Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

** SPOILERS **

The Last Skywalker

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is everything: the conclusion of the 42-year, 9-film Skywalker Saga, the last of the Disney sequel trilogy, the death of cinema, the end of the Star Wars franchise (to hear some lament it), the biggest, craziest, balls-to-the-wall, overstuffed, most ridiculous Star Wars movie of all - take your pick. Hell, take more than one thing. The Rise of Skywalker is like one of those booths where you stand still and money flies around you - in this case, instead of money, it's Star Wars references and your nerd love itself for the galaxy far, far away - and you just grab everything you can to keep as yours. It's not a movie as much as it is a checklist the length of a CVS receipt. It is a jaw-dropping disaster from a structural, screenwriting, and editing (certain) point of view. Overflowing with a trilogy's worth of half-baked ideas, it is hellbent on cramming anything and everything - this is "the last one", after all - into a manic 2 1/2 hour runtime. It is the light and the dark. It is a mess. So, I, uh... I kinda loved it.

Full disclosure: After falling deliriously in love with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which reignited the warm, fuzzy feels of the Force inside me that I hadn't felt since I was a child, sometime after the toxic malaise surrounding Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the who-gives-a-shit failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story, I became emotionally divested from Star Wars. I've never given a whiff (or a Whill) for the expanded universe; I only like the movies but I don't really care about the galaxy far, far away like so many seem to. Therefore, whatever director J.J. Abrams ended up doing with The Rise of Skywalker, as long as the damn thing didn't bore me, I figured I'd be fine. Well, The Rise of Skywalker wasn't boring, I'll tell you that much. Half the time, I had no idea what was going on or why the characters were doing what they were doing to get this ludicrous movie from plot point to plot point, but never once was I bored. And there were even moments, like when Rey (Daisy Ridley, as beautiful and wildly charismatic as ever) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver, probably in his trailer complaining to his agent after every "CUT!") Force dueled over an escaping transport and Rey shot Force lightning from her hands, that I gasped in delight. Because I was having fun thanks to being gobsmacked at this insane movie relentlessly going for broke every single second.

The screenplay by Chris Terrio and J.J. Abrams is like a fairly decent second draft that needed a serious polish but instead got workshopped by a bunch of eleven-year-olds. To recount the plot would lead me to madness but, suffice to say, somehow Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is still alive because some Sith weirdos cloned him but they cloned him to still be a decrepit old man for some reason. Not unlike how Spectre retconned Daniel Craig's (himself a Star Wars veteran) James Bond movies so Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) was the main villain all along, Palpatine is now the man who was behind everything from Ben Solo's fall to the Dark Side to become Kylo Ren to Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong'o) losing her goggles, probably. Palpatine has been busy in the last 30 years not just being alive but also somehow building a gigantic fleet called the Final Order where every Star Destroyer now has a planet-killing Death Star laser cannon. What's the plan, Sheev, you mastermind? Blow up every planet in the galaxy so no one has anywhere to live except Star Destroyers? Probably. Doesn't matter. Palpatine gives Kylo Ren marching orders: kill Rey. Except he doesn't really want Rey killed; he needs her to transfer his life essence into so she can become Empress Palpatine. For you see, Rey's full name is Rey Palpatine and she's Sheev's granddaughter. Whatever I feel about this (I feel fine), it's washed down with a spoonful of sugar because Jodie Comer from Killing Eve cameos as Rey's Mom (for me, personally, this is the best thing in the movie).

It's cool to see Rey running off into a breakneck, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants adventure with Finn (John Boyega), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), BB-8, C-3P0 (Anthony Daniels), and their new Droid friend D/O (who I loved). R2D2 got left behind because too many Droids, I guess? Who can say? Things just have to keep moving, everyone has lots of places to be. From a new desert planet to a new seedy underworld planet to the old forest moon of Endor, Rey and the Gang are busy bees and they even break into Kylo Ren's personal Star Destroyer for reasons I can no longer remember, if I even knew what they were to begin with. Regardless, Rey is chasing after a McGuffin, a Sith wayfinder device that points the way to Palpatine. Lots of crazy stuff happens like mind-wiping Threepio, meeting a new helmeted ally and ex-flame (?) of Poe's named Zorri Bliss (Keri Russell), and Rey Force healing a giant snake that wandered in from the Harry Potter set. On Endor, Finn - who spends the whole movie trying to tell Rey a secret and then never actually getting to say it - meets another ex-Stormtrooper named Jannah (Naomi Ackie) while Rey briefly fights herself as Dark Rey before spending a lot longer fighting Kylo Ren on the ruins of the Death Star. That is, until General Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher worked in as smoothly as possible using old footage) decides to give her life to briefly distract her son so Rey can kill him. But, like many other deaths in this movie, it's a fakeout that doesn't stick.

