a lonely little farmhand from the backend of nowhere who has met about nine people in his entire life. I like to think that what they feel is magic Forcey-worcey attraction, which, due to their shared inexperience and lack of context, they both mistake for an entirely different attraction. One wonders how far Vader peered into Luke’s head during their final duel. It must have come as the second most shocking incident of the day. After getting zapped by lightning.
I’d always found Vader to be an intimidating presence, stoic and focused and six foot eight. But I had never actually been scared of him before that brief, chilling scene in Rogue One. That was not a childish outburst of violence, like those to which his grandson is predisposed. That was cold, calculated, deliberate, precise methodology. Vader makes a characteristically striking entrance, announcing his presence with an illuminated lightsaber in a dark corridor. He humours those soldiers initially, permitting them to shoot at him as he approaches, but the patience of a juggernaut quickly wears thin. He wrenches their weapons from their hands and proceeds to tear through them like a sledgehammer through a wet paper bag.
Perhaps it is because I never knew classic Vader separately from prequel Anakin. Perhaps it is because that iconic mask that initially struck fear into the hearts of audiences worldwide has lost its impact somewhat in the last forty years, groaning under the weight of familiarity, splashed across ice creams, fridge magnets, parodies within parodies, and most emasculatingly a Mr Potato Head.
A cape can contribute a great deal to a memorable first impression. One should never underestimate the importance of a simple, threatening silhouette, though Edna Mode may have an opinion or two on the practicality tradeoff. Director Krennic had the right idea in Rogue One, but in practice his tended to flap unflatteringly at his sides rather than billow elegantly, as I imagine he intended. Hooray for visual metaphors.
Rogue One is, of course, by far the best prequel. Despite the somewhat skimpy characterisation, this film projects a sense of sheer visual scale that the others sometimes lacked. When the Death Star is having its focusing dish installed, it casts a colossal shadow across the flotilla of Star Destroyers anchored nearby. During the frantic assault on Scarif, Force monk's husband fires a shoulder-mounted missile from the foreground at an AT-ACT looming in the background, while laser blasts throw up splashes of sand and water with each impact. Shortly after the plans have been successfully transmitted, Vader's Star Destroyer appears from hyperspace so suddenly that several fleeing ships crash straight into its deck like bugs on a windshield. And of course, I had a fanboy squee moment when the Death Star eclipses Jedha's sun before unleashing destruction that feels a million times larger than the violent but fleeting sputter that would later shatter Alderaan.
(The asteroid field left behind consists of substantially less matter than the planet that used to occupy the sector. Certainly, the Death Star wields enough firepower to evaporate trillions of tons of rock, but all that mineral vapour still has to go somewhere. According to Wookieepedia, however, this is not a plot hole. That is not how it works. It seems that the superlaser expatriates much of its target's mass to hyperspace, thereby redistributing it around the universe. There's a fun fact for you.)
(I wondered if it were possible to circumvent the need for such a ridiculously overpowered laser in the first place. A fraction of that energy could cause spontaneous and apocalyptic volcanic activity, and less still could ignite an atmosphere, though evidence suggests that the Empire places a premium on style. Perhaps a superweapon could consist simply of a small artificial moon launched into orbit around a target world, to ravage it with tidal forces. Of course, all that mass has to come from somewhere, and it may be impractical to reload by strip-mining entire solar systems. Then again, it could be easily reused and recycled, and would also be largely self-constructing. The Death Stars took years to build, and their destruction surely substantially dented the galactic domestic product. You could dump all the raw materials in an empty parsec and a spheroid would coalesce automatically, ready to inflict tectonic distress. Of course, the Death Stars for all their girth don’t do much in the way of gravitational ravaging anyway — though they are each the size of a small moon, they are nowhere near as dense, consisting mostly of air rather than rock: corridors, conference halls, apartments, cafeterias, standardised Imperial bottomless chasms and so forth.)
