After I finished Season 3 of The Mandalorian, I wasn’t ready to leave the Star Wars universe yet. So I watched Obi-Wan Kenobi. And then I watched Andor. And then I thought, “well, why not watch all of the Star Wars shows? I’ve only seen the movies plus Mando.” And so my summer project began, which was actually a end of spring + summer + start of fall project. But now I’m done. And I have thoughts.
But let’s do my Star Wars background first: like probably most fans under 40, I grew up watching the original trilogy. I don’t have any memories from Before I Had Already Watched Star Wars. When the prequels came out, my dad saw them in theaters with his friends, and I watched them once we had them on home video. I watched Attack of the Clones the most, because it was my neighbor’s favorite. And I never managed to remember Revenge of the Sith that well, because I often watched it when I was home sick, and the fever kind of prevented it from sticking. When The Force Awakens came out, I was a young adult who was so excited to watch a Star Wars movie in theaters with my dad instead of being Too Young To Stay Up That Late and then Well Let’s Wait Till It Comes Out On DVD (my memory is that the first DVD we ever owned was Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but now I’m wondering if it was actually Attack of the Clones, because we definitely had Phantom Menace on VHS. I think.) I loved the originals. I loved the prequels. I didn’t understand why people hated them.
So that’s what I was coming into this watching experience with. I haven’t read any of the books or comics, and I haven’t played any of the video games other than Lego Star Wars. After deciding to watch everything, I also decided to watch it in timeline order, since watching Obi-wan and Andor right after Mandalorian was making it hard for me to keep the timelines straight. I think Young Jedi Adventures hadn’t aired yet when I started this project, so I began with Phantom Menace. But I’ll write about them in actual timeline order.
Young Jedi Adventures
Probably the one I enjoyed the least, just because it’s for very young children. But it’s very cute (and I love that Nash has two moms) and has good messages and I look forward to watching it with my children once I have any.
The Phantom Menace
I know that Machete Order suggests skipping this one, but I so disagree. We get to see Anakin being a Sweet Kid, establishing his goodness before we meet him again as Angsty Teenager in Clones, understand that he comes from slavery, see his relationship with his mom, and see that he actually is brilliant. In the later movies, Anakin’s really good with a lightsaber and strong with the Force, but he doesn’t seem crazy Chosen One good — Obi-wan and Yoda in particular are also extremely skilled. But Phantom Menace establishes some of what sets him apart — he’s the only human who can podrace, and his skills as a pilot are directly linked to his Force abilities. He’s also brilliant apart from the Force — he builds C-3PO from scratch. We also see that Anakin does choose to leave Shmi and become a Jedi (instead of being forced by Qui-gon), and he does promise to come back for her. These are key actions to set up his internal conflict for Attack of the Clones.
While I do think it’s a stretch that the people of Naboo would elect a teenager to be their queen, this movie also lets us see how awesome Padme is (especially since Revenge of the Sith mostly focuses on her as Anakin’s wife/mother of his children, rather than as a politician). And we get to see Obi-wan (who is also quite young, probably only a few years older than she is) being impressed with her.
And of course the Duel of the Fates scene is incredible. Can’t miss that.
Oh and we meet R2D2 too. He’s the best.
Attack of the Clones
While I didn’t understand why people hated this movie when I was a child, I did come to agree that Anakin is so annoying in this movie. But re-watching it this time, I realized he isn’t so annoying because Hayden Christensen is doing a bad job — he’s so annoying because he’s 19, has more skill and power than he knows what to do with and doesn’t really understand that his training is also about self-discipline and ethics, is haunted by the guilt of leaving his mom in slavery and never returning to free her, and is super horny for Padme the whole time, who he’s suddenly in close proximity with basically constantly after not seeing each other for a decade. And he has no support in handling his feelings, because as a Jedi, he’s not supposed to have them, and Obi-wan tells him to suppress and ignore.