For the record: people who died in The Rise of Skywalker but came back to life: Rey, Kylo Ren (mortally wounded but healed), Chewbacca (believed dead but wasn't). People who died for reals: Leia, Ben Solo, General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant), Palpatine, Snap Wexley (Greg Grunberg). People who were dead but showed up as ghosts: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill, who can do shit as a Force ghost like catch a lightsaber and raise his own X-Wing from the sea), Han Solo (Harrison Ford - which I really liked even if it makes maybe less sense than the stuff ghost Luke did). Geez, I haven't even mentioned Billy Dee Williams returning as Lando Calrissian or all of the guest voice cameos like Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker, Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu, and Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn. I mean, this movie is, as stated before, ridiculous, but it's the 'last one' so whatever, throw it all in there, who gives a shit? Oh, Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) is in this too and she got seriously turfed because they couldn't think of anything for her to do. But at least there were more space horses in this movie. Oh my God, the Knights of Ren were in this too and boy, weren't they just worth the wait? 

And yet, it all comes down to Rey, the hero of this saga, facing off against her grandfather Emperor Palpatine alongside the newly redeemed Ben Solo while the biggest fleet of Star Destroyers ever takes on the biggest fleet of Rebel ships ever. After she saves the galaxy, knowing full well that the last name "Palpatine" would lead to doors all over the galaxy slammed in her face, Rey adopts the slightly less tainted last name Skywalker, thereby inheriting everything that was her grandfather's and everything passed down from Anakin to his twin children to Leia's prodigal son - and she deserves it. A constant theme in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is characters announcing, "If this doesn't work, everything we did will have been for nothing" and the movie itself seems to be desperately aware of this too. So, did it work? Did this bombastic, turducken of a final film deliver? As someone who truly likes Rey, my agenda of Give Rey Everything was completely shared by J.J. Abrams. By the end, Rey is the Last Jedi, the first of the new Jedi, she gets her first kiss (finally!), and she even visits the old Lars/Skywalker homestead on Tatooine and looks at the setting twin suns with BB-8 at her side. So, for me, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker worked as well as it possibly could have. I wish Rey Skywalker the best and look forward to seeing her again someday because, as The Rise of Skywalker reminds us, no one's ever really gone.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY

** SPOILERS **

Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) gets his famous surname in Solo: A Star Wars Story. It's given to him by a disinterested recruitment officer for the Empire because Han says he's all alone. The three years Solo serves in the Empire, first as a washout pilot in the Imperial Navy and later as a boots-on-the-ground grunt (the Empire has normal soldiers and doesn't rely exclusively upon Stormtroopers?), are the only time Han is ever really solo. Otherwise, Solo is surrounded by friends, most importantly, Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), the heart and soul of the whole movie. Where would Han be without his best Wookiee friend (who owes him a life debt for busting him out of Imperial prison, though the film never mentions the life debt part)? Nowhere, that's where.

Ron Howard's Solo: A Star Wars Story is the story of Solo, formerly known as just "Han", a twentysomething who grew up a thief in the grimy, ship-building world of Corellia. (If there's a bright center to the universe, Corellia would be the planet it's farthest from, to paraphrase some kid on Tatooine.) Han wanted to run away and see the galaxy with his best girl Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke), but the gangsters who raised them had other ideas. Qi'ra began Han's canonical attraction to petite brunettes with pretty faces and British accents. It turns out a British accent is Han's biggest lure: on an Imperial battlefield, he meets his mentor Beckett (Woody Harrelson), a smuggler working with Val (Thandie Newton), who has, you guessed it, a pretty face and a British accent. Han and Chewie end up as part of their crew, pulling a bungled train heist for crime lord Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), the leader of the Crimson Dawn syndicate. Vos also has a British accent, and Bettany has a pretty face, so he counts. Luckily for Han, Qi'ra, the girl he's trying to get back to save, now works for Vos as his trusted lieutenant. She's "done a lot of things" to get to where she's at, warnings to Solo she ominously and routinely drops and Han is happy to ignore. Solo is the only one shocked when she turns on him.

