Star Wars has never been an especially deep movie franchise. The basic gist of good versus evil, but in space, has always been its driving force. Sure, the prequels added a lot more gray to the whole Jedi versus Sith business, showing that it was less about good and evil and more about one side versus another, regardless of who was allegedly ‘the good guys.’ But even so, most of us watch and love Star Wars for the eternal conflict it has always brought to the big screen; good vs. evil, Jedi vs. Sith, one side versus another.
Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker will supposedly do away with just that. This information comes from a the Vanity Fair situation, from a small piece said by Les Grossman. “Sources close to the movie say that Skywalker will at long last bring to a climax the millennia-long conflict between the Jedi Order and its dark shadow, the Sith.”
There’s a lot to unpack here, and most of it isn’t good. In fact, practically none of it is. If this ninth movie is truly going to conclude the long battle between Jedi and Sith, what are any following movies going to be about? We’ve already seen that Star Wars movies that are completely separate from the Jedi vs. Sith conflict (Solo comes to mind) don’t perform very well. People watch Star Wars for more than one reason, but heroes and their antagonists having epic duels with Lightsabers is definitely one of the big ones. The sequel trilogy has already failed to deliver anything even remotely close to an exciting duel, and now they want to do away with the very factions that use Lightsabers at all?
It comes across as yet another attempt to ‘subvert expectations’, which the people directing this newest trilogy like to throw around a lot. It got said many times prior to the release of The Last Jedi, and we all know how that turned out. While there’s nothing wrong with trying new things, especially with a long running franchise, one thing you never do is cut out the lifeblood of a series. Star Wars has always (at least as far as the movies are concerned) been about the Jedi and the SIth. Taking them away is like Star Trek without exploration, Jurassic Park without any dinosaurs, or Lords of the Rings without the ring. At that point it’s not a new, innovative idea; it’s crippling the very nature of the franchise and what everyone loves about it.
Still, this is just news we’re hearing secondhand, and there’s no guarantee that it will come to pass. That said, ever since Disney took the reins the franchise took a major dive, so it isn’t too far of a stretch to assume this terrible idea is actually their game plan. At this rate, out best hope is that Disney will declare this whole trilogy non-canon sometime down the line.
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