The Good & The Bad: Star Wars (Disney Era 1)

 DISCLAIMER: For better context, click here for Part 1.

So, as promised last time, today I will be covering everything Disney has done with Star Wars (films and shows, that is) up until 2020. That being said, I will NOT cover the sequel trilogy films here, as I realize now that I have a lot to say about those, so I’ll cover them in a separate post dedicated specifically to that trilogy instead. 

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s not waste any more time and just dive right in!

Rebels (2014-2018)

THE GOOD: Some people may hate me for saying this, but I actually think that, in some ways, this show handles the whole theme of “family” even better than the movies do. That being said, it’s weird how Ezra and Sabine act like siblings sometimes and then like love interests at other times. Despite this, however, you can really feel the family-like “bond” all these characters share by the end of the show, and it really helps me to like all of them more. I also like how the show has a solid “all ages tone” (for the most part, at least). Furthermore, as much as I enjoy the anthology structure of The Clone Wars, the linear storytelling is refreshing here, as it allows us to grow more with these specific characters. You get to see Ezra grow closer to the wildlife of the galaxy, you get to see Kanan become more confident as a mentor, you get to see his romance with Hera blossom more, you get to see “bitter” characters like Sabine, Zeb and Chopper all lighten up a bit more, and so on. I would also say that the first two seasons are, overall, thematically solid (the “pulpy” feel that makes Star Wars great is still there). The only thing I found off here was how “fire” was used to symbolize both the heroes and the villains. This actually pops up in other Star Wars projects as well, but Rebels especially makes an effort to highlight it. I guess the idea is supposed to be “fight fire with fire,” which is fine, I suppose. I’ll also say that Season 4 is pretty interesting, when viewed as one big, self-contained story. I thought bringing the heroes back to Lothal for that final season created a cool “full circle” effect, and the whole thing with the loth-wolves (and the hyperspace whales coming back) ended up being pretty fascinating, in my opinion!

THE BAD: Season 3 feels very out of place. I’m actually surprised that more people don’t seem to be saying this. Seasons 1 and 2 were super pulpy and fun and episodic. The Season 1 finale was a little more dramatic, but understandably so, and then all of a sudden the Season 2 finale flips everything on it’s head. Why does Star Wars always seem to make this mistake? The original trilogy did it, Rebels did it, and now The Mandalorian seems to be doing it too. I get that’s what people have come to expect out of Star Wars, but doesn't anyone else feel that this creates a very jarring tonal shift? Season 3 feels like a completely different show, and not in a good way! The mood becomes so dreary, and suddenly now there’s an awkward emphasis on boring bloodline drama (particularly with Sabine). I like the “surrogate family” thing, but not the literal family thing, cause it starts to dominate the story too much. Haven’t we learned by now that this doesn't work longterm? “Jaded” Ezra from this season also took some getting used to. Like with Ahsoka, I get the point, but something about the way it was executed felt weird. In addition, most of the antagonists suck. We get not one, but two turncoats, as well as two different Imperial Commander women who feel like the same character. There’s also some overpowered alien assassin who works for Thrawn and has zero charisma (I don’t care that he’s from the books or whatever). And let’s not forget about the Inquisitors, with their helicopter lightsabers and all. I get that this is supposed to be for kids, but I’m pretty sure even a kid would ask “Why don’t the Inquisitors just activate the helicopter mode when fighting the heroes?” Maybe all the Inquisitors see that as cheating? But my biggest gripe of all with this show is The World Between Worlds. What’s that, you may ask? It’s a time machine! Yup, that’s right! Time travel exists in Star Wars now. I get that Dave Filoni wanted to use it to save Ahsoka, as well as tempt Ezra to jump into alternate timelines, but come on! In my opinion, he should’ve saved Ahsoka another way, and created other things to tempt Ezra with. The way I see it, time travel shouldn’t be introduced unless it’s at the core of the story, and even then it can sometimes be stupid.

Rogue One (2016)

THE GOOD: The second and third acts of the story are pretty solid, as is the world-building throughout the entire film (particularly on the planet Jedah). I also enjoy all of the technical aspects of the movie (as in the music, cinematography, planet designs, etc.). The family stuff between Jyn and Galen was nice, as was the moment when Baze calls Jyn his “little sister.” I can tolerate family stuff like that as long as it doesn’t hijack the story too much (like it did with the original trilogy and onward). I’ll also give this film credit for having the ambition to try different things (prologue instead of an opening crawl, everyone dying at the end, etc.).