Since this is a Star Wars story of a beloved canonical character, Solo has to check the many boxes of Fan Service. We learn how Han meets his frenemy Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover), the smooth, impeccably-caped card sharp who just happens to own the Millennium Falcon, the ship destined to belong to Solo. The fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy is brand-spanking new - at least until Solo gets his hands on it. Lando's co-pilot is a social justice-seeking droid named L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who has a British accent if not the requisite pretty face, but that's good enough for Han as well. Together, this motley crew pulls off the infamous Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs as they steal and smuggle unstable hyperfuel called Coaxium to pay off a debt to Vos. Hunting them down are space pirates led by the masked Enfys Nest (Erin Kellyman). When Nest removes her helm and reveals herself to be a girl with a pretty face and a British accent, there's instantly no doubt Solo will turn on Vos and side with this babe and her burgeoning 'Rebellion' against the evil Empire. (Qi'ra even says it outright: "He's going to help her.") And there are, or course, callbacks to the Original Trilogy (thermal detonator, a kiss on the cheek "for luck", the Falcon runs afoul of a giant monster in outer space, Han shoots first) that are fun to spot.

Solo's climax is impressive (most impressive) by featuring no less than five double crosses: 1. Lando double crosses Han and leaves with the Falcon. 2. Han, Qi'ra and Chewie double cross Vos with fake Coaxium. 3. Beckett double crosses Han by revealing he sold them out to Vos. 4. Qi'ra double crosses Vos and kills him to take command of the Crimson Dawn (for those of us who don't read or care about the Star Wars Extended Universe, the sudden appearance of a long-dead Phantom Menace villain makes no sense and reeks of Fan Service), and 5. Q'ira double crosses Han and leaves him with his Wookiee as she becomes the new crime lord of the galaxy. As Homer Simpson would say, Solo learns a valuable lesson: "Never trust anyone." Except for your Wookiee. Always stand by your Wookiee and he'll look after you.

Volumes have been written - and will continue to be - about the behind the scenes chaos that birthed Solo, ultimately resulting in Ron Howard directing the picture and bringing it to the finish line. Solo shows the mark of an efficient, experienced hired hand brought in to make the shoot days and execute this by-the-numbers origin story written by Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan. Howard rarely generates his own material, preferring to adapt existing works or the stories of others to mixed results (Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code, Rush, In The Heart of the Sea), but his surehanded guidance keeps this project from the disastrous, Millennium Falcon-crushing gravity well it was turning into. One also gets the sense that if Howard was in charge from the start, he wouldn't have cast Ehrenreich, whose constant mugging masks a genuine sincerity, yet never jives with the beloved 'real' Han Solo originated by Harrison Ford. This would be fine if Ehrenreich were playing an alternate universe Han like Chris Pine did Kirk in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek films, but this is supposed to be the same guy Ford played, so. Although Solo never makes the jump to a magical hyperspace of imagination like the best Star Wars films (could it ever have?), overall, it's a solid, enjoyable romp through the seedier worlds of the galaxy far, far away. Considering the Han Solo solo film should have detonated like so much unstable Coaxium, the fact that the Han Solo solo film is fine (it's fine) is a win.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

** SPOILERS **

"This isn't gonna end the way you think," Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) admonishes Rey (Daisy Ridley). Indeed, this line is both a challenge and a primer to the audience from writer-director Rian Johnson, the once and future steward of Star Wars. With Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Johnson takes the lightsaber from J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens (and will pass it right back to Abrams for Episode IX) and crafts his continuation of the story of both the new guard of the saga, Rey, Finn (John Boyega), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the old, the Skywalker twins Luke and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher). The result is a grand, unwieldy, inspiring, endlessly surprising, weird, but uplifting Star Wars for the ages.

