August 5, 2020 – The movies of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy looked great. And in general they were well cast with very talented actors. The problems had to do with the stories and story elements.
Because the Sequel Trilogy had more problems than I realized, this article is longer than I envisioned. Sorry. But I tried to make the article very scannable.
In The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren speaks to Darth Vader’s helmet: “Forgive me. I feel it again. The pull to the light. Supreme Leader senses it. Show me again, the power of the darkness, and I will let nothing stand in our way. Show me, Grandfather, and I will finish what you started.”
Kylo wants his grandfather to forgive him for being pulled toward the light. He even asks for help from his grandfather’s darkness. But newsflash: Anakin Skywalker turned from the dark side at the end of Return of the Jedi. So why does Kylo think of his grandfather as Darth Vader?
Wouldn’t Ben’s parents and Uncle Luke have told him about his grandfather’s turn away from the dark side? Ben/Kylo would have known about it, right? So why, in the chronological next film, does Kylo still see his grandfather as a bad guy? Isn’t it more likely that Kylo would have loathed his grandfather, not idolized him? His grandfather turned from the dark side! Kylo yelled at Finn, “Traitor!” Isn’t his grandfather a traitor as well?
We’ve already seen Anakin’s Force Ghost on screen (I prefer the older version). Isn’t it also likely that Anakin’s Force ghost would have visited Kylo/Ben at some point? And told him not to go toward the dark side?
Kylo with Vader’s helmet typifies what went wrong throughout the Sequel Trilogy. Maybe the thinking was: “We gotta have a shot of Kylo Ren speaking to the Darth Vader helmet. That would be so cool.” Yes, it is cool. Until you think about it. Then you realize it doesn’t make any sense.
Rey has a vision when she first touches Luke’s lightsaber. She also hears several voices. Yoda says things about the Force, and Obi Wan even calls her by name and says, “Rey, these are your first steps.” Pretty cool, right? However, per SW9, she is Palpatine’s granddaughter! The most evil guy in the galaxy! Why would Yoda and Obi-Wan be speaking to Palpatine’s granddaughter in a vision? In a way that insinuates she’s already on their team?
The answer is obvious. At the time of The Force Awakens, the writers hadn’t mapped out Rey’s lineage yet. Then eventually they chose to make her Palpatine’s granddaughter. By doing this, her vision from The Force Awakens now makes no sense.
After the vision, Rey encounters Maz who says, “That lightsaber was Luke’s. And his father’s before him. And now, it calls to you.” Very cool. But wait a minute. Why would Anakin and Luke’s lightsaber call out to Palpatine’s granddaughter? Yet more proof that Abrams et al. had no unified storyline or game plan going into the Sequel Trilogy.
Unfortunately, these examples are not isolated incidents. Illogic permeates the Sequel Trilogy. There are other bouts of illogic in The WTF Awakens, especially Luke being in hiding (see article here). But let’s move on to some of the illogic of the next two films.
At the end of The Force Awakens, Rey approaches Luke with lightsaber in hand. They look at each other with deep anguish. In contrast, even though it’s a continuation of that scene, at the start of The Last Jedi Luke looks angry and Rey looks confused. The lighting, hairstyles, and makeup don’t match either. Then, even though SW7 ended with a lot of pathos, Luke tosses the lightsaber over his shoulder. It wasn’t funny, and was a definite betrayal of Luke’s character. It didn’t make sense when compared to the previous film, nor make sense in general.
The Holdo maneuver – If Rian Johnson’s intent was to totally rewrite and dismantle everything we know about Star Wars, he can be really proud of this one. Defying every bit of Star Wars cinema that has gone before, we now learn that you can simply hyperspace into a fleet of ships to destroy the whole thing. Why haven’t people been doing this all along, using unmanned ships as hyperspeed weapons? Because no one was smart enough to figure this out until Rian Johnson came along. Impressive. (J.J. Abrams “solved” the Holdo maneuver problem in the next film by having Finn say, “That move is one in a million.”)
Force ghost abilities – Yoda’s Force ghost showed up on Luke’s island. They talked, and eventually Yoda burned down the Jedi library. How? If Force ghosts can do more than just show up and talk – if they can actually act within the physical world, how come Yoda wasn’t part of the fight throughout the entire movie? And why haven’t other Jedi Force ghosts fought, physically, for the light side in other movies? Again, we needed Johnson to come along and dream this up. Brilliant.
Other inventions that come to mind: tracking through hyperspace, Rey and Kylo’s Force communication, Luke’s astral projection.
SW8’s comedy wasn’t illogical in and of itself, but it was illogical to have such things in a Star Wars movie. Examples: Poe saying something about General Hux’s mother (shortly before many Resistance fighters were killed). Finn’s see-through medical suit with dripping tubes. On Luke’s island: him tossing the lightsaber, him spear-fishing, him milking that large creature, him brushing Rey’s hand with a blade of grass and she thinks it’s the Force, Chewie both eating and befriending porgs. Also weird: Kylo Ren shirtless, DJ’s stuttering.
Snoke was large and looming in SW7. But in SW8 he just looked frail. Then, as powerful as he was, Kylo tricked him and sliced him in half. It didn’t make sense to get rid of him in this way, and with no further information about him. (J.J. Abrams “solved” this problem in the next film by giving us Snoke-in-a-jar.)
This is a biggie. Poe disregarded Leia’s order to abort the attack on the First Order dreadnought. This produced tension with Leia and later Admiral Holdo. Poe was then pigeonholed for the rest of the movie as the hothead flyboy. His disobedience to Leia didn’t make sense, his tension with Holdo seemed contrived, and making his character into just a hothead flyboy was very one-dimensional.
But it gets worse. Because of Poe’s disobedience to Leia, Holdo refused to tell Poe what her plan was. So Poe concocted his own plan, involving Finn, Rose, and BB-8 going to Canto Bight, to find “the master codebreaker.” However, because they illegally parked their spacecraft on the beach, they never met him. And instead they hired someone else to help them get past the First Order’s security shields.
But this new person that Finn, Rose, and BB-8 hired, the hacker DJ, betrayed them. This betrayal resulted in the deaths of Resistance people on the transport ships!
Do you see what Johnson has done? First, Poe was responsible for many deaths of his own people at the start of the movie. Then Holdo (because of her silence regarding her plan), Poe (for instigating his own plan), Finn, Rose, and BB-8 (for hiring DJ the hacker) were all to blame for the deaths of the people on the Resistance transport ships.
Wow. That’s a whole lot of death-of-their-own to place on the protagonists of the movie! How does this fit with Star Wars? In Star Wars, isn’t it the enemies who kill the good guys, not friendly fire? It’s weird. It’s twisted. How was such an idea ever greenlit?
Rose tased Finn when she thought he was trying to flee the Resistance as a deserter. She also idolized her sister for giving her life for the Resistance cause. But when Finn has a change of heart and really wants to do something for the Resistance – crash his ski speeder into the First Order’s battering ram cannon – Rose comes along and knocks him off path. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a small matter, but it didn’t make sense.
When Rey tried to toss the lightsaber into the fire, Luke’s Force ghost caught it in mid-air. Later, Luke’s Force ghost raised up his old X-wing out of the water. Therefore, when Rey is battling Palpatine at the end and calls out to the dead Jedi for help – “Be with me” – why couldn’t they show up as Force ghosts and fight alongside her? SW8 and now SW9 have established that Force ghosts can interact with the physical world. Yoda brought down lightning in SW8. Why can’t he show up and do that again on some Sith Destroyers?
The events of The Force Awakens take place over just a few days. The events of The Last Jedi start immediately after, and last maybe a week. Then we come to this movie, and discover that Palpatine’s attack on all free worlds will take place in 16 hours. The movie’s events don’t seem to take place within 16 hours. But, more importantly, why the rush in all three films? Especially the last film of the Star Wars saga? We, the audience, are not in a rush. But apparently the writers and directors are.
Does Palpatine’s survival make sense? At the end of Return of the Jedi, Vader/Anakin throws Palpatine down into the Death Star reactor. Palpatine screams all the way down, then there’s a huge explosion.
In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine told Anakin that Darth Plagueis could prevent people from dying. But Plagueis himself died at the hands of his own apprentice, presumably Palpatine. Keeping someone from dying is one thing. And in fact, SW9 has some healings: Rey with a big snake on Pasaana, Rey with Kylo’s lightsaber wound, and Kylo with an almost-dead Rey.
But resurrecting yourself, after being cremated and disintegrated by a nuclear reactor explosion? How is that possible? Well, The Rise of Skywalker novelization “explains” that Palpatine hurled his consciousness out of his body to some other location, as he was falling down the shaft in Return of the Jedi. That’s a neat trick, considering he was screaming for his life the whole way down. If he knew he was okay, he’d be laughing on the way down, not screaming. That Palpatine laugh. Or he’d be too busy “hurling his consciousness” to either scream or laugh.
Even if it’s nice to bridge all three trilogies with Palpatine’s character, his reappearance still seems like a big stretch. Also a stretch: How does Palpatine have so many Sith Destroyers? Who built them? And how does he have so many followers? Hasn’t he been in hiding? With a well-written script, an audience doesn’t have to consider the plausibility of so many plot elements.
Rather than character development and strong drama, the first half of the movie is a hunt for MacGuffins – a special object or person. (Read more about this here.) At the film’s start, we learn that no one can find Palpatine’s planet unless they have a “Sith wayfinder.” Only two were made. Kylo Ren finds Sith wayfinder #1 quickly. Then Rey and crew go searching for one. Their search takes up about an hour of the movie.
