In Defense of 'Star Wars' in General

Written by Mike Cervantes

Hey, it’s me. Yeah, I haven’t been on the website in a while. Fortunately, John Betancourt, the editor of this website, if no one else, knows that I often take these long hiatuses until I feel I have something substantial to write about. But in the meantime, the majority of a summer movie season has gone by, and I feel like I’ve left in the dust the opportunity to talk about a few significant films, particularly Solo: A Star Wars Story, Disney’s first attempt to release a feature film in the Star Wars franchise that, well, tends to treat Star Wars as a franchise, and not a fabled continuity that reaches across several numbered episodes that promises to continue every November.
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But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The main reason I’m writing this article is because I was out playing tabletop with my especially geeky friends last night, and, as usual, the topic turned to Star Wars. My acquaintance, let’s call him (oh, what’s an especially generic name...?) Bob, was off on a pretty standard peel discussing how the most recent Star Wars films have been letting him down. If you have a friend like Bob, you know how this conversation goes: The Force Awakens was good. It met expectations, and then he expresses his supernatural admiration for Rogue One, the first movie to carry the subtitle ‘A Star Wars Story,’ but then went on berate The Last Jedi and Solo.

I didn’t take the time to understand Bob’s dislike for The Last Jedi. I had the sneaking suspicion I already knew what he had to say on the subject. But his sneering dislike for Solo obviously wasn’t going to go unstated: he felt it was as unnecessary as the previous prequels, it was two hours of nothing going nowhere, and while at this point I had the opportunity to mention that I felt the same way, I also had to mention that, silly little man that I am, I have a certain admiration for the ‘prequels,’ specifically Star Wars Episodes I through III. That immediately prompted Bob to say, ‘Mike, I’m losing respect for you as a Geek,’ an eye-rolling retort, especially as I was at that moment tidying up my box of several X-Wing miniatures and folding up my desert colony themed playmat.

If you haven’t picked up my thesis from my tone so far, it’s that there seems to be this prevailing aura of groupthink among Star Wars fans as of late. Of the four films released by Disney so far, it is common for your average keyed-in Star Wars enthusiast to say, ‘I like VII and Rogue One, but dislike VI and Solo,’ and it may be apparent that this marks a new slide in quality for the series at large. As an objective critic, I have to take that statement and say on its surface it is valid: those first two movies are stronger and the second two are weaker. But I can’t use just these four films to pass judgment on the new era as a whole. At the moment, they seem like two sides of the same coin: representations of an in-episode continuation and a spinoff and the potential for them to be either good or bad. And as a film critic, on this site or otherwise, it’s my responsibility to take a very careful look at every nuance each of these films and see what they specifically did to determine where they succeeded or failed. 

But let me take a moment and do something, personally, out of character, and step off this lofty ‘film critic’ perch. I would like to, instead, address you as a long time Star Wars fan. I believe I am, despite the fact that my interest in Star Wars actually BEGAN with Episodes I through III, and I didn’t end up watching A New Hope until way past the Special Edition remastering, at roughly around age 16. My overall experience with Star Wars is different from many others, but that is fundamentally my first argument:  everyone has become a fan of Star Wars at a different time in their lives and likes the series for different reasons. While Episode I is invariably an easy target for a lot of fan ire, think of how, without that movie, we wouldn’t have a Darth Maul, and then think about how much, or how little, that would affect you personally as a fan. It may indeed affect you very little, but the one thing you have to admit, is that you have an opinion of that particular character, likely as a result of watching that particular film.

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Here’s another thought exercise, and a valuable one, because it addresses the more stinging issue of whether or not Star Wars is attempting to purposefully be more representational. Look at The Last Jedi again and pay particular attention to Rose Tico’s role in the film. It is oft criticized that her insertion into the film as a tacked-on survivor of one of the film’s lone major conflicts is a downside to the film. I, however, see her as an ideal contrast and companion to Finn, introduced in the previous episode as a former Stormtrooper simultaneously running to and from the conflict. Her most notable actions Rose has in the film involve her tying Finn up in attempt to arrest him for deserting the Resistance, and later putting herself in harm’s way, specifically to prevent Finn from wastefully sacrificing himself in the face of yet another impassible obstacle put in front of them by the army of the First Order. It is her loyalty to the cause of the Resistance that makes her do these seemingly diametrically opposed things, and it is the level that she understands the intent of her actions in both situations that distinguishes her as a character.

Now, at this point you may be saying to yourself, well obviously I was going to use that example, as Rose Tico is played by Kelly Marie Tran, who recently was the subject of a lot of internet-based harassment that led her to abandon social media. But once again, let’s look at the fundamentals behind that. A lot of the people who created the ire in that particular situation blamed that character of Rose for creating a previously unseen conflict within the films, and as a result, her reason for being in the conflict became something of a ‘deus ex machina,’ a reason within itself for that particular character to be there in that moment. Does it diminish from the saga at large? Not really. It’s not a stretch to say the long-time sith-associated villains of Star Wars are responsible for millions of tragedies of war, and everyone who is currently in the resistance is there for their own reason. But let’s overlook that argument for a moment, and discuss what may truly be the root of all this dismissal.

Going back to that conversation I had with Bob, at one point during his lengthy tirade on Solo he rather haphazardly let it slip that Adrian Ehenreich didn’t do a good job playing Han Solo, and how much he wished it could have still been Harrison Ford. This is a reality we inevitably have to face when it comes to looking at Star Wars going now and into the future. Han Solo was not played by Harrison Ford, and in the future, he likely WON’T be played by Harrison Ford again. It’s a cliché to say that at this point in the franchise’s infinite longevity, it’s impossible to re-make the old films, but in many cases, the old films are what the fans most want.

Up until this point, I’ve attempted to use a certain subtlety to make my numerous points, but in the wake of incidents which have sidelined the public view of actresses like Kelly Marie Tran, and in the name of actually having a serviceable argument with Bob, or any of my friends who consider themselves Star Wars fans, I am now going to be crystal clear: I respect your opinion about the current films. I don’t have anything to argue when it comes to your feelings when it comes to those films, but the one thing I want to hear when we’re discussing YOUR opinion then it comes to those films is….YOUR OPINION. How you genuinely felt when you sat in that chair and watched that movie. You’re not a Stormtrooper. You don’t need an electronic means, online forum or otherwise, to copy and paste the generic viewpoint of the forthcoming Star Wars sequels to my face whenever I’m noshing pancakes and noxiously gluing X-Wings together. YOU are a Star Wars fan for entirely different reasons than I am. You come from a different place in the universe, and one of the prevailing themes in Star Wars is truly that it doesn’t matter whether or not you’re a Wookie or an Ewok or a random alien in the Cantina, you’re here and you are innately something entirely unique and exotic added to the scene to make it interesting.

So please, the next time you see me, tell me why you really love Star Wars….. 

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