I often think about the scene immediately after he kills all of the Tuskens, when he’s telling Padme about it. I think it’s so interesting and important because as he tells her, it’s clear that he knows he did something wrong but that he simultaneously doesn’t feel bad about it even though he knows he ought to. I love Anakin in Clone Wars, so massacring the Tuskens before that is a constant reminder that he is very much a Problematic Fave. This is such a specific moment in his journey — his relationship with guilt and rage is leading him to do really bad things, but he still has a lot of (I think sincere) loyalty to the principles he’s been trained in. He also specifically tells Padme, when she tells him anger is normal, that it’s not normal for Jedi. He still sees himself as a Jedi, but he also sees himself as different from most Jedi. He loves Obi-wan, says he’s like a father to him, but is also filled with anger at Obi-wan too. This also makes Clone Wars more interesting, because they typically get along during Clone Wars, but this anger is still percolating under the surface and really emerges during Revenge of the Sith.
I think it’s also interesting and important that Owen and Veru do meet Anakin and presumably suspect that he did murder a bunch of people, even if he doesn’t share what happened with them. This adds to my enjoyment of Obi-wan Kenobi and A New Hope.
Clone Wars
I suspect it’s not controversial that I think Clone Wars is absolutely incredible, adds so much to the universe and characters and story, and is probably the best of the television shows.
If you just watch the movies, the time skip between episodes 2 and 3 is quick and not really remarked upon. You really just process it by recognizing that Anakin’s hair is long now. Clone Wars shows that actually quite a lot of stuff happened in between, and it was definitely traumatic for everyone, including Anakin.
I think the thing I like most about Clone Wars is all of the storylines and character development of the clones themselves, as individuals and as a group. Because the movies don’t address that of course the human clones that make up a clone army would have some feelings and opinions about being clones in a clone army. I love how the show shows how they individuate themselves in small ways, like tattoos and how they decorate their armor. I love that they name themselves and each other, and that a surefire way to know who is the Bad Guy in an episode is who refuses to call the clones by their names. I love they they brag about girls even though “you’ve never even met a girl.” I love how seriously they take brotherhood. The storyline of Fives discovering the brain chips and what happened next broke my heart. I love Cut, the clone who deserted and fell in love and started a family. And the storyline where our guys are temporarily under the command of a different and super harsh Jedi shows us that while Anakin is a bit too murdery with his enemies, he treats the clones under his command with a high level of respect and humanity, probably above and beyond even the average Jedi. And of course spending so many seasons with some Jedi and their clone regiment makes the pain of Order 66 that much more evident. Because it’s Ahsoka’s friends who are now trying to kill her, not just Some Guys That Look Like Storm Troopers Who Were Supposed to Be On Our Team, as it is in Revenge of the Sith.
Some Other Stuff I Like:
We get a lot of fun Anakin/Ahsoka or Anakin/Obi-wan adventures, but the show also isn’t afraid to take some episodes away to spend time with other characters and storylines. I particularly enjoyed the one where R2D2 leads a droid squadron.
I never really understood what Dooku’s deal was in the movies, but this show really gets into the politics and shows that while the war as a whole was orchestrated by Palpatine for power, a lot of the individual worlds that seceded were probably doing it for pretty reasonable reasons (the Republic was super corrupt). And that the Separatists are also their own whole political body with their own Senate. We also get to see that Palpatine’s machinations were very slow and methodical and he took power bit by bit over time, way more carefully than it’s presented if you just watch the movies.
Even though kinda the point of having a droid army as the enemies is that we don’t feel that bad when they die and can cheer on the heroes doing hero shit, the battle droids are humanized just enough that we do feel kinda bad and are reminded in a small way that war is still war.
