It’s really awe-inspiring to see that even with the world on fire, Star Wars: The Last Jedi continues to be a topic of hot debate among the fandom of the galaxy far, far away.
If The Rise of Skywalker manipulated our feelings through nostalgia and fan-service moments and ultimately turned out to be a mediocre finale to the Skywalker Saga, then The Last Jedi is the evil twin that backtracked from everything J.J. Abrams set up in The Force Awakens and centered the entirety of its plot around subverting expectations. Some would even argue that the producers decided to play it safe with Episode IX merely because Rian took the franchise in such a bold and controversial direction.
But regardless of what you believe or how you feel about these movies, it’s an undeniable fact that Disney’s Sequel Trilogy didn’t exactly turn out as one coherent narrative and instead revolved around a convoluted plot that constantly changed direction to conveniently push the story forward. While we’ll never know why Rian decided to undo several established plot points in Episode VII, it’s interesting to see that even the production team at Lucasfilm feels the same way about how the Sequel Trilogy turned out.
In fact, Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey, two of the editors who worked on The Force Awakens, with the former even returning for Episode IX, have recently criticized Johnson’s pic for undoing what Abrams was working towards.
Brandon asserted that The Last Jedi was a different take on the series, but also acknowledged the director’s boldness, saying:
“It was a different take on the Star Wars saga. To Rian’s credit, he stuck to what he wanted to do, and he wanted to deconstruct the film and go a different direction, and I know it’s controversial, but isn’t that good?”
Markey was a bit more candid, though, and didn’t hold back from downright bashing Rian’s approach.
“It’s very strange to have the second film so consciously undo the storytelling of the first film. I’m sorry, that’s what it felt like. I don’t even feel like that’s true about the third film. It took where the second film ended and tried to tell a story, I didn’t feel like it was consciously trying to… it didn’t feel that way.”
Well, I guess if we’re still on Star Wars: The Last Jedi, we may as well debate it all over again. So, be sure to let us know your thoughts on the movie, especially in comparison with The Rise of Skywalker, in the usual place below.