Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back vs The Rise of Skywalker
In the last review I briefly referenced Star Wars in talking about Sci-Fi back in the 70s and 80’s. I love Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back is what I consider the greatest movie of all time without a doubt. Of course, I never grew up in the era, but before Star Wars Sci-Fi was this genre that had a serious tone to it that revolved around big questions. The Fantasy Space Adventure has never been thought up of before in the manner that Star Wars did. The cast of characters and story was something almost anyone could come up with today now, but they were brave enough back then to really deliver something new to audiences at a great risk. So of course when the sequel to what was the ground breaking summer film in decades came around, everyone was excited. Although at the time and even now, The Empire Strikes back fell short for critics for having much of a darker undertone than its predecessor. Despite this, it’s still considered nt only one of the best Star Wars films, but best films of all time.
“Yeah, it’s about character. Things should be about character, and that was what I was thinking as I was shooting. And Mark [Hamill] understood it perfectly. He was in character all the time. No, I thought the cast was wonderful, wonderful.” -Kershner on directing Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
The Empire Strikes Back is a far cry compared to what today’s new “Star Wars Trilogy” is: these movies are nothing but mediocre for me to experience. “The Force Awakens” is the best one only because it was more or less a soft reboot, not to mention the characters were more likeable than where they’re at towards this conclusion of the series. It’s disappointing because most of these actors and actresses pull off some incredible performances even with a terrible plot and dialogue. Something worth noting about these movies is that they had at the very least some realistic behavior that didn’t feel as mechanical as the the prequels did. I think in those movies Lucas really tried hard to make it more of a “fantasy” element with some of the Shakespearean writing in character interactions, but it just rubbed off on me as so unnatural. As it did for many audiences everywhere.
Going into “The Rise of Skywalker”, I had low expectations. Frankly this was mainly due to the train wreck that was “The Last Jedi” and that Ryan Johnson screwed over this entire franchise with his infamous attempt at telling a Star Wars tale. By throwing out everything that was being set up in “The Force Awakens” Through doing this, I wasn’t too disappointed of it. TRS is a terrible Star Wars film, neigh a terrible movie. I knew from what occurred in the movie before this one: there was gonna be a messy plot, characters you don’t enjoy anymore and new characters that didn’t even have time to develop at all. This coupled with horrible writing, cringe dialogue and an assortment of plotholes/conveniences makes it a stress to watch as a fan.
That's the most ironic thing about this is. I love Star Wars but I hate this movie and everything they did with it. I shouldn’t be going into a Star Wars movie with the low expectations that I did have and I should be walking out of it amazed wanting more. To the credit of what most of these movies have been for me, “Rogue One“ was the movie TLJ and TRS wish they were. It was a Star Wars movie that did something new without butchering what was: whether it be set principles and characters already established in the Star Wars EU. For that, “Rogue One” absolutely gets the honorable mention as my favorite Star Wars film from the new line.
The only merits I can give this film is: it tried. Considering the massacre of cinema TLJ was. But it felt half assed.
Now this half assed movie exists. As a part of the grand Star Wars story.
5/10 please don’t monetarily support this movie franchise until they get better writers.
References:
https://www.starwars.com/news/interviewing-kershner-a-conversation-with-the-director-of-the-empire-strikes-back