More Padme!!! More Padme doing politics!!! And being friends with Senator Organa! In watching Revenge of the Sith, I was always kinda like “ok he’s just some guy they introduced to be Leia’s dad,” but with the context provided by Clone Wars, he becomes “Leia’s birth mom’s close colleague and friend and political ally, who of course will volunteer to help keep her child safe in the aftermath of a coup helped along by her biological father who is now a Sith Lord”
I’ll group Episode 5 of Tales of the Jedi here too — it’s the one where Anakin trains Ahsoka to defend herself against clone attacks instead of just battle droid attacks. It ends with a duplicate of one of the last episodes of Clone Wars, where Ahsoka and Rex are about to enter a hangar full of Order 66ed clones who want to kill her, and Rex whispers something like “Let’s hope you remember all of your training." While the training was very harsh, Anakin ended up saving her through it, because she was prepared for scenarios the Jedi didn’t think it mattered to prepare her for.
I love how much overlap (like duplicate dialogue) the last season of Clone Wars has with scenes in Revenge of the Sith, to really cement that they’re happening simultaneously.
I also find it delightful how many iconic Star Wars lines (like “I have a bad feeling about this”) end up being said by other characters throughout the show. It’s silly but I like it.
The events leading up to Ahsoka leaving the Jedi Order also flesh out some more of how the Jedi were actually becoming corrupt and why Anakin might have been so angry with them in Revenge of the Sith.
Some of the episodes touch on some U.S. imperialism topics, like the discussion of whether it’s good to train local groups of militants (who might be terrorists) if it helps win battles against the droids
We also get to see some scenes of him/Padme connecting and being in love, but also some scenes that show their marital tension (which is frequently but not always also political disagreement) has been building long before Revenge of the Sith.
Obi-wan and Satine!!! I loved that storyline, loved their sexual tension amid deep political disagreement, loved how they’re both so principled and that’s part of what they love about each other even though they disagree. And the fact that Obi-wan had also fallen in love with someone he met via his Jedi work means he could have provided so much more support to Anakin if he had known the extent of Anakin and Padme’s relationship.
The episode where they go to the slave trader planet and Anakin has to confront his past and trauma about that. Good episode.
Revenge of the Sith
Of course, this movie doesn’t mention Ahsoka at all because her character didn’t exist when the movie was made, but I think that’s emotionally moving —that Anakin’s just split up with his apprentice who is quite young and doesn’t discuss her at all with anyone. It really highlights some of Anakin’s immaturity and self-centeredness during this moment of his life, especially in contrast with him in Clone Wars as this impulsive and rebellious leader but also caring person and teacher. He’s still also the guy in Attack of the Clones, a few years on.
Until rewatching this movie this time, I’d always thought Obi-wan did know about Anakin and Padme being together and it was mostly a DADT situation. But it turns out that while he of course knew Anakin was in love with her, he didn’t actually know they were a couple, even though he isn’t surprised to learn that Anakin is the father of Padme’s baby.
Even by mid-movie, Anakin is still loyal to the Jedi — he turns in Palpatine to Mace Windu even though Palpatine is tempting him with a Sith apprenticeship that could save Padme. I think a central tension is that Anakin comes to believe that the Jedi serve the Republic, which means serving the Senate and Palpatine, while Mace and the other Jedi believe the Jedi ought to serve the ideal of the Republic, and once Palpatine is clearly threatening that, they have to operate independently. Anakin is also shaped by how much of his life has been at war, vs. the other Jedi who lived most of their lives during a time when being a Jedi didn’t mean being a general.
I like the fan theory that suggests Palpatine sapped Padme’s life force away to save Anakin. I also think Anakin becomes convinced that neither Padme nor Obi-wan could ever forgive him for the things he’s already done (like killing younglings —which, yeah, that’s a big one) and so there’s no point in trying to be good and walking it back and so he ends up stuck with Palpatine even if maybe he regretted his actions. Maybe he regretted his actions immediately after getting put in his Vader suit. Maybe he spent the rest of his life feeling awful but needing to continue on his path because he felt like there was no other option.
I also like the fan theory that suggests Tatooine with his relatives was a safe place to send Luke because Anakin hates Tatooine so much that he would never ever go back there ever.
Bad Batch
This might be my favorite show after Clone Wars, because it’s basically an extra season of Clone Wars but with some different characters. The premise of “the clones are already second-class citizens prized only for their use in war, so what if there were some ‘defective’ clones who are outcasts among their own brothers prized for their extra special use in war” is interesting. I also think it’s hilarious that the Bad Batch powers are like:
This guy can sense electromagnetic frequencies
This guy can shoot superhumanly well
This guy is super big and strong
This guy is a cyborg
This guy is simply autistic with a special interest in technology/engineering
Bad Batch really explores the theme of brotherhood more, especially in how the guys cope with Crosshair choosing to side with the Empire and what it means to be big brothers to a little sister when all of your other thousands of siblings are adults.
(Also, Omega is trans)
I also like that it’s yet another peek at how Order 66 was experienced by another group of people, and it gives us a chance to see how various rebel clones coped with breaking from their brainwashing + having to build a new life when the only thing they’ve ever done is no longer an option + the Empire is now getting rid of them all, maybe by prison and maybe by murder.
Plus it’s some backstory to begin setting up Palpatine trying to clone himself, so that Rise of Skywalker is a little bit less out of nowhere.
I was really sad to finish season 2 and not be able to hang out with these characters anymore, and I’m so glad another season is planned. (But I will very much wait until the WGA and SAG-AFTRA win their demands)
Solo
I liked this movie when it came out, and my main critique is that L3’s interest in droid rights is portrayed as laughable, like “look at this crazy feminist droid” basically. She’s right!!! Droids should be free!!! But it’s fun. Han Solo is cool —that’s his whole thing. And he is cool. And also hot. And it’s fun to see the backstory of how him and Chewbacca become friends and how they get the Millennium Falcon. Would watch again. It’s fun.
Obi-Wan Kenobi
I loved this. Of course it doesn’t make sense for this Obi-Wan to look so young when it’s only 10 years or so before A New Hope and of course he looks much older in that, but who cares, whatever. I love getting to see Obi-wan still trying to process the trauma and heartbreak of what happened to Anakin. And Young Leia is so cool and fierce, she’s simply the best.
I also love all of the Obi-wan/Owen interactions. Because they both do care for Luke, but Owen very, very understandably doesn’t want Luke anywhere near Jedi shit. Because Owen knows what happened to Anakin — surely, Obi-wan told him when he first brought Luke to him — and understandably blames Obi-wan for it. But Obi-wan isn’t just trying to keep an eye out for Force sensitivity— he also just wants to bring Luke a toy because he’s a kid and kids like toys and that would be nice.
This show also gave me way more empathy for Owen in A New Hope. When you watch A New Hope on its own, and Luke is begging to be allowed to enroll at the academy and Owen keeps saying “one more season,” Owen just seems like a kinda selfish square uncle who it makes sense for an isolated young adult to be pissed at. But Obi-wan Kenobi raises the possibility that actually Owen might be trying to keep Luke at home on purpose, not because he doesn’t want Luke to pursue his dreams, but because actually, a Skywalker enrolling at an Imperial flight academy might not be very safe for said Skywalker whose name is Skywalker and has Skywalker on his paperwork with the Empire. It’s very possible Luke is, if not entirely undocumented, then only partially documented. Tatooine is very isolated —even if he has local paperwork, like for enrolling in school, he may not have ever registered with anything that syncs with the Empire’s databases.
Someone else online pointed out that in their Force telepathy, Obi-wan always calls Anakin Anakin until the very end, even though he says Vader when discussing him with other people. I also think it’s so powerful that just as Obi-wan is haunted by his lost relationship with Anakin, Anakin is also haunted by Obi-wan.
Rebels
It took me awhile to get into Rebels, I think mostly because I didn’t think it would live up to Bad Batch for me. And it didn’t. But I did like it. I love the lothcats and lothwolves. I love Sabine and Zeb. I love that we get to see Retired Veteran Rex. I love that Hera and Kanan are definitely in love even though most of the time they’re focused on their missions and so aren’t super expressive about it. Although I think the show was a little confused on this point — sometimes they read like a very established couple who are just private about affection, but then saying I Love You is a big deal for them, and I spent most of the show hoping for them to kiss, not realizing that actually they had been sleeping together the whole time and their physical relationship on the show was just very small because it’s a show for kids (they could have kissed sometimes, though!!!).
I love that we get to see Leia being a rebel Senator before she’s outed as a rebel.
I love that Chopper sometimes goes undercover disguised as an imperial droid.
I love that Ezra’s parents were rebel communicators who were later able to orchestrate a prison uprising due to people feeling inspired after hearing their son’s own rebel communications.
I love Kanan’s journey of trying to figure out what it means to be a Jedi when his training was cut so short and now his people are in exile but also he has this kid to train.
Ahsoka fighting Vader and realizing who he is!!
Oh and AP5, the droid whose voice is an homage to Alan Rickman. So fun.
I like how the focus on just one rebel cell really emphasizes that stuff like this was happening all over the place, and there could theoretically be lots more shows of stuff other rebels were doing at the same time.
Andor
One Way Out is one of my favorite episodes of television ever. I think Andy Serkis should have won a lot of awards for it. And I’m obsessed with the backstory he decided on for his character: that he was a union leader imprisoned for standing up for his fellow workers (a key part of fascism is trying to crush workers’ organizations, so this makes sense for the Empire) but then put in a position of authority within the prison because he’s good at leading. This also makes sense for the Empire because if he’s the boss (and he has to act like a boss, because he will probably be murdered if he doesn’t), then he probably won’t lead a prison uprising, because the other workers will hate him because he’s not one of them, while still being in a role that uses some of his skills. It takes a budding revolutionary on his floor to make him risk returning to his roots.
I think the pacing of the show is pretty slow at first, but I came not to mind that, as part of the point is how Cassian’s politics shift slowly over time. I like that we also get to see some of the innerworkings of the Empire (both in the bureaucracy and in the very basic question of “how does the Empire do all of its stuff?” and the answer is “well, a lot of prison labor.”) Learning more about Mon Mothma is also cool, as well as some of the innerworkings of how the Rebels functioned as a group too.
Rogue One
I was not a particular fan of Rogue One when I first watched it, and the reason was that not long after watching it, I could barely remember anything that happened, so it must not be very memorable. In watching it again, I liked it better. I love the reveal that the way to destroy the Death Star isn’t a coincidence that merely requires a Skywalker (that is, a very skilled pilot who is also strong in the Force) to exploit, but that it was designed that way on purpose by a Rebel on the inside. It’s details like these that build up the theme that the Rebellion was successful not because of a couple great heroes like Luke/Leia/Han/Chewbacca, but because many people were all working together over years to take the Empire down. This is kinda the opposite of the message in Rise of Skywalker.
I like that they all die at the end. I thought that was powerful, too — that sometimes people do die while doing heroic, dangerous shit. But in this case, it was worth it— they got the Death Star plans out. They didn’t do it fast enough to save Alderaan, but they saved many, many other people.
I especially like the very, very end, where we see Leia’s ship immediately before A New Hope. I wasn’t bothered by the CGI Leia (the first time I watched the movie, it was the day Carrie Fisher died, so seeing her unexpectedly did throw me and make me cry), so I liked seeing her as the next handoff in the Death Star plans relay, but I especially liked seeing all of the crew on her ship running around, trying to escape, and doing their own best to pass the plans through the door to the next guy to keep them safe. I never paid them much attention when watching A New Hope (because they’re mostly cannon fodder to be shot down by Stormtroopers), but I really paid attention to them as fellow Rebels in Rogue One.
I also like that Red Five dies, just as a little backstory for why Red Five is available as a call sign for Luke.
A New Hope
My main takeaway from this re-watch was “Leia is fucking awesome.” The way she stands up to Vader, pretends to not even be a Rebel, pretends to give up the base but then it was an abandoned one all along, the way she doesn’t put up with any of Han’s shit. She was raised to be not just a politician, but a Rebel politician like her dad, and she’s seen some shit, so of course when she gets rescued by Guy On His First Mission Ever and Some Rapscallion Who Just Wants Money, she’s gonna be salty with them. And Obi-wan, the guy she was actually trying to contact, gets murdered, and so she’s stuck with them.
Obi-wan telling Luke about how Anakin was a great pilot and a good friend hits different after you’ve seen the prequels (and Clone Wars). Giving him his lightsaber hits different. Them fighting and Obi-wan closing his lightsaber hits different. One final lesson to his apprentice — he will become more powerful than Vader can possibly imagine. And Obi-wan refusing to hurt Anakin more, having cut off most of his limbs previously, also hits different.
Chewbacca of course deserves more recognition than he gets, but also, R2D2 is a war hero (having played a pivotal role in all three wars that make up the Star Wars) who also doesn’t get the credit he deserves. And he flies with Luke while Vader is shooting at them, and while maybe none of them realized who each other was at that point, that’s emotional. R2D2 and Anakin were best friends.
Empire Strikes Back
I don’t really have anything to say about this movie that feels even vaguely original. It’s a great movie.
Return of the Jedi
Leia Continues To Be Awesome.
Luke and Vader having matching mechanical hands. Luke saying, “I am a Jedi, like my father before me.” Honestly that’s so great. Because Luke’s whole mission is to turn Vader good, just like Vader’s mission is to turn Luke bad, because they both want to be on the same side. And by saying that, Luke is saying “we can be on the same side, but only if it’s the Jedi side, which you’re welcome to come back to.” At the end of Revenge of the Sith, Anakin feels he can’t possibly undo what he’s already done. Padme is dead, and Obi-wan just cut off his limbs, and he murdered a bunch of Jedi. But now here is his son, who he has no relationship with, who he hasn’t “betrayed” because he was Vader for all of Luke’s life, saying “you’ve been an oppressive murderous warlord for my entire life, but I want to give you another chance to be good if you want it, and we can connect.” And Vader takes the opportunity. Anakin turned to the Dark Side in hopes of saving Padme and their baby(ies), but he has to come back to the light side to save their actual child and save the possibility of having a relationship with him. Because if there’s one thing that’s consistent about Anakin throughout all of the films, it’s that he prioritizes his loved ones above everything else (including his morals): his mom, Padme, R2D2, Obi-wan, Ahsoka, and now Luke.
I know some people don’t like that they edited Hayden Christensen into the new release of this movie to be Anakin’s Force Ghost. I do feel bad for the original ghost actor who is no longer there, but Hayden Christensen is what Anakin looks like for me, so I don’t mind. But regardless of who plays him, I love having Anakin’s Force Ghost at the end. Because while he lived as Vader, he died as Anakin motherfucking Skywalker. (If he’d lived, he would have had to contend with the decades of horrible things he’d done, so he kinda has to die for the emotional/narrative beats to work.)
The Madalorian
Before this project, this was the only Star Wars show I’d watched. And I watched it for Baby Yoda. But I like it. I like learning about the history of Mandalore (which is even better having now gotten more of the backstory through Clone Wars), I like the tension between Mando and his fundamentalist group and Bo Katan and the other Mandalorians who do take their helmets off. I like Mando and Grogu growing to love one another. I like their adventures. It’s fun. (I also like that this also has some “The Emperor has been trying to do cloning shit” stuff too to make Rise of Skywalker less random)
Book of Boba Fett
I enjoyed it. I like seeing him become friends with the Tusken tribe. I love Sophie Thatcher as one of the troublemaking youths. I liked learning more about how Jabba’s role as a crime boss actually works. I liked that rancors are actually sweet. But mostly I liked the episodes that were really just bonus Mandalorian episodes. I also think the theme music is incredible.
Ahsoka
I wasn’t that into this show until this week’s episode (Episode 5). But I LOVED this episode, specifically all of the Anakin stuff. Seeing Ahsoka trying to process her feelings about “this guy who I was close with and fundamentally shaped who I am as a person turned out to be a Sith Lord, so what does that make me? And were all of the good times a lie?”. Seeing Anakin flicker between himself and Vader.