"There's something inside me that's always been there. Now it's awake. And I'm scared," Rey admits to Luke with her unique brand of endearing honesty. She tells the old Jedi Master she has come to return him to his sister Leia so he can save the Resistance in their time of greatest need. Luke has other ideas: "I came to this island to die." And with him, he hopes, will die the ancient Jedi order, the source of so much of the Galaxy's greatest failures. Rey is really on the isolated island of Ahch-To for a personal reason: she wants Luke to train her to be a Jedi. Luke refuses, despite Rey pointing out: "I've seen your daily routine. You're not busy." Rey does get her training, to a degree, but her indoctrination into the mystic arts of the Jedi is less about "moving rocks" but more about understanding the importance of the choices she makes. As the welcome sight of Yoda (Frank Oz) - Empire Strikes Back edition - tells "Young Skywalker" when they burn the last of the ancient Jedi tomes, "There's nothing in those books that isn't already inside her." 

Being a Jedi was never about your lightsaber color, or your ability "to control people" (how Rey described the Force to Luke). It was about choices, and ultimately, poor choices and an inability to see the big picture is what doomed the Jedi and the Galaxy for a long time. Rey's lessons on Ahch-To were less about learning cool new Force tricks as it was uncovering the truth behind Luke's choice to isolate himself from the Force and hide from the Galaxy - his greatest failure: Kylo Ren. Luke has a certain point of view about how Kylo turned to the Dark Side and destroyed Luke's fledgling new Jedi Order; Kylo, through a mental Force communion with Rey, has his own point of view: Luke tried to murder him and drove him to Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis). The truth is somewhere in the middle, mired in Luke Skywalker's eternal weakness as Yoda once told Young Skywalker: "I sense much fear in you." Luke's fear of his nephew Ben Solo's potential drove him to make a fatal mistake. But in the end, they made the choices they made and they are who they are because of them.

The Last Jedi also wisely speaks to Luke Skywalker's legend, and how legends are always crafted around imperfect people. The truth never quite lives up. Luke scoffed at the idea that he would just march back into the fight, "laser sword" in hand, and stand up to the First Order. (Which is exactly what he does in the fantastic final moments of the film). Meanwhile, Rey believes in the legend, so much that The Last Jedi goes full on into a homage of Return of the Jedi, with Rey allowing herself to get captured and brought in front of Snoke, hoping she can turn Kylo Ren back to the good side and become Ben Solo again. This leads to a series of genuinely shocking moments as Snoke suddenly and unwittingly is beside himself, and Rey and Kylo fight side by side against the Praetorian Guard in possibly the best lightsaber battle in the saga's history. But in the end Rey and Kylo are who they are - she remains unwaveringly good while he is indeed the monster she says he is. Despite their bond through the Force, they are enemies and will be until they face each other one final time.

Meanwhile, there is a whole other movie going on. The Resistance is all but doomed as the First Order chases them around the Galaxy in a head-scratcher of a space chase that lasts almost the entire movie. This involves several desperate gambles, including Finn and his new friend Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) going on a side mission to the casino planet Canto Bight to find a code breaker (Benicio Del Toro) who can get them into Snoke's Star Destroyer so they can destroy a Flux Capacitor - or something? The important thing is Finn once more gets to confront and have a final duel with Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), facing and overcoming his greatest fear once and for all. Poe Dameron gets a huge amount of screen time as he leads a mutiny to take control of the Resistance from Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) when Leia is incapacitated and learns the limits of being a headstrong, impulsive fighter jockey.

The Force Awakens effectively turned the saga over to our new heroes Rey, Finn and Poe, but The Last Jedi shows us that the new kids still have a lot to learn. None of the gambits the new generation tries actually pan out. Rey is unable to turn Kylo Ren. Finn and Rose went through the entire Canto Bight sequence for nothing as they couldn't shut down the Flux Capacitor and are captured. Poe's mutiny was easily foiled by Leia herself, who asserts that the old generation still has aces up their sleeves - watch and learn, kids. Leia and Holdo, whom Poe mistrusted, came up with a scheme to deliver the Resistance to a temporary sanctuary on the salt world of Crait. Holdo's sacrifice ramming the Resistance ship into Snoke's ship is what saved the Resistance. And Luke Skywalker finally returned to the fight, bidding his twin sister a sweet farewell, and confronting his former student Kylo Ren with a new bag of awesome Force tricks we've never seen before. There is still much to be learned from the generation who we now say goodbye to (RIP, Princess Carrie), and though the family is reunited on the Millennium Falcon at the end, the future of the Rebels and of the Galaxy is more precarious than ever. Episode IX will be the final test to see if Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose really have what it takes to save the Galaxy on their own.

