Well, I really liked R1. A lot. I can't say I "loved" the characters. But for the roles they had to fill, I liked them enough. The one who seemed glaringly underdeveloped given his role was Saw. But I still can't separate in my own mind whether I feel that way because the plot really
needed him to be more developed and would have been better served by that, or it I am unduly swayed by the fact that having an actor like Forrest Whitaker playing the role alone gives the character so much gravitas that underdevelopment just feels almost criminally wasteful. I guess I probably suspect it is
mostly the former, but definitely influenced a bit by the latter as well. But, again, I think the characters were mostly very good for what they had to do.
I really liked the juxtaposition of genres where you have the war/suicide assault subgenre coupled with basically a heist/treasure hunt genre. It's already a fairly rare combination as it is, and is even more novel when set in a sci-fi universe. And pretty unexpected for the Star Wars universe. It is a bit jarring and disorienting at the beginning of the film on first viewing to have it jump all over the place. But I feel that it isn't too hard to keep it in perspective, even if some of the specifics of "where are we, and why are we here again?" get lost the first time around. I thought it was fun and effective.
There are some things at the end that seemed off and bother me a bit. But that's just part of the package. We can basically go through the entire Star Wars saga and pick apart each and every film if we want to. And, honestly, every franchise that grows beyond a film or two seems to have continuity errors where something doesn't quite match up or rules that are established early on get broken later. It's just the nature of the beast where you don't have one person or one team sit down in the beginning and write out the entire story (which is a virtual impossibility). Even Marvel, as painstaking as they have been about building the MCU, has had this problem. It just is what it is, and I've resigned myself to the fact that it's just meant to be fun and entertaining, and even beyond my own subjective expectations and "wants" as a fan, there are going to be continuity problems and other flaws. Can't let those get in the way of enjoying something that is just meant to be a bit of frivolous fun. That doesn't mean the films are above critical analysis. And it doesn't mean that there aren't big, important themes or deep symbolism that can't be explored. But the
main purpose isn't to reveal some deep human truth. It's just to give us a fun story. And I think the franchise has largely succeeded, even if there have been some speed bumps along the way. Rogue One and The Last Jedi are just two examples to me of that very thing: flawed movies that, notwithstanding their flaws, are really well-executed and fun as a whole. In fact, I would say that since the move to Disney, all three films we have thus far are among the best in the franchise because, IMO, they have kept the fun factor and feel and nostalgia of the original franchise, while not OVERLY dumbing things down like the PT, not having as much bad acting and direction as the PT, and solving some of the plodding an pacing issues that the OT had. In so many ways, again despite flaws that I recognize and acknowledge, they are just spot on and satisfying when I let go of expectations (some of which are unreasonable; some of which are not) and just enjoy.
But expectations coupled with the "new toy"/"new car smell" aspect of TLJ had me thinking some interesting thoughts this morning. I liked TLJ. I really, really liked it. But there were some obvious issues as well, which we have discussed. I'm just wondering how much those issues will overshadow the positive once this whole thing is wrapped up. I think back to the PT. When it was announced that Lucas was finally doing it, the excitement was off the charts. Those of us who had grown up on Star Wars were starved for new content as it was, and the backstory of Anakin becoming Vader had become legend. We were all dying to see how it would play out on screen. And the Republic. And all kinds of Jedi running around doing...jedi stuff! When TPM came out, the reception was overall pretty positive. People had no problem overlooking and glossing over the flaws, for the most part, because "Darth Maul!" and "epic lightsaber fight/space battle montage!" and "Galactic Republic!" and "jedi everywhere!" and such. It had problems. And people called out the problems and discussed them. But overall, I feel like the general consensus was "yeah, it had major issues--and don't get me started on Jar-jar; bleh!!!--but it is Star Wars, and it was fun and good, despite any issues it might have had." It wasn't really until after the PT had concluded that I really started to have issues with this film. Then came AotC. People, myself included, had MAJOR issues with this one. A lot of it was the horrible acting and directing. But some of it was purely story-driven as well. The criticism was much more out there from the beginning. But still, the reaction wasn't overly bad simply because we were all far too enamored with a TON of jedi drawing lightsabers in the arena battle and finally getting to see the start of the actual clone wars. And Christopher Lee was in it. Those things distracted us from totally slamming the film (and are still pretty redeeming to this day, actually). And for those that played the Dark Forces games, the falling ship sequence was actually really cool too. There was still an air of, "well, it is flawed, sure, but it's Star Wars, and it's still fun and cool, so I'm going to love it anyway." So, where I'm going with this is: I
am a bit concerned that I find myself saying the similar things about the three Disney Star Wars films to date. I am a bit concerned that my nostalgia and love of the franchise might be fueling an unspoken need deep within me to defend these movies and overlook their flaws, and that they will actually not stand the test of time and eventually be thought of in a similar light as the PT. Part of me feels that it really COULD end up playing out like that. I hope I'm wrong. And, for what it's worth, I really think I will be wrong on that count. These latest films DO feel qualitatively more solid than the PT. They just do. And going back to the word "contrived" that was used early, the fun in these films feels much less "contrived" to me than it did in the PT films. I guess only time will tell whether these movies stand up, and how well. But, again, they just feel more solid to me and feel like they will wind up holding up better over time. Thoughts?
tl;dnr: I have no sympathy for you. Just grow an attention span and read it.