Some people on Reddit are calling Ahsoka’s return “Ahsoka the White,” which I think is funny and appropriate, but the Lord of the Rings reference that occurred to me while watching the episode the first time was at the very end of her time in the World Between Worlds, where she decides not to kill Anakin with his own lightsaber. He backs away, his Sith Eyes turn back to Regular, his expression softens, and he says “there’s hope for you yet.”
This read to me very much like Galadriel —but instead of “I passed the test, I will go into the West and remain Galadriel,” it’s “YOU passed the test, which means my legacy can remain the legacy of Anakin.” Because he got forgiven by Luke, but that doesn’t mean much for the harm he caused. But since Luke was raised by Owen and Veru and trained by Obi-wan and Yoda, not Anakin, how Ahsoka chooses to be in the world is much more relevant for Anakin’s legacy, because she is someone who has been deeply impacted by his choices.
I also love live-action Hera, and David Tennant as Huyang is great.
Resistance
This is my second-least-favorite of the shows, maybe. Or maybe third-least (if Boba Fett is second). It’s certainly fun (I especially like Neeku, because he’s autistic and such a sweet person and caring friend while also being skilled and helpful for Hero Stuff), but I just never got as into it as the other shows.
The Force Awakens
Finn gets a name from a friend just like many of the clones got their names from each other. Poe is of course extremely cool (and hot). I love that Rey knows of and loves Han due to his reputation as a smuggler, not as a Rebel hero. BB8 is super cute and I love that he has a clearly distinct personality from R2D2. Seeing Han and Leia as middle-aged estranged lovers who very much still love each other but are mourning their son’s turn to the Dark Side (and fascism) is great. R2D2 in low power mode I take as basically mourning Luke.
I actually kinda do agree with the haters who say Rey is overpowered, though. She learns a lot of Jedi skills very fast — it’s not just that she can use the Force, but she’s already doing mindtricks and lifting huge things very early and so on. Maybe that’s because she and Ben are a dyad so some of his skills and training spill over into her?
I also think that while Finn and Poe have great chemistry together in this movie, that really falls away in the subsequent ones (even just platonic chemistry), which makes it hard for me to ship them together.
Chewbacca deserves more sympathy and support than he gets at the end of this movie. Like Leia should have hugged Chewy immediately, not Rey — Leia and Chewy are Han’s life-partners. And Chewy surely was also close with Ben for most of his life, so Chewbacca is also mourning not only his best friend, but “this kid who is basically my nephew is doing really evil shit, including murdering my best friend who is also his dad and also leading a fascist regime”
The Last Jedi
I like this one. I like the themes of “maybe the Jedi were actually bad or problematic at best.” I like seeing Luke grappling with his decisions and regret over mistrusting Ben and considering killing him instead of loving a kid who needed him. I like Rose and Finn’s friendship. I like Holdo and I like that she has purple hair. I think the final Luke vs. Kylo Ren duel is awesome.
The Rise of Skywalker
I do not like this one. I do like Rey and Kylo’s relationship and how it develops. I like that they kiss. I like Poe hitting on his ex even though I don’t like that they probably introduced her to avoid Poe/Finn shippers, and I like this because I want Poe to hit on me.
I do not like that they bring Palpatine back. I do not like the Sith wayfinder stuff, that feels random and made up. I do not like that they ignore the themes from the previous one. I do not like that Rey’s heritage ends up being important. I think the themes are much better if she really is just Some Random Person. She doesn’t have to be a Palpatine to be strong in the Force, and she doesn’t have to claim herself as a Skywalker to be a good person. She can just be Rey, who has had meaningful relationships with many people.
I do like C-3PO introducing himself anew to everyone, and I do like R2 being hurt when he doesn’t remember him. I also like “R2’s memory circuits seem damaged because he’s saying there’s a message coming from…Master Luke???”
But mostly I think this movie is bad.