Of all eight Star Wars films, Rogue One best conveys a sense of visual depth, a sense that everything onscreen occupies the same space. Empire and Return of the Jedi manage perfectly fine on a small, Millennium Falcon scale, doing a splendid job of polishing up the groundbreaking but slightly hokey effects that brought the Battle of Yavin to life. (Particular highlights in my book include the hectic, cluttered asteroid field scenes and the beautiful cloudy skies of Bespin.) Decades later, they still hold up. But on a larger scale, the original trilogy sometimes struggles to cash the cheques Industrial Light and Magic write. Vader's flagship, the Super Star Destroyer Executor, utterly dwarfs the standard Star Destroyers like the one that left such a stunning impression in the opening minutes of Hope. It portends doom wherever it goes, a dagger slicing its way through the sky. During the Battle of Endor in Jedi, the Executor is disabled by the Rebel fleet and, unmoored, sinks and impacts on the surface of the second Death Star. All nineteen kilometres of doomwedge fizzle out with all the vigour of a birthday candle. This is, however, a single weak moment among three films of otherwise robust special effects, of unprecedented variety and quantity, which is still an admirable success rate.
Where Hope skims over its catastrophic casualties (three million aboard the Death Star plus some two billion Alderaanians), Rogue One takes the time to appreciate death. It is a bold move to kill off your entire main cast, but I feel like in this case it only strengthens the film. It lends weight to the cause to see those brave men and women and sassy droids sacrifice their lives for it. We know that the Death Star will be destroyed thanks to their courage. We know that they have already been retroactively memorialised in Empire and Jedi: the Rogue Squadron consists of the Rebel Alliance's ace pilots, the best and the brightest who would later prove their mettle against an entire Imperial armada. Satisfied that Jyn and company did not die in vain, Rogue One shifts focus to the Tantive IV without guilt. This must of course seem like a tasteless desecration to those watching the film without the context of the surrounding Star Wars universe, wondering who the hell this random lady is with the shiny face and the too-perfect teeth. But Rogue One, unlike Revenge of the Sith, earns its fanservicey ending with a damn excellent final act, leading smoothly into that succinct opening scene of Hope, which then propels itself forward with renewed momentum. We have seen first-hand the cost of the Rebellion’s first victory to which the opening crawl refers, and Leia's desperate perjury takes on new and audacious colours.
(On the topic of the opening crawl, would somebody kindly inform whomever it may concern that an ellipsis consists of only three dots, not four. Please and thank you.)
(I applaud the boldness of digitally recreating Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia. Those characters did have to be there — Tarkin is in charge of the Death Star, and the cameo from our beloved Leia is the final and most obvious reminder of continuity from Rogue One to Hope — and to be sure it would have been less distracting to feature them only in holograms, reflections and from behind. But Star Wars has always been about pushing the envelope of what can be achieved with special effects. Though the execution was less than flawless, failure is the first step on the road to success. Future completely CGI people will eventually claw their way out of the uncanny valley. It is only a matter of time.)
The whole third act of Rogue One features a confluence of setpieces the likes of which Star Wars has never seen before. The scrappy, desperate incursion into the Imperial Archives on Scarif. Darth Vader's brilliant, chilling moment in the spotlight. And simply the finest space battle ever committed to film. It would be remiss of me to not mention the hammerhead corvette and the substantial volume of ass that it kicks.
It would be remiss of me to not mention also that it's possible to aim to kick ass, and to completely miss, fall over into the mud, break several bones, ruin your shoes, and somehow also crash the economy of New Zealand. Oh yes, it's time to talk about the infamous prequels proper. Let me begin by addressing the hulking great elephant in the room.
The prequels are pretty bad, folks.