As for the mystery of Rey's parents, the truth is strangely satisfying. Two years of debating her lineage (is she a Skywalker or a Kenobi?) was for naught. She is no one special. Her parents are "filthy junk traders who sold and abandoned her. They're probably dead in a pauper's grave." As Kylo tells her, "You don't have a place in this story." Which is the most powerful possible choice. Rey is told she's "no one special" because she's not tied to any characters, but that's exactly what makes her special. She was chosen by the Force to be something new, to craft her own role in this story. It's a tribute to how unwaveringly good Rey is that she is never tempted to turn to the Dark Side. She can't do what Luke did because she isn't Luke. She is Rey, and she will be who she is and what she chooses to be. A new kind of Jedi for whatever the Galaxy will become next.

While awkwardly paced as the longest Star Wars film ever, The Last Jedi nonetheless boasts the best third act of any Star Wars movie and delivers several truly "HOLY SHIT" moments. By my count, they are Leia surviving death in the vacuum of space by the will of the Force; Holdo jumping to lightspeed THROUGH Snoke's ship and slicing it in half; Snoke himself being sliced in half by Kylo Ren (Unkar Plutt's famous line "One half portion!" now applies to Snoke); Rey and Kylo fighting together as if they'd been teammates their whole lives; and Luke Skywalker unleashing the awesome power of the Force on Kylo Ren and the First Order with the greatest mind trick he ever pulled. The Last Jedi bids his final breath in The Last Jedi, but both old Skywalkers go out in magnificent fashion, the film honoring their legacy and importance to the Star Wars saga. What happens now is the biggest question in the Galaxy, but The Last Jedi not only reshuffled the deck but tossed all the cards in the air so they're blown by the wind. The contrivances and outright strange aspects of Johnson's film are held together by the sheer charisma of Ridley, Boyega, Isaac, Driver, Fisher, BB-8, and Hamill and the good will we maintain for them throughout.

"Let go of the past," Kylo tells Rey. "Kill it if you have to." The Last Jedi does its best to do just that, unshackling the saga as much as it can from the old characters, tropes, and traditions and even the old ways of what we thought the Force can do. Now, this new Star Wars trilogy probably won't end the way anyone thinks and that should ultimately prove to be a very good thing. We hope. And with that, it's time for this The Last Jedi review to end.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY

** SPOILERS **

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story answers a question that hasn't really loomed that large since 1977: How exactly did the Rebel Alliance acquire the plans for the first Death Star that allowed Luke Skywalker to destroy it in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope? Director Gareth Edwards offers this lost tale as the first standalone Star Wars movie from Disney not centering on the Skywalker family. A grim, ruthless, death march across brand new worlds in the Star Wars Galaxy, Rogue One (the first Star Wars movie where the characters say the title of the film) heaps a plethora of new characters onto the screen as cannon fodder for the mighty Death Star. Luke Skywalker isn't here to rescue Rogue One, but the entire enterprise is ultimately redeemed by a violently gonzo third act and a welcome parade of Droids, vehicles, weapons, and familiar faces from the Original Trilogy (in the case of the late Peter Cushing, in a computer generated reprisal of his role as Grand Moff Tarkin, a ghastly, haunting familiar face). Rogue One could even be renamed: How Darth Vader Saved a Star Wars Movie from the Rebel Alliance.  

The Rebels are the problem in Rogue One. Not just for the Empire, tightening its authoritarian grip across the Galaxy with its brand new planet-killing super weapon, but for the audience. The Rebels can always be described as a "rag tag" group of freedom fighters, but Rogue One's Rebel heroes are the most rag tag of all. Following the heroes of Rogue One on their exploits, we sorely miss the charm and charisma of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron. Hell, we'd even settle for Padme Amidala and Anakin Skywalker making goo goo eyes at each other during their "aggressive negotiations." Rogue One pleasingly diversifies the human races of Star Wars with a truly multicultural cast. It's a shame most of these new characters are relegated to being a bunch of dour sourpusses with threadbare personalities and motivations. Who are these guys, and seriously, who wants to save the Galaxy with them? Most of them are no fun at all, and a couple join the Rogue One team because they literally have nothing else to do. But we get it, desperate times, and all that...