Along the way, more MacGuffins come into play. They must find the ship of Ochi of Bestoon. When they do, they also find a special dagger among his remains. The dagger has the location of one of the wayfinders inscribed on it (not the wayfinder already obtained by Kylo Ren, of course). But C-3PO can’t translate the dagger’s inscription, because it’s written in a forbidden Sith language.
So they must travel to another planet to see a droidsmith, Babu Frik, who can wipe C-3PO’s memory, so C-3PO will translate the forbidden-language inscription on the special dagger. While there, Poe meets an old friend who gives him a First Order Captain’s medallion that they will need to free Chewie from the First Order. They free Chewie and go to another planet, where Rey holds the special dagger in such a way that it reveals the location of Sith wayfinder #2 among the wreckage of the second Death Star.
We waited all this time for the conclusion of the Star Wars saga, and this is what uses up over half of the final movie. A MacGuffin hunt through space.
Palpatine’s survival would be less irksome if he weren’t also Rey’s grandfather. SW8 led us to believe that Rey’s parents were nobodies: “filthy junk traders who sold you off for drinking money.” But why the lie? If you’re trying to recruit Rey, which makes more sense? Telling her that her parents are nobodies? Or telling her that her grandfather is very powerful with the Force, and wants to meet her?
Since the creators of this trilogy had no unified game plan going in, each movie ended up giving us a different take on Rey and her background.
We’re told that the Star Destroyers can’t activate their shields while still in Exegol’s atmosphere. Why not? Then we’re told that the Destroyers’ navigation needs help from a signal navigation tower in order to take off. But why? Each new Sith Star Destroyer now has the capability of the Death Star and can destroy an entire planet… But it can’t activate its shields in planetary atmosphere, and needs a special signal to take off?
Finn and others board the exterior of a Sith Destroyer. Then, by horseback, they gallop along the outside of the vessel. To throw them off, couldn’t the Destroyer just tilt a little? But it doesn’t. Why not?
Keanu Reeves wanted a scene in John Wick 3 where he’s riding through Manhattan on horseback. In that movie, it worked. But here it just seemed implausible and silly. When something doesn’t make sense, whether consciously or subconsciously, your brain is taken out of the story.
While on Kef Bir, Kylo fights with Rey, gets wounded and healed, talks to a memory version of his dad, throws away his lightsaber, and has a change of heart. He becomes Ben again. Cool. But then how did he get from Kef Bir to Exegol? Rey had stolen his ship and the only remaining wayfinder.
Like Snoke, the Knights of Ren turned out to be a letdown. On Exegol, Ben/Kylo easily dispensed with them in battle.
We all remember the scene when Obi-Wan died. His body immediately disappeared. When Yoda died, his body immediately disappeared also. When Luke died in SW8, his body immediately disappeared also. But when Leia dies in this movie, her body stays around for a long time. It doesn’t disappear until the end of the movie. If Leia herself, by the Force, controlled the time of her body’s disappearance, this probably qualifies as another new Star Wars invention.
What about Rey’s death? Maybe Rey wasn’t fully dead, because her body didn’t disappear. Then Ben showed up and either brought her back to life or just healed her. Not sure which. But this act of Ben’s drained him of life. So Ben died, and his body immediately disappeared. One wonders if Rey could have brought him back, but too late, the body’s gone.
This was all rather confusing in the movie. But since they resurrected Palpatine, maybe we can assume that any rules regarding death and resurrection were out the window.
There was a string of attempt-to-please-the-audience moments at the end of the movie (Chewie got a medal). But none more in-your-face than “Rey Skywalker.” If Rey’s parents had been nobodies (no relation to Palpatine), this would have felt less tacked on. Even better, if she had turned out to be Luke’s or Leia’s daughter, the nine films would truly have been the saga of the Skywalker family: Anakin, Luke/Leia, Rey. But, with how the story played out, “Rey Skywalker” just seemed like a weak, title-verifying fix. Youtuber “Vito” called it a Hail Mary.
Also, Rey buries Luke’s and Leia’s lightsabers on Tatooine. It makes sense to bring the saga full circle, back to where it started. But when you think about it, Tatooine was a pretty painful place. It’s a planet Luke hated, it’s where Luke’s aunt and uncle were murdered, and it’s where Anakin’s mom was enslaved and murdered. Oh well. And then Luke’s and Leia’s Force ghosts appear, looking more like a pastel painting. With what we now know about Force ghost abilities, why didn’t they give Rey a hug or a high five?
The Sequel Trilogy had some great moments with some wonderful acting. But it was plagued by weak and bad writing. With a budget of almost a billion dollars, it seems like they could have hired a group of talented writers to meet together and come up with a strong, unified story at the start. But instead, the producers, five writers, and two directors weren’t on the same page, and just winged it. And, ironically, they had their own version of the Force. They forced things into the story whether they made sense or not. Logic be damned, we’re going to show/do whatever we want.