They sit in the awkward position of being compared to towering classics of science fiction, and indeed of cinema, a comparison that is as unfavourable as it is unavoidable. Imagine if the prequels had come out in a world where the original trilogy had never happened. Despite all the clunky dialogue and flat characters, they would be lauded for their complex worldbuilding, and universally praised for visual flair. Some (though, I hasten to clarify, absolutely not all) of the criticism may be traced to the appalling disappointment of shifting from a jolly old terrorist insurrection to drily negotiating tax policy.
(I hope a polite interval after the sequel trilogy has wrapped up, Disney quietly drops these from the canon and makes new, good prequels. Fingers crossed.)
For all the time the prequels devote to tiresome political theatre, they still only muster the wattage to half-bake it. The galactic civil war is the backdrop against which is set much of Attack of the Clones and all of Sith, and yet after watching them more than dozen times apiece I haven’t the foggiest idea why the Separatist Confederacy wanted to secede from the Republic at all. The whole thing is dripping with the juices of disillusion and dismay, somehow at once underdone and overcooked.
I wish now to address another major criticism frequently and rightfully flung in the smirking face of The Phantom Menace; namely the ostensibly childhood-ruining performance of one Jake Lloyd. Consider the cast of the prequels. It is overflowing with talent — Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, Samuel L. Jackson, Liam Neeson, Christopher Lee, et cetera, et cetera — all of whom turn in stilted, wooden performances. (In fact, I can think of only two prequel actors who expressed any emotion at all beyond constant mild incredulity. Ian McDiarmid has a delicious time munching the scenery as the transparently evil Chancellor Palpatine. There is but a single string to his bow, but hot damn is it a good one. And Pernilla August is to be commended for remaining touchingly grounded opposite blank mannequins and tennis balls on sticks. She turns in a lovely, warm, understated performance as the scene-stealing Shmi Skywalker.) The sheer quantity of talent being squandered implies the influence of a common denominator external to the cast, stomping down the slightest protruding modicum of enthusiasm like a hundred-million-dollar game of Whack-a-Mole, and there’s no gold star for guessing who that may be. This is all to say nothing of a script that does little to endear us to whiny little Ani in the first place — I simply suggest that the character’s general unlikeability is probably not the fault of young Master Lloyd.
Over the last few years, I have come to appreciate that not only are the prequels badly written and badly acted, they are also badly directed. Outside of action sequences, no character ever breaks a sweat. When not on a leisurely stroll, they are all glued into position like some cosmic pantomime. Unlike the effortlessly interwoven original films, the prequels clumsily partition plot and worldbuilding — after every sweeping establishing shot of a beautiful new locale comes yet another identical scene of people sitting around and explaining what’s happening. The prequels are reminiscent of one particularly uncharming flavour of stage play: despite swapping out sumptuously painted backdrops, the characters only ever inhabit the same limited square footage of wooden floorboards. Additionally, it may surprise you to learn that in the real world, people can often do other things at the same time as talking.
Lifeless and overly utilitarian dialogue notwithstanding, the camera manages to drain what little energy these scenes have with prodigious efficiency. Wide shots tend to be staged as static tableaux, banishing the camera to some far-flung corner like the kids’ table at a wedding. (Another tell: CGI sequences can be as fluid as they like, but when there are real actors in the shot, the embargo on angles comes crashing down.) And when zooming for dramatic effect, the camera does not physically move through the space, but rather remains at its station recording the entire shot, which is later subjected to some iMovie Ken Burns effect. It’s as if we’re watching security footage, and not the fun decapitation-of-rosy-cheeked-kiddies kind — objective, aloof, sterile.
This is not to say the prequels are completely unsalvageable. The opening act of Sith is genuinely thrilling, especially that very first shot. Two tiny starfighters skate along the hull of a huge, solitary capital ship. It is far too quiet. Then they dive over the edge to reveal a full-scale siege raging above the galactic capital. It is chaos. And it is glorious. And it is all downhill for the rest of the film. Ewan McGregor does a spot-on impression of a young Alec Guinness, albeit heavily anaesthetised as per the modus operandi of prequeldom. Generally, the worldbuilding gets in the way of plot (as is only possible when they are completely divorced from one another), monopolising screentime and interrupting what little flow there is to be had, but taken by itself is endlessly imaginative and richly detailed: a city-planet of seedy clubs and colossal skyscrapers, rounded white corridors pristine against torrential rainfall, gargantuan hives built by repulsive bipedal human-sized insects, a godforsaken refinery on a moon of lava rivers and ashen beaches and general raging destruction that just screams ‘metaphorical backdrop.’ Padmé's luxurious wardrobe deserves a special mention, particularly in Phantom where she gets to swan around being queen with half a decorative china cabinet sticking out of her hair.
(A point that bugs me: Queen Amidala is addressed interchangeably as Your Majesty, Your Highness and Your Royal Highness where only one can be the correct form of address. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom is styled as Her Majesty, but according to Wookieepedia Queen Amidala is Her Royal Highness. I understand that it varies from kingdom to kingdom in the real world and that a greater variety in a fictional world is not beyond the realm of possibility, but the point remains that a single office should have only a single honorific. It's possible that interchangeability is just the way the cookie crumbles in the Star Wars universe, but that reeks of Kessel Run revisionism whereby an oversight or misunderstanding on behalf of the scriptwriters is not rescinded or replaced, but rather given a convoluted in-universe explanation. Though there are other pressing questions on the topic of the Monarchy of Naboo. Under what constitution could it possibly be considered appropriate to elect a fourteen-year-old? For that matter, why does Naboo call an elected head of state and government a monarch at all? Curiouser and curiouser.)
Lazy editing aside, at the core of these issues is the same disappointing rationale behind a great deal of other critical flops: the prequels do not trust their audience. They insist on eagerly spelling out every detail they care to mention, rather than relaxing a little and leaving dots to connect. And some bizarre decisions were made regarding what was considered important enough to display. Towards the end of Sith is a scene that purports to explain why baby Luke and Leia were sent where they were, were it not for the fact that it fails to do just that. Obi-Wan, Yoda and Senator Organa simply sit around a conference table and describe the twins’ starting positions from Hope in the future tense. No debate takes place; there is no discussion of pros and cons of various arrangements. This is telling rather than showing, completely ignoring the guideline at the very heart of good entertainment.
There are many things the prequels choose to skim over, including the most important character introductions that should have grounded Phantom. That film breezes by so many first meetings that should feel game-changing, or at least should somehow foreshadow future importance: R2 and 3PO, Obi-Wan and Anakin, the Sith lords and the audience; they all seem to have been dropped in simply because they have to be there, to justify the eventual significance of each relationship while ignoring the potentially quite interesting task of showing how they came to be.
This is the most frustrating part. The prequels sit down with a clipboard and check off an itinerary, while not bothering to inject even a modicum of excitement into the proceedings. They are functional. They are perfunctory. They are joyless. They are not fun.
I’ll leave my musings on the prequels there. I have little else to add that hasn’t been said before, and it seems almost petty to continue flogging this tenderised mush of giblets that may once have been vaguely equine in shape. But if you’re interested in someone else’s outlook, I point you in the direction of Belated Media’s Michael Barryte. His videos pop right up when you search for ‘what if the prequels were good.' (Part the first | Part the second | Part the third) His boggle-eyed zeal for this project may be offputting to some, but I prefer to think of him as enthusiastic.
Barryte identifies two major functions the prequels should have served but didn’t: firstly, detailing Anakin’s fall to the dark side as not necessarily an active choice, but a gradual shift in perspective (rather than something that just happens because it has to); secondly, establishing a very close, brotherly relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin so that we may properly appreciate what will be lost (rather than splitting them up into their own subplots, especially when Obi-Wan fritters away all his screentime in Clones playing Cluedo for the Jedi Council). Actual character arcs are outlined for Bail Organa and Owen Lars, adopted fathers of the twins and therefore arguably fairly important people, who, in one of the prequels’ most egregious oversights, together rack up about twelve seconds of screentime. These alterations emphasise contextualising elements of the originals that were brushed away for the sake of brevity, or whose existence was only ever implied.
Barryte has suggestions for style in addition to substance: he takes a red pen to every instance of the word ‘Naboo’ and substitutes in ‘Alderaan’ so eventually when the planet spontaneously evaporates we can feel some inkling of loss. And finally, major revisions are made to the ending of Sith, whose fumbly thalidomide fingers tie up its closing scenes with spools upon spools of unearned fanservice. Anakin’s fate is to be left ambiguous after the climactic clash on Mustafar, and we definitely don’t see him stapled into his iconic Vader suit for the first time, so we don’t know that Obi-Wan is greatly exaggerating reports of his death until Luke does. We don’t see Padmé addressing the twins by name, and indeed we don’t know there are twins at all. Those watching the films for the first time in the order suggested by the episode numbering will run into honking great spoilers, and our mate Michael is having none of it.
Generally, the videos suggest a reprioritisation: tighten focus on relatable characters, following their arcs and investing in their development, not necessarily at the expense of glitzy, glossy action setpieces, but the latter must never get in the way of the former. Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars: Aftermath books do a sterling job of balancing the two. The trilogy bridges the gap between Jedi and The Force Awakens, following a colourful cast of original and sharply drawn characters (including a new addition to the proud history of scene-stealing droids) on their misadventures set against a galaxy in disarray. Tension between the nascent New Republic and a reeling Empire in exile had to come to an explosive head at some point. Have you ever wondered how those Star Destroyers that Rey strips for parts ended up capsized on Jakku? You need look no further.
The Aftermath trilogy is punctuated with brief asides checking in with various other characters beyond the primary plot. They’re barely more than sketches, but that’s more than enough under the deft hand of Wendig. Leia is juggling her role as midwife of the New Republic with her own pregnancy, while Han is struggling against his lifelong urge to hightail it from even the slightest whiff of responsibility. And then there’s one that does the impossible. It turns out that after almost single-handedly presenting the future Emperor victory on a silver platter, a certain someone has hung up his senatorial robes and returned to Naboo, where he is self-employed as a clown on the streets of Theed. The children love his tricks and japes and slapstick. He’s always been good at those. But the adults all steer well clear. They know what he did. And he knows that they know. He will spend the rest of his miserable existence smiling through the shame, knowing he is hated. That’s right. Wendig has made me feel sympathy for Jar Jar Binks.
It looks deceptively simple when you do it right. The Force Awakens is effortless, breezy fun — a strong film on its own merits, and by far my most cherished cinema-going experience. There was something in the air that night, packed in with scores of other fans at the local midnight première, in giddy anticipation. Everyone knows that you can trust Disney to lend even the most predictable film enduring charm. (See below.) We knew it was going to be spectacular, and were not disappointed. It’s generally considered gauche to applaud in a movie theatre, and I harshly judge those who do, but that night we were guiltless.
(Disney are modern-day alchemists. They can fashion pure gold from even the most inconsistent and uncooperative components, though of course they are generally judicious with their source material. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, my personal underrated fave, is wracked with tonal whiplash, one moment setting up a fairly lovely colour-by-numbers different-worlds romance, the next diving headlong into issues like religious hypocrisy, racism, conscientious objection and of course the vitriolic fear and disgust spat at avatars of the unfamiliar. In the film’s third act, the Parisian guard and a mob of crazed citizens are torching the city to smoke out gypsies. Meanwhile, Quasimodo is serenaded by his gargoyle buddies Hugo, Victor and Laverne, who may or may not be figments of his imagination brought to life by his crippling, maddening solitude. They encourage him not to give up on Esmeralda in a light-hearted musical number while below them Paris burns.)