First and foremost, we meet Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), a tough, hardened criminal with the angelic voice of a British nanny. Jyn deserves to wear a Daddy's Lil Monster shirt more than Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. Her father Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) is a genius scientist forced by the Empire to design and build the Death Star. Separated from her father as a little girl, Jyn had a tough life; she watched her mother get murdered, her father get kidnapped, and she was raised by Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), a cyborg Rebel fighter who's too extreme even for the Rebellion. Jyn spent most of her life on the run or in Imperial prison, suppressing having a winning personality along the way. And yet, she's still swayed by the promise of Hope. Whitaker, incidentally, clanks around on robot legs and wheezes into an oxygen mask in a bizarre cosplay of General Grievous from Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Upon meeting Saw Gerrera, we realize we don't really want to spend any time with this guy. Thanks to Grand Moff Tarkin and the good people on the Death Star, we don't have to.

Unbeknownst to his Imperial masters, Galen built a fatal weakness into the Death Star and sent a sweaty, hapless Imperial pilot named Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) on a mission to let the Rebels in their "secret" base on Yavin IV know about said weakness. Instead, Rook is captured by Whitaker's people on the planet Jedha, which is under Imperial occupation, because it's both the location of ancient Jedi Temples (the "Force of Others" and "the Whills" are name checked, continuing the mining of George Lucas' preliminary concepts for Star Wars that began with naming The Force Awakens' Death Star "Starkiller Base") and a repository of Kyber crystals. Kyber crystals in Star Wars lore are what power the Jedi's colorful lightsabers, but they are also the power source of the Death Star's fearsome planet-killing lasers. Jyn and a shifty Rebel fighter named Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), along with K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), an Imperial Droid reprogrammed to tell jokes and provide comic relief, are sent on a mission to find (and kill) her father. They're joined by more rag tag recruits to The Cause, including Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen), a blind preacher of the Force skilled in martial arts, and his buddy Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang), not sure what he does. These are not names easily remembered, and much of their adventure is easily forgotten.

Thankfully, the turgid first couple of hours of Rogue One culminates in an explosive and ruthless third act on the planet Scarif, an idyllic beach world except for the Imperial AT-ATs trudging around and the energy shield around the planet protected by a fleet of Star Destroyers. The Rebel fleet launches a full-scale assault on Scarif while the rag tag Rogue One team penetrate the Imperial base to heist the plans for the Death Star. Finally, the cut scenes from the Star Wars Battlefront video game are filmed as a movie, but this is by far the most enjoyable part of Rogue One, featuring multiple main character casualties and bravura sights like a Rebel Hammerhead starship ramming a listing Star Destroyer and forcing it to collide with another Star Destroyer. As an homage to The Empire Strikes Back (among multiple callbacks to the previous movies), there's a climactic confrontation between Jyn and Orson Krannic (Ben Mendelsohn), the sneering, white cape-wafting villain of the piece who kidnapped her father, on one of those same narrow elevated platforms where Vader revealed to Luke who his daddy is. Anyone who has seen the previous seven Star Wars and lamented that not enough people die in these movies ought to have their bloodlust (hopefully) slaked. Rogue One puts the "war" in Star Wars.

Rogue One manages to accomplish a surprising feat: making the Rebel Alliance unlikable. We had really only seen the Rebellion through the eyes of Luke, Han, Leia and friends, as a bunch of faces and soldiers surrounding the heroes we actually care about. Absent them (save for a computer generated cameo of Leia restoring Carrie Fisher to her cherub-faced youth, a Jimmy Smits appearance as Senator Bail Organa, and C-3P0 and R2-D2 dropping by), we see the Rebellion in a different light: as a bunch of frightened, bickering people who engaged in thinly-veiled terrorist acts and moral compromises in their attempt to defeat the Empire. The Rebel council argues interminably among themselves, forcing Jyn and her Rogue One buddies to act in spite of them. The Rebels aren't strictly white hats in Rogue One, and while that is probably more "realistic," is that actually better? Speaking of wearing white, the killing of Storm Troopers in Rogue One is beyond ridiculous. Dozens and dozens of Storm Troopers are so easily slaughtered, it's hilarious. A Storm Trooper is violently killed almost every few minutes; most are annihilated by explosion or cut down in blaster fire. The Storm Troopers achieve a haplessness beyond even the "roger roger" battle Droids in the prequel trilogy. As the Empire's jack booted stand-ins for Nazis, no one really mourns the Storm Troopers, but Rogue One goes above and beyond in making them look utterly incompetent and easy to kill. I killed two or three just while writing this review.

