2
Credit: Inside the MagicStar Wars was once something everyone loved. Then the Sequel Trilogy happened.
All it took was Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) for fans to be divided on what they love about the franchise. Since then, Disney’s acquisition of Star Wars has left fans bitter and unsatisfied because of what the story could’ve been. Despite its flaws, the Sequel Trilogy didn’t break Star Wars. The Force Awakens did.
JJ Abrams brought Star Wars back to the big screen in 2015, and when he did that, fans were in love with the fact that Star Wars was finally back on the big screen. It had been ten years since fans had seen a Star Wars movie in theaters, but it wasn’t long until fans were on the fence about whether or not Disney was the right company to inherit the franchise. The Force Awakens ruined Star Wars for many reasons, and it’s a complicated story that can’t be explained in just a few words.
Brace yourselves. This story might not be the tale you expected after all!
A Nostalgic Trap
One thing some fans love about The Force Awakens is actually how it feels like a homage to the Original Trilogy. Funny enough, Abrams ensured the movie was basically the entire trilogy in one movie. All of the plot points from the first three movies end up in The Force Awakens. You have Starkiller Base as the new Death Star, with Jakku being the new Tatooine. Rey is our new Luke Skywalker, someone who ends up leaving with Han Solo for a new adventure.
The galaxy is in peril as the First Order strikes back at the New Republic by destroying Hosnian Prime, just like how the Empire strikes down the Rebellion on Hoth or when Alderaan was destroyed. D’Qar is basically the new Yavin 4 for Star Wars, with a forest planet serving as the new base for our heroes.
Related: Disney and Lucasfilm Missed a Huge Opportunity With This ‘Star Wars’ Installment
Starkiller Base requires the Resistance to find an opening to strike the base and blow it up, which is what Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) does to save the day. While the movies has a lot of callbacks, the plot for the movie is not very original. It’s a mix of moments fans adored from George Lucas’s Star Wars, but the movie doesn’t take a moment to add anything new to the Star Wars universe.
Unlike Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope (1977), no scene helps build the current politics of Star Wars. While fans might not like how far the Prequel Trilogy expands the Star Wars universe’s politics, it’s essential to understand what is happening around the galaxy. Instead, fans learn that there is a Resistance group led by Leia, who isn’t part of the New Republic, but kinda is, while the First Order is just reskinned version of the Galactic Empire which happens to have a huge arsenal of firepower available.
This is how The Force Awakens sets itself up for failure because it forces the next movie, The Last Jedi, to make some critical decisions. Still, the movie refuses to expand on the universe meaningfully. Rey managed to find Luke Skywalker at the end of the movie, but the whole plot was set up for her to find the legendary Jedi Master, which ultimately led to Luke’s horrific portrayal.
Luke Skywalker’s Fate
Related: Fans Demand ‘Star Wars: What if..?’
Disney failed Luke. It’s not that Mark Hamill didn’t deliver a fantastic performance, but the character we see in the Sequel Trilogy changed dramatically offscreen and not in a way that feels right. In Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi (1983), Luke tells the Emperor that he is a Jedi like his father before him and throws his lightsaber aside. In The Last Jedi, Luke tosses his lightsaber. Most fans look at Luke’s role in Episode VIII as the main reason the Sequel Trilogy failed, which is wrong.
Luke shouldn’t have been in hiding in the first place. JJ Abrams left the iconic Jedi on an island away from everyone when the galaxy needed him most. This is where fans forget that Rian Johnson didn’t set him on this island. For Luke Skywalker to be away from everyone and not do anything, Star Wars needed an extensive explanation. Johnson provided a great answer as to why Luke was on Ach To, but some of the movies failed to show a Luke that was handling failure without completely changing his character.
Luke shouldn’t have been a hermit, and while Luke never got to demonstrate his skills in a lightsaber battle, he did have a few amazing moments taking on the First Order and fighting Kylo Ren. If The Force Awakens started off with a bigger focus on Luke Skywalker, this trilogy would’ve done better, as fans didn’t need years to ponder why Luke Skywalker would be hiding and then drink green milk from an alien in exile.
The Sequel Trilogy Wasn’t Meant to Be What Fans Wanted
Related: ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’ Will Reportedly Release This Year
Most fans think that George Lucas had the perfect story to tell for the Sequel Trilogy. It’s true that Lucas had a script and gave it to Kathleen Kennedy and Bob Iger when Disney bought the franchise, but they didn’t use a single idea from the legendary creator.
Instead, the Sequel Trilogy attempts to create a safe journey back onto the big screen that left viewers with mixed thoughts about Disney’s handling of Star Wars. Instead of creating a story focused on what Timothy Zahn wrote in the early ’90s, Lucas had a story that ignored the books and Expanded Universe to tell an odd story about the will of the force and how evil stirred after the Emperor’s death.
What we got wasn’t any better, but fans tend to believe that the books would’ve been the story told and it seems that no matter what, Thrawn wasn’t going to be the main villain of the Sequel Trilogy like he was in the Heir to the Empire trilogy. Thankfully, Thrawn is returning in Filoni’s Mandoverse in Ahsoka and will have a major role going forward as the big bad.
Still, Ahsoka will be over twenty years before the events of The Force Awakens, leaving a lot of space for a story with the iconic Chiss Admiral to happen even though he is nowhere to be seen in the Sequel Trilogy. Fans might hate the story we got, but it seems that the EU was always going to be left behind, which is unfortunate.
Related: Katee Sackhoff Is Happy ‘The Mandalorian’ Destroyed Iconic ‘Star Wars’ Weapon
Star Wars has a lot of potential to be amazing, but the Sequel Trilogy shows that telling stories with no ambition to expand the universe isn’t what fans want. Nostalgia is great but doesn’t carry a trilogy. Compelling characters need different backgrounds to avoid unnecessary comparisons because Star Wars fans love the franchise a little too much, and it’s all too easy to disappoint fans instead of creating a story worth rewatching several more times.
If stories didn’t have to deal with what the Sequel Trilogy did, fans would have more faith and confidence in Disney because some of the stories told are some of the best moments in all of Star Wars, and it’s a shame that one movie has ruined the entire franchise for several fans.
Watch Star Wars on Disney+ right now!
Do you think The Force Awakens ruined Star Wars? Let Inside the Magic know what you think!