Return To Innocence

Friday morning, I was at a 9 a.m. show for the final film of the new Star Wars trilogy. Although I'm not a super-fan, this series does hold a special spot in my heart. Almost 40 years ago, Return of the Jedi was the first movie I saw in Canada. It was all rather mysterious since I was struggling with English and knew nothing of the first two films. But it was still magical sitting in that darkened theatre (which has long since closed).

Arriving at the cineplex, I was surprised and a bit dismayed to see many school-children running around; the early time slot was an effort to avoid a crowd. But it turned out to be a school trip and they had their own private screening. I wonder if they'll also look back in another 40 years with fond memories?

My inner cynic doesn't think so. These cineplexes are state of the art but blandly corporate. There's no idiosyncratic details to snag your memory. There's also no sense of ceremony, a feeling of ritual and occasion. This was merely an extension of your viewing habits from home: a half-hour of infotainment clips before the start time, followed by an additional 30 minutes of commercials and trailers.

This 3rd installment suffered from inflation and tourism. By the former, I mean that things have become ludicrously huge. The protagonists are no longer people with special abilities; they have gained super-hero powers. Battles rage not between a handful of ships but hundreds of them. And with artifacts and secret temples we have left sci-fi (even if Star Wars was always more space opera than hard SF) for Lord of The Rings territory.

The original movies had a few set pieces. The new ones visit many planets and locations. But worse, there's no sense of time because characters travel among them with little effort. It might as well be taking place on the Holodeck of the Enterprise. Without the barrier of distance, people become pieces of a table-top game.

But the main stumbling blocks with Rise of Skywalker was "Chekov's Gun" (so many guns) and low-stakes. It didn't matter because there was no sacrifice. Nobody suffered, not permanently, not even for the length of a scene. These movies are probably no longer for me, and I should stop my complaining before I get an "Okay, Boomer".