star war much sad

After Return of the Jedi, I never thought I would live to see a Star Wars story again that actually taps into the saga’s magic - until The Last Jedi. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. As many other fans were, many of which are professional critics, filmmakers, storytellers.

I also never thought I would see the day when social media is both so harsh and so successful that a movie studio sees it as their moral duty to make excuses for quality.

The Rise of Skywalker is nothing but a poor excuse for the excellent work delivered by Rian Johnson. A rather small but loud congregation of fans who does not want to see the whole picture and wants to see flat Good / Evil stories without any personal development, philosophical topics and moral questions can’t stop to this day about how allegedly “poorly written” Episode VIII was; and it appears that they never watch videos or read articles written by the ones who love it.

As a result of the backlash, adding up to never-ending protests about “destroying our childhood” the studios allowed the production of the worst, flattest, most boring Star Wars movie ever, which looks like a long-drawn video game and denies, and retcons (!) many of its predecessor’s messages as if trying to make amends. The worst part is that it was the last chapter of a saga that includes 9 movies and took over 40 years to make, so that the other side of the fans doesn’t even have a follow-up to look forward to.

I can understand the frustration of some fans, I can understand that the studios felt like they had to bow before the backlash, I can understand that Abrams was meant to make Episode IX from the start and that given his usual standard he would probably not deliver anything particularly good or original. However, The Rise of Skywalker is not only disappointing because it's badly made: it erases everything that was painstakingly built up before keeping only some visual tokens as eye candy.

The Last Jedi is a good and acclaimed movie. Accepting criticism and wanting to do better is one thing; believing that you must make excuses and bow your head for having allowed a good storyteller like Rian Johnson to deliver actual quality because the average dudebro who believes every “hero” must be like James Bond and that neither heroes nor villains are allowed to be people is sickening to say the least.

The Rise of Skywalker is not a good movie. It may have quenched the fire a little, but very few fans will remember it fondly. Critics dislike it and among the fans, few were really enthusiastic. It’s entertaining for an evening, but on rewatching it all of its faults and overall deliberate flatness and disconnection to The Last Jedi will be noticed by everybody but the blindest of fans.

Quality is quality. Nobody ought to make excuses or be hated on or have anyone make “excuses” for them for having delivered something that is actually good. It’s ridiculous, disrespectful and disheartening.

A person deserves praise and admiration for showing intelligence and emotional depth, as do the ones who perhaps don't show it but are on the same page. Or at least, they ought to be left in peace by who is less intelligent and broad-minded. Instead of defending Johnson's work, the studios bowed down and said, "Excuse us a million times, here you have your pew-pew movie as requested."

Narrow-mindedness, entitlement, envy and spite have won the day. After 42 years, Evil has won in the Star Wars saga, both in the movies (Rey having become an uninteresting, undeserving heroine with a terrible background) and in the reality of the fans. Not the ones who brought wisdom and compassion to the story had the last word, but who had no qualms harassing the authors, producers and actors.

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