2019: Re-examining the current state of the Star Wars films

The Year was 1999 when George Lucas released The Phantom Menace. Despite a thrilling third act, the film featured a dull execution of its story and a few odd casting choices. One say could say that Attack of the Clones was just as bad, if not worse for the cringe worthy love dialogue between Anakin and Padme. However, one factor is for certain, Revenge of the Sith, was the best film out of the prequels. With the Rise of Skywalker coming out this year, examining these prequels comes at a perfect time. The main theme in this article will be based around originality. Although the new trilogy has impressive elements, one could argue that they lack the one thing that the prequels possessed, originality.

The two pivotal years that would change Star Wars forever, will be the years 1999 and 2017. 1999 is crucial because it was the release date for The Phantom Menace and would be the start of a long debate amongst fans regarding the quality of the current and upcoming prequels. 2017 was critical as it was the release of The Last Jedi,which some even believe was worse than the prequels. This was mainly due to Rian Johnson’s incoherent way of a telling a story and his fast paced editing style that didn’t seem to fit the mode of the franchise. That film holds a shocking audience score of 44%. Whereas, both The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones have scores higher than 50%. It is safe to say that most fans didn’t enjoy The Last Jedi. Ryan Johnson’s direction style didn’t gel with fans but it was more of the story choices he made. These choices include: Luke’s resistant against the jedi order, no substance to Snoke’s existence, the random cantina scene, forced marvel-like humour and Leia’s force powers….to name a few.

The main method that Rian Johnson used when directing was to subvert the audience’s expectations. This is an interesting idea especially when making a Star Wars film, however, when these changes are made to beloved characters and ideas that have been cemented into the core themes of the franchise, then perhaps it can cause backlash from fans. The line, ‘its time for the Jedi to end’ from Luke, is an example Rian Johnson’s mindset. Subvert the audiences expectations by sacrificing the key themes of the characters, Luke Skywalker’s character arc was affected the most out of the characters. He went from a positive hero to a man spiralling into an existential crisis. In truth, Rian Johnson also went against the ideas and stories JJ Abrams planned in Episode 7. As a result of these changes, there are countless youtube videos that rant on The Last Jedi. Most of them pick out on Luke’s character change against the jedi order. I have attached some famous rants below. The bottom line is, adjusting the core themes of the franchise to subvert expectations is a recipe for disaster. Fans like the themes that the original 3 films set out, which have now been embedded in popular culture. Fans want Luke just the way he was.

After examining the The Last Jedi, how it does compare to the prequels? well for a start the prequels had a more unique and original approach to the world building. Like I stated in my intro, The Last Jedi isn’t an original piece. It is a follow up or a build on the ideas that have been established a long time before its release. It simply just plays around the themes. These ideas represent the visual style of the planets and the film itself. The prequels took time to establish new worlds and law. They also didn’t cram in a thousand different ideas and visual motifs that The Last Jedi had. All of the prequels had a story structure that was easy to follow. These are some of the reasons why audiences are starting to re-consider the quality of the filmmaking behind the prequels to these new sequels.

Were the prequels really that bad?

Out of all the films, we may see Revenge of the Sith gain a more prominent cult following. Order 66 is hands down, a stand out in terms of music and emotion that I feel these new films may never capture. The lightsaber duel at the end is still my favourite lightsaber fight, in terms of choreography. It’s definitely for certain that fans have been lacking a good lightsaber duel since 2005. Yes, the film still suffers from shakespearean dialogue but the film is underrated when you consider the quality of Episodes 1 & 2.

All the above points are important when discussing the anticipation of The Rise of Skywalker. I believe that the backlash of The Last Jedi has hindered excitement for episode 9. Fans are starting to dissect the motives behind disney and the degree of creative control they have over the new sequels. It seems that fans believe that disney dont understand the law of Star Wars and want George Lucas back for world building purposes. I believe the rant below perfectly sums up the idea of a big corporation like Disney not understanding what the fans want from a beloved franchise like Star Wars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ8ir66M5XU
a Priceless rant

To conclude, The last Jedi to some extent, has hindered the excitement for episode 9 and making fans re-consider the positive creative aspects from the prequels. It is also opening the doors for criticisms of the creative control from disney. One thing is sure, no one hates Star Wars as much as the fans.

DIE HARD 6: Hollywood’s recent obsession of Rebooting action franchises

The Sixth film is set to feature 2 McClane’s

With the recent releases of Rambo Last Blood, Terminator Dark Fate and to some extent Alien: Covenant. We can see a current trend in hollywood. This trend is centered around refusing to let old and beloved franchises die. In this article, I will be focusing on the upcoming Die Hard 6, titled McClane.

The Die Hard franchise has been consistent in terms of quality. This statement is only true when we ignore the horrendous A Good Day to Die Hard. However, the fifth installment was still the 3rd highest earner in the franchise despite being universally panned by critics and audiences. This shows that there is still love for the die hard franchise and that a sixth film doesn’t seem like a bad idea. After the fifth film, fans want to see a more satisfactory end to such a beloved action franchise. Len Wiseman is proposed to direct McClane. He also directed Live Free or Die Hard which for a fourth film in a franchise was pretty good. With that film, he mixed up the formula and tried to bring us something different. It still holds a 82% on rotten tomatoes. However, his last film in the action genre was Total Recall which was an unnecessary and bland remake of a classic. He hasn’t directed a motion picture since 2012 and perhaps McClane could be his perfect come back.

Bruce Willis on the other hand can’t hide his love for straight to DVD action films. For such a talented actor it would be nice to see him star in well know motion pictures. In the last few years, he is mostly known for this work in M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable trilogy. Like Len Wiseman, Bruce Willis needs a proper comeback. The writing team behind the sixth entry come from a strange background, one that primarily exist in the horror genre. The writers Chad Hayes & Carey W. Hayes have helmed The Conjuring films and it seems a strange choice for them to write the next Die Hard film. Although, Chad Hayes did actually star as a mercenary in Lethal Weapon, so he has had some sort of background in the action genre.

This sixth entry comes in an important time in Hollywood. Like I stated in the intro, 3 old action franchises have been rebooted in the last couple of years. Terminator Dark Fate, which I gave a favourable review has bombed at the box office. It is very unlikely that we will see a sequel. Rambo Last Blood received terrible reviews from critics but was generally well liked from fans. Stallone has stated that he is open to doing more instalments, so a sixth film could be a possibility. Ridley Scott’s Prometheus series is in different spectrum to the worlds that Terminator and Rambo have created but its in the same vain of rebooting old franchises and trying to appeal to a new generation. However, the critical factor in these franchises is that most of these reboots and sequels have delivered unfavourable financial numbers at the box office. Perhaps the success doesn’t depend on the quality of these films but its whether audiences actually care about the next chapter.

The question remains, Have these old franchises derailed interest from audiences in recent years? or is it because the films producers have lost what exactly made them appeal in the first place. A good example comes from the flop of Terminator Genisys which was too complicated. What made the first two films stand out was that the premise was simple and easy to follow. We can also look at The Predator which critics and audiences panned. It was a film that took the audiences on a tonally muddled journey. After seeing the film on multiple viewings, I’m still unsure what genre it fits in. It’s scares didn’t live up to expectations and the film was filled with too much comedy. The original Predator had some profoundly disturbing scenes. The scene where they find the skinned bodies is an effective scare because it builds up that the tension filled expectation of what we think the predator is capable of.

However, I still think that McClane has a chance to succeed both critically and financially. The numbers for the previous films have been solid and show there is still interest in this action franchise. Len Wiseman is a good director of action and he is too a fan of this franchise, which is always a plus. The critical factor that could make this film succeed is the plot. From what we have heard, it will be prequel to the first film. The producers want to change the die hard formula and it could be refreshing to see. The film is also set to feature two different McClane’s. Therefore, casting is going to be crucial.

Overall, this is set to be an interesting instalment, one that has a risk of failure but also has heaps of potential if done right.

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