Star Wars remains the greatest toy box in movies. With Rogue One, director Edwards and his writers Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy are like little kids playing with action figures, haphazardly ramming them together, occasionally coming up with cool things to do with them. However, they did right by the best Star Wars toy of all: Rogue One promised the cinematic return of Darth Vader, and while he's only on screen for a few fleeting minutes - including an eyebrow-raising reintroduction to him by seeing what's left of his limbless, charred human body taking a steamy bath in a bacta tank - Vader utterly commands the screen in Rogue One every scant second he appears. Rogue One concludes right before Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope begins, but seeing Darth Vader at the height of his fearsome powers, easily decimating the Rebel soldiers in his way with his blazing red lightsaber, is exhilarating in a way nothing else in Rogue One is. One imagines Kylo Ren leaping to his feet, tears in his eyes, exploding in applause watching Darth Vader in all his glory in Rogue One. Man, that Vader is really something. Someone should make a movie about him.

Marveling at Darth Vader

MARVELING AT DARTH VADER

Marvel recently concluded a remarkable 25 issue run of their blockbuster Darth Vader title. A simply incredible achievement by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca, Darth Vader was the most provocative, enlightening, and inspiring of Marvel's line of officially canon Star Wars comics. 

Set immediately after the destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, Darth Vader thrillingly depicted the Dark Lord of the Sith's attempts to prove himself once more to the Emperor, who blamed him for the failure of the loss of the Death Star. 

Gillen and Larroca gifted Vader with his own unforgettable supporting cast, including droids Triple-Zero and BeeTee One, hilariously homicidal versions of See Threepio and Artoo Deetoo, and best of all, the rogue archaeologist and droid technician Dr. Aphra, a twisted female version of Indiana Jones and the best new female character in the Star Wars canon (sorry, Rey). Vader also faced off against villainous challengers to his supremacy, including cybereticist Dr. Cylo and his cadre of creations, all of whom sought -- and failed -- to supplant Vader as the Emperor's apprentice.

Throughout their 25 issues and Darth Vader Annual #1, Gillen, Larroca, et al delivered a cinematic experience that truly felt like Star Wars at its best, depicting Vader as a calculating, fearsome, and indomitable force, while never compromising his terrifying mystique. Indeed, Darth Vader even gloriously enhanced Vader's mystique, allowing him to perform breathtaking acts using the Force even the movies never did. What's more, Gillen and Larroca sparingly but brilliantly used flashbacks to Vader's former life as Anakin Skywalker, allowing us to delve into his deepest regrets and his torment over his loss of Padme Amidala, which stoked the fires of his obsession to find Luke Skywalker, his newly discovered son.

The following are my favorite moments from Darth Vader, the Star Wars comic that truly proved nothing is impossible for the Force:

VADER SLAUGHTERS TUSKEN RAIDERS (AGAIN) 

When Anakin Skywalker slaughtered the Tusken Raiders who kidnapped and killed his mother Shmi in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, he never set foot on Tattooine again. Anakin did not, but we learn in the comics Darth Vader came to Tattooine. His business was with Jabba the Hutt, where we learn in a retcon that Vader walked a path into Jabba's throne room that his son Luke Skywalker would unwittingly follow in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi. Vader's other business on Tattooine was to recruit bounty hunters, including Boba Fett, to find Luke Skywalker, but at this point in the story, Vader had yet to learn the name of the young rebel who destroyed the Death Star. While waiting to meet with the bounty hunters, Vader busied himself with an old habit and slaughtered even more Tusken Raiders. (Later, we learn in a coda to the entire Darth Vader series, the Tusken Raiders created a myth about Vader, worshiping him as a vengeful god.)