Force does have its weak moments, albeit fewer and further between than in any previous Star Wars film. The squidbeasts are goofy, Captain Phasma was criminally underused (I imagine she will play a greater role in the rest of the sequel trilogy, and was introduced here just so she doesn’t have to appear out of nowhere), that map fragment clearly covers about a sixth of the galaxy (more than enough to be getting on with), the film skips right over explaining how the Resistance and the First Order fit within the New Republic (in a reversal of policy from the millstone of worldbuilding hung around the neck of the prequels), and Mark Hamill should definitely have been credited after the rest of the cast appended with an ‘and.’ But like with Hope, these small complaints disappear completely when zooming out to take the movie as a whole. It’s an instant classic.
Of course, the whole thing is basically a rehash of Hope with a little Empire thrown in for good measure. Another Death Star, another desert planet, another revelation of parenthood, another big hologram dude stage right addressing a helmeted Sith kneeling stage left. (Conjecture: Snoke’s hologram is a double bluff. Everyone and their dog and their dog’s squeaky toy immediately assumed he’s tiny, myself included, but I hope he really is that big. If not bigger.)
It is said that a good sequel (or more generally, continuation of an existing story) builds on the original, using it as a jumping-off point to explore new and different, though congruent or rhyming ideas; conversely a bad sequel wallows in the original, often under the guise of paying homage, but without any conviction or ideas of its own. Though continuity must be somehow established — for instance through the same characters, similar themes, repeated locations — it need not be overplayed. There is a fine, fluid little line between tribute and ripoff. And though indeed the broad strokes of Force are patently derivative, the specifics sparkle with originality. It’s the little things lend the film a sense of realism: Rey’s just-add-water bread roll, the TIE fighter tethered aboard the Finalizer, Finn’s offhand clarification of Stormtrooper helmet specifications, Han’s growing jealousy of Chewie’s bowcaster; these all stem from the concerns of real people. And let’s not forget that this is only the inaugural instalment of an entire trilogy of new material.
The most important innovation Force promulgates is the introduction of characters who, for the first time, speak and behave like normal humans. Rather than stand around expositing awkwardly, sauntering from setpiece to setpiece, the cast of Force sweat and trip and clutch and bleed and laugh and emote — when Rey leaves her desert homeworld and glimpses the lushness of Takodana for the first time, she remarks rapturously that she never knew there was so much green in the whole galaxy. Upon disembarking, she takes a moment to close her eyes and feel the breeze on her skin. Nobody took the time to do anything analogous through the last two trilogies. Finn and Poe quickly strike up a sizzling romance, sharing chemistry and clothes and biting lips at each other like in that one GIF that launched a single ship (my name is enthusiastically scribbled upon its manifesto — bring on the interracial space boyfriends please, The Last Jedi). BB-8 is just the cutest little thing ever with his beeping and wibbling and lighter thumbs-up, reinforcing The Lego Movie’s inadvertent point that even shameless marketing can make excellent cinema. And Kylo Ren is a fearsome new villain, a man of duality, an unexpectedly handsome exterior (I must know what conditioner Adam Driver uses to maintain those lustrous luscious locks) belying his constant simmering rage. As many before me have observed, he is what Anakin should have been all along.
I like to think that the choice to frame the first sequel as a polished-up retrospective serves two functions: Force is an apology and a promise. An apology for the existence of the prequels, and a promise of future quality; proof that Star Wars can still be spectacular. And there’s plenty of spectacle to be had. Kylo flaunts his power in the film’s opening minutes, freezing a blaster bolt in mid-air, where it hovers, jagged and quivering, for the rest of the scene. Of particular note is the christening of Starkiller Base, a new superweapon gouged into an entire planet (expunged of all native life forms to avoid a repeat of the embarrassing Ewok incident). General Hux delivers an intensely passionate speech to an assembled First Order legion, before targeting the capital of the New Republic. A beam as wide as the horizon erupts from deep within the planet, and the innocent citizens of the Hosnian system can only watch in horror as the cataclysm rains down from the heavens. The polish and spectacle not only make Force look fantastic; they also make parts look believably bad. Soldiers are covered in grime, ships of all stripes are realistically dirty and banged-up, and Rey’s initially inexpert piloting of the Falcon had me on the edge of my seat. The future is filthy, folks.
I hadn’t even noticed that in previous films lightsabers don’t actually cast light, until Force rectified the issue, among many others. They are imbued with a newfound physicality, and the furious choreography of the final duel (between a freshly motivated Rey and a severely handicapped Kylo — of course there was a clean shot immediately after Han’s death, but I sincerely doubt Uncle Chewie had it in him to return the favour to little Ben Solo) finally gets it right, charting a middle course between the original trilogy’s tentative fencing and the prequels’ insulting acrobatic overcorrection. (That moment in Sith when Obi-Wan and Anakin waste several seconds just windmilling at each other. Ugh.) The physical feedback is palpable: the newly violent sound of clashing blades, the nearby trees felled by errant swipes, the snow evaporating from the slightest contact — Force captures the visceral reality of laser sword combat like never before. The action seems like it’s taking place within a real environment, rather than superimposed on one via chroma key.
Force began a new trend of refreshingly, engagingly artful Star Wars direction. During Kylo’s interrogation of Poe, the camera tips into queasy Dutch angles to reinforce our hero’s discomfort. The dogfight above Maz’s castle balances focus on the main characters with thrilling, swooping shots of the action. A simple but striking contrast between light and shadow dominates much of the third act. Starkiller Base is refuelling, consuming a nearby star, and the lighting darkens and darkens as the scenes play out. In a striking tableau, a diagonal sunbeam splits the screen immediately prior to the final confrontation between Kylo and his father. But as the star finally succumbs, the light is extinguished, along with any hope for Han’s survival. It is in the gloom of dim red utility lighting that the deed is done. Finn and Rey fight off Kylo in a freezing dusky forest, their lightsabers serving as the only source of illumination. And finally, when Rey believes all is lost, the Falcon rises, floodlights ablaze, like the dawn of a new sun. Sometimes, stylish can mean simple.
(Sidebar: my favourite theory on Rey’s parentage. Of course she’s Luke’s daughter, but not in the traditional way. Whoever found Luke’s lightsaber must also have found his orphaned hand, and with it a generous quantity of DNA. The First Order, in an attempt to create a formidable and Force-sensitive ally, tried unsuccessfully to clone him. Rey is the result of artificial gene-shuffling single-parent reproduction, which is a real thing, obviating the need for an absent and/or dead mother with which a future film may bog itself down. As Luke’s daughter, she is also Kylo’s cousin, and though quasi-incestuous dalliances are hardly unprecedented in the family, the two could bond over shared Force sensitivity and become friends and allies. Rey could redeem Kylo and bring him back to the light side, in an inverted echo of the relationship between Anakin and Padmé. This also leaves vacant the romantic subplot allocation, into which could be snugly slotted everyone’s favourite interracial space boyfriends.)
The Star Wars saga has earned itself many more superlatives than Most Shipped Pairing of 2015 and Least Sexy Onscreen Couple in the History of Cinema. For all the mistakes of the prequels, including shoehorning in a romance fizzing with all the chemistry of a block of wood dropped onto a second block of wood, the fact remains that these films single-handedly legitimised the genre of science fiction and redefined cinematic practical effects forever. Beyond the silver screen, they have inspired so many more in the fields of fashion and music and art, bringing together for the first time hairdressers and patissiers, swimwear designers and metallurgists, puppeteers and CGI rendery people. Star Wars invited us into a brand-new world of frantic dogfights, bickering droids and sweeping scale; a new epic for a new age.
I think that about wraps it up.
May the Force be with you all.
Except you, Polonius.
You still suck.