THE BAD: The first act of this film is all over the place! It gets better on repeat viewings, of course, but man was that first viewing headache-inducing! The third act also feels like a completely different film (but a better one, to be fair). The characters (minus K2SO, of course) are all flat, especially Baze! It took me forever to even remember what his name was! Saw sucked too. Furthermore, the fan service in this movie is pure cringe. The overrated Vader scene, the CGI’d Tarkin and Leia, the recycled Star Wars 1977 footage of the pilots, the awkward R2 & 3PO cameo, the even more awkward cameo from the cantina guys, the zoom-in on the blue milk… You get the idea. My biggest gripe here, however, is the fact that this shouldn’t even really be a movie. In Star Wars 1977, they explain why it’s so easy to blow up the Death Star. The Rebel general says “the empire doesn’t see their exhaust port as a potential weakness.” The Death Star was vulnerable because the imperials were arrogant and naive. They didn’t expect someone strong in the Force like Luke to come along. It’s that simple! There doesn't need to be an entire movie explaining that there was some big internal conspiracy behind it the whole time, and it causes continuity issues with the series anyway (whatever happened to those bugs in Attack that supposedly designed the Death Star?). Not only shouldn't this have been a movie, but it especially shouldn't have been a movie made in between Awakens and Jedi. All that did was confuse people (same with the release placement of Solo). From a business perspective, I get why Disney wanted to introduce people to the idea of “Star Wars movie spinoffs” as early as possible, but I feel doing so (as well as crunching the sequel trilogy down to a four-year schedule instead of the usual six years), was a big mistake, in hindsight. At least now we’re moving into a new era where all of Star Wars seems to be anthological, for the time being.

Solo (2018)

THE GOOD: The thing I love the most about this movie is that it doesn’t try too hard (for the most part), like most Star Wars projects eventually do. Aside from that one cameo at the end (oh, we’ll get there!) this movie basically just tells it’s story, and then fucks off before getting too full of itself. I can respect it for that, and wish other projects (especially Star Wars projects!) would do the same. I also enjoyed all the characters, and felt they were all well-acted. Alden Ehrenreich in particular surprised me! He made Han his own, rather than trying to just do a Harrison Ford impression (as most would). Considering that Han is supposed to be 10-13 years younger here, I thought this worked really well. I also felt this film didn't really conflict with Star Wars 1977 at all. Han’s arc makes sense here, and leads perfectly into his arc in 1977. Here, he becomes emotionally distant and jaded, and then in 1977, he learns to open himself back up to people and ideals. It works. I also really like how this movie actually gave me things I wanted to see! Han meeting Chewy, meeting Lando and getting the Falcon from him, the Jabba set-up… None of it felt too “fan servicey” in the way Rogue One did because those are all the things you'd expect from a Han origin movie anyways. I also thought this movie surprisingly had a lot of imagination. The different world and ship designs were all pretty unique (including the yacht and the “younger” Falcon), and stuff like the train heist and the Kessel Run ended up being way more imaginative than I had expected them to be!

THE BAD: I have to admit that this movie feels less like a movie you'd actually expect to be released in theaters, and more like a 90’s TV movie or something. That’s not a bad thing for me, but I can see it pissing other people off. One thing that caught me off guard at first was that Lando’s personality in this film, like Han’s, is slightly different than in the original trilogy. This grew on me over time, however, as I reminded myself that the character is younger here, so it would make sense for him to be a little different than the Lando we’re familiar with. Also, the messy production of this film seems to have screwed up the lighting. As much as I like this movie, its so dimly-lit that sometimes I can’t even see what the fuck is happening on screen! I’m like 99% sure that all the rushed reshoots had something to do with that. I also thought the three-year gap between the first and second acts was a little too much. I’m pretty sure Han would’ve gotten over Kira, by then. Two years I can see. But three? Nah… But my biggest gripe of all, by far, was that Maul cameo at the end… Like, what the fuck?! Would it have been that hard to just have Kira turn evil on her own accord? That would’ve made her a more interesting character anyways! Maybe she’ll appear that way in a future project? Like Lando or something? Eh, even so, it still wouldn’t fix the way this movie ended. Oh well…

Resistance (2018-2020)

THE GOOD: When I first saw the trailers for this show, I thought I would hate it. Thankfully, the show itself ended up growing on me a lot! It was weird at first how it all took place almost entirely on this one station, The Colossus, but over time, I realized that this was actually part of the show’s charm, as The Colossus eventually started to feel like a character itself (much like how The Falcon feels like a character in the movies). All the different real characters of this show also grew on me, after a while. Additionally, I like how Season 1 is set on a water world. I usually love water worlds (except for the terrible movie Waterworld, of course!). It’s also neat how some of the characters are air pilots that act as “guards” for their world, but also have sky races for fun. That was all something sorta new that I appreciated, and the show itself eventually acknowledged the uniqueness of this when a First Order character tells the Colossus leader “you need real guards, not aces!” (yeah, sure they do!). Another cool thing about this show that shouldn't be overlooked is its unique animation style.

THE BAD: Unfortunately, the first handful of episodes are a bit of a drag (the show’s pacing gets better with time, though). Some aspects of the initial plot also just don’t make much sense. Why hire a pilot to pose as a mechanic? Shouldn't they have hired, gee I don't know, an actual mechanic?! Did I miss something there?! Also, BB-8 is absolutely annoying in this! All of his beeps are recycled from the movies, and when you compare the context of the beeps here to the context of those same beeps in the films, you start to realize that what BB-8 is saying doesn't actually make any sense. I feel like even a kid would pick up on that, after a while. The sound-mixing on BB-8 is also shit. His rolling sounds are so loud that sometimes you can’t even hear what the other characters are saying as they’re walking with him. To be fair, this may have been intentional, cause they almost get caught by some baddies once because of this, but nevertheless, it’s still annoying. The worst thing about BB-8 on this show though is that he eclipses another droid named Bucket. It feels like Bucket was supposed to be “the droid of the show,” and then Disney forced the showrunners to squeeze BB-8 in at the last minute (I wouldn’t be surprised if this is really what happened, actually). Sometimes BB-8 and Bucket have some cute bickering, but it’s not enough to distract from the weirdness of it all. What makes this even weirder is that BB-8 eventually gets switched out for a similar droid named CB-23… So why not just have CB there in the first place? Also, like with Rebels, some of the antagonists here feel like copies of each other. There’s Commander Pyre, who’s basically just a gold Captain Phasma, and there’s also Major Vonreg, who’s just a red Captain Phasma. Lastly, the stakes during most of the first season are pretty low, because it takes place before Awakens, meaning it’s set in a mostly “peaceful” time. I understand why it needed to be this way, but it still sucks out a lot of the tension nonetheless.

The Mandalorian Seasons 1 & 2 (2019, 2020)

THE GOOD: Season 1 was perfectly paced! So was Season 2 (until the finale). I also love the emphasis on the spaghetti western influence, as it helped to make this show feel very “fresh” (that influence seems to be fading from the show now, unfortunately). The Volume (the real-time, scene-projecting dome that was invented specifically for this show) was also a great advancement for filmmaking of all kinds! I also found all of the characters to be terrific, except for one who I can’t mention by name because of spoilers (Season 2 just wrapped up a few weeks ago, at the time of this writing). The show (again, up until the recent finale) was also thematically in-line with Star Wars 1977, in that it felt very pulpy and episodic and fun!

THE BAD: In case it wasn’t obvious yet, I thought the Season 2 finale sucked (read this if you want to know why, but beware of spoilers!). Also, this isn't a complaint against the show itself necessarily, but I absolutely hate how toxic fans have been using the series itself as “ammo” in online conversations, and I feel the show itself has recently started to cave-in to that, and rewarding all the fandom toxicity (again, I can’t say why exactly, because of spoilers). I think it’s also weird how now the show seems to be abandoning it’s episodic/western influences, in favor of a more “trendy” approach (co-creator Dave Filoni himself confirmed that the show will likely become a lot more like Game of Thrones now). There’s also some continuity errors, mainly involving Bo-Katan and the darksaber. I’d say the biggest issue, however (aside from that overrated finale, of course) is that the directing “levels” in Season 1 felt pretty inconsistent. Filoni, who directed two episodes that season, was new to directing live action at the time, and believe me, you could very well tell which episodes were his! Thankfully, however, he’s improved a ton since then, and his episode from Season 2 actually ended up being one of my favorites!

Let’s stop there again for now.

Peace!

Click here for Part 3.