RAIDERS OF THE LOST TRIPLE ZERO MATRIX

Our introduction to rogue archaeologst Doctor Aphra is delightfully familiar to everyone who loves Raiders of the Lost Ark. Aphra, Star Wars' villainous answer to Indiana Jones, successfully obtained the lost Triple Zero matrix, a relic of the Old Republic, which she programmed into the homicidal protocol droid Triple Zero. Of course, to get the matrix, Aphra had to escape deadly traps that were clever homages to Indiana Jones by the skin of her teeth, only to fall under the thrall of Darth Vader, her new "boss" whom she cheerfully aided, abetted, and betrayed throughout the series. The strange relationship between Vader and Aphra, where she loyally serves him out of the fear that he would murder her the second he no longer found her useful, was the oddly touching and compelling heart of Darth Vader. Doctor Aphra proved to be so charming, and popular, we have been gifted by an ongoing Doctor Aphra comic series by Marvel written by Gillen. Still, with Aphra now believed dead and hiding from Vader, we'll miss their unique exchanges. We've never seen anyone talk to Lord Vader this way before or since:

VADER V RANCOR

Once more, Luke Skywalker would be surprised to learn that a lot of stuff he famously did, his father did first, and better. That includes fighting a rancor. In this case, Vader faced a rancor cybernetically enhanced by Tulon Voidgazer, a brilliant, evil scientist and one of the would-be heir apparents to Vader. The cyberanimate rancor Vader battled had its pain receptors eliminated technologically. So, when the usual Force Chokes and Jedi/Sith tactic of amputating limbs by lightsaber didn't work, Vader brilliantly used the Force to hurl his lightsaber into the rancor's head, disabling the cybernetics. The rest was all too easy for the Dark Lord of the Sith, who finished the rancor off with the ol' lightsaber stab to the brain. 

VADER DOWN, BUT NEVER OUT

"All I am surrounded by is fear. And dead men." These were the chilling words Darth Vader uttered when surrounded by the collective force of the Rebel Alliance in the Vader Down crossover series. And Vader was right; it was the Rebellion that was in deep poo doo here. Tracking Luke Skywalker to a lost Jedi Temple on Vrogas Vas, Vader, alone, destroyed three squadrons of X-Wing Fighters before Luke Skywalker himself collided his X-Wing with Vader's TIE-Fighter, shooting the Dark Lord down. The Rebels then amassed in full force to kill Vader and... it didn't go so well for the Rebels, who were nearly all annihilated. Never has Vader's bad assery been on such thorough display. Vader Down also features hilarious confrontations between Vader's allies Dr. Aphra, BT-1, Triple Zero, and Wookiee bounty hunter Black Krrsantan vs. Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C3P-0, and R2-D2, where we finally got to see Aphra fight Solo (whom she'd never heard of), and Chewbacca tear off Triple Zero's arm and beat him with it. Oh, and Vader battled another of Dr. Cylo's would be replacements for him, Karbin, a Mon Calamari trapped in the quadruple lightsaber-wielding cyborg body of General Grievous. That fight didn't go so well for Karbin.

VADER REBOOTS WITH THE FORCE

In the Darth Vader series' ultimate display of Vader's indomitable will and mastery of the Force, Vader's cybernetic body was deactivated by Dr. Cylo, who was revealed to be the robotics genius who created Vader's armored form. Cylo believed he achieved ultimate victory over Vader by simply shutting him off, but he sorely underestimated the amount of sheer hatred in Vader's heart. In a moving series of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith-inspired flashbacks and dream sequences, Gillen and Larroca depict Vader coping with a "Last Temptation of Anakin Skywalker" scenario, where Vader's memories of Obi-Wan and Padme plead with what's left of Anakin still within Vader, before Vader battles and overwhelms the last vestige of Anakin Skywalker. In the end, empowered by the Dark Side of the Force, Vader wills his cyborg body to reboot and finally executes Dr. Cylo with a lightsaber through the torso. It was an awe-inspiring moment once more proving that for Darth Vader, all is possible through the Force.

These are just a few of my favorite moments from Gillen and Larroca's spectacular Darth Vader run. A run absolutely worth reading in its entirety. Maybe some day, Disney will adapt this series into a Darth Vader feature film. Regardless, Darth Vader never compromised the Dark Lord's villainous machinations, motivations, and deeds. Or as Doctor Aphra correctly surmised:

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS 

** SPOