May The Fourth Be With You! Here Are My (Not-So-Kind) Thoughts on The Rise of Skywalker.

Before I say anything, let me state outright that this is not an article from a butthurt fan girl about how Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker raped my childhood, shat on my lawn, and kicked my puppy.

I don’t feel personally betrayed by the fact that the final installment in a global phenomenon spanning forty years and worth an estimated $70 BILLION* somehow managed to cut off its own head in the opening five minutes, only to spend the next two hours chasing it around with no thought to story structure or character development. Okay, judging by the length of that last sentence I might be a little mad, but I’m dealing.

I simply want to discuss how they (and I’ll get to who they are in a second) managed to take a film series beloved by literally billions of people, and fail so completely on every single level.

• Maybe it was because JJ Abrams got dealt a raw deal, since Episode 8 director Rian Johnson widely diverged from his plans for the trilogy with The Last Jedi. But Abrams chose not to direct Jedi **. He had the option, but declined for reasons known only to himself and whatever island of cocaine and hookers he was living on at the time. So for him to just take everything that Johnson built on with Jedi and toss it away like it didn’t even exist was really idiotic. You don’t get to walk away from a project, come back two years later to discover you don’t like what they did, then kick it all down and start over. It doesn’t work like that in filmmaking.
• Maybe it was because Carrie Fisher passed away, and Abrams had planned the third film around her character. Yeah, this one really sucks. Carrie Fisher was an icon, not only for film nerds, but for mental health advocates everywhere. But you know what, Abrams? Tough cookies. Find a new idea. Because for her last role to be a hastily cut, awkwardly squished mush of lines combined with the same terrifying CGI mashups we saw in Rogue One was an incredible dishonor to the actress.

 

Props to Billie Lourd, but this was so unsettling. ***

 

• Maybe it was because he had to deal with both Disney’s expectations, and the hype of foreign audiences. In short, I’ve heard people say that Abrams can’t be blamed for Skywalker, since he had to deal with a lot of pressure from the Mouse, plus had to make sure that the film would be a global success. To which I say: fuck that. Abrams knew what he was getting into. He simply was too untalented or too lazy (more the latter, imo) to bother making a great screenplay when he knew that a half-baked one could be done quicker. So he could retire back to his island of cocaine and hookers.
• I think it’s because Abrams is simply a bad storyteller. Who decided this man knew anything about tension? Or plotting? Or pacing? Or building character development? Was it during Lost? Cloverfield? Super Eight? Bet you had to Google that last one. He only start getting noticed after the 2009 Star Trek reboot, which didn’t require him to actually come up with his own ideas, but simply to regurgitate enough fan-nostaglia onto a big screen to justify his budget.  So far, all that Abrams has shown a talent for is taking a somewhat good idea and elevator-pitching it to the right people in order to get enough money to maintain his lifestyle before those people realizes he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing.
• Note: I haven’t actually mentioned much of the plotline of Skywalker, and that’s because if I spend fifteen minutes trying to explain what actually happens in the movie, it will succeed the amount of time Abrams spent on the script.

 

I started this review off by saying I wasn’t a butthurt fangirl, but I suppose maybe I am a little. I mean, I grew up on the original trilogy. I was only eleven when Phantom came out, and a teenager who thought Hayden Christensen was really cute for Episodes II and III. So maybe I didn’t know what it meant to be just…unbearably let down by Star Wars. Well this is it, I guess. And it’s left an even worse taste in my mouth than the last season of Game of Thrones.

Oh well. At least we’ll always have Jar-Jar.

May the Fourth be with you everyone!

 

 

Book Review: Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher (2008)

Review 2.25

 

In Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher tells the true and intoxicating story of her life with inimitable wit. Born to celebrity parents, she was picked to play a princess in a little movie called Star Wars when only 19 years old. “But it isn’t all sweetness and light sabers.” Alas, aside from a demanding career and her role as a single mother (not to mention the hyperspace hairdo), Carrie also spends her free time battling addiction, weathering the wild ride of manic depression and lounging around various mental institutions. It’s an incredible tale – from having Elizabeth Taylor as a stepmother, to marrying (and divorcing) Paul Simon, from having the father of her daughter leave her for a man, to ultimately waking up one morning and finding a friend dead beside her in bed. [Source]

 

When I hit “play” on the audiobook edition of Wishful Drinking, hearing Carrie’s Fishers voice come out of my earbuds almost floored me. I knew that the audiobook was narrated by the author, but somehow I hadn’t connected that with the fact that Carrie Fisher was going to be telling me the story of her life.

Just hearing that sarcastic raspy voice was enough to transport me completely. Carrie Fisher was one of my heroes when I was growing up, and not for the reasons you might think. Of course I’ve been a life-long fan of Star Wars to the point where I’m currently sipping tea out of a Death Star mug, but it wasn’t Fisher’s portrayal of Princess Leia that made me love her. It was maybe twenty years later, when I was watching an interview with Fisher on Leno or Letterman or one of those late-night talk shows. I was probably only ten years old, but I remembered even then just how few fucks Carrie Fisher gave about anyone else’s opinion of her.

Her memoir, Wishful Drinking, is an extension of that attitude. Considering that the cover features Fisher dressed up as Princess Leia, I imagined that this book would be filled with fun behind-the-scenes tales from her time on the set of Star Wars. Fisher knows her audience, and does deliver some amusing anecdotes about working with George Lucas. But ultimately, Fisher did not write her memoir to talk about her career as an actress.

She wants to talk about mental health.

Carrie Fisher was a loud and lifelong advocate for mental health. She is open and honest about her own battles with bipolar disorder and the substance abuse problems that so often accompany the illness. She describes how electro-shock therapy has left her with holes in her memory  but a renewed zest for life. This matter-of-fact portrayal of mental illness was refreshing, and Fisher herself seemed to take great comfort that so many “crazy people” managed to achieve so much despite their mental health problems. It doesn’t help that it was all read in Fisher’s brash tones.

I cannot recommend enough you listen to this book as opposed to reading it in print. As I listened to Wishful Drinking I could picture Carrie Fisher so perfectly. She is chain-smoking one cigarette after another and laughing over-loudly at some inappropriate comment. It was like having her back for a few short hours

My rating: 4/5

You can find Wishful Drinking here on Amazon or here on Book Depository. The Audible edition is read (wonderfully) by the author and can be found here.

Happy reading everyone!