Wednesday, December 18, 2019

It Was Always a No Win Situation

Here we are, one day away from the opening weekend for what is, at this time, being called the final part of the Skywalker Saga. Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker opens in theaters tomorrow.

So right now on Rotten Tomatoes it is at 58%. That counts as 'rotten' by their standards. I do not hold full faith in reviews on their own, as I have seen horrible movies rated 'fresh' there and truly enjoyable films get the 'rotten' label. When you see such a low score you do have to wonder what turned people off on it.

Of course with this film, that is actually easy to figure out.

In the end there was no way this movie was ever going to be highly rated. It has too much baggage attached and was never going to be able to live up to expectations. By the end of the weekend we will see a divide in not only the die-hard Star Wars fans, but the general movie going population as well, over this film.  That was going to happen no matter what. Even if 'Rise of Skywalker' were the most perfect movie ever made, it would still have its distractors. It had too much it had to live up to.

However, I do not believe it is a perfect movie. Yet I have faith it will be enjoyable and not fail as bad as Episodes 1 and 2 did. It would be hard for it to be as bad as those two were.

Now the reviews I've seen make sense with their complaints. Episode 9 was always going to be filled with too much filler to tie it all up. Due to there having been too much freedom given for The Last Jedi, there was just a lot of dangling plots that needed to be worked out. While I am one who will defend The Last Jedi, I very much can see how it messed up the over-all story and left a lot that needed to be repaired. I wish Rian Johnson would have worked with the idea that there was another movie to come, making sure the story fit with the over-all arc better. We already know from 'Lost' that Abrams is not the best at keeping a story arc on track as it is.

So the basic problem was going to be there no matter what. That is one that most likely will not take away form my enjoyment of the film. I've suffered through Batman Vs. Superman after all, and I have full faith the story telling will not fall to that level, or even close to it. I do expect it to drag some and get a little filled with exposition at times. My faith is that there will be enough good stuff there and that in the end the story will wrap up well and feel satisfying.

There is a good chance I will have issues with some of the choices made and feel that I could have come up with a better idea for that part of it (Seriously, Lucas Films, I could write you a brilliant movie if you just take the chance on me), but there are times you just over look such things if the rest of the film can pull off what it needs to do. Abrams did this with his two Star Trek films.  Both of them had a whole lot of mistakes in them, a lot, a there were parts that were just poorly written and thought out, yet somehow I enjoyed the films despite these great flaws. And while personally I am far more invested in the superior franchise that is Star Wars, I am willing to accept mistakes (After all I am still a fan of the films even after the prequels) as long as there is something of value to be found in the end.

Right now, despite the bad reviews, I am still looking forwards to seeing The Rise of Skywalker and learning how the saga ends, for now. Then when the new Skywalker Trilogy is announced, fifteen years from now (Most likely without me attached as a writer), the whole argument can resurface and a new generation of trolls will go and claim the new movies are ruining their childhood and destroying the franchise forever.

No comments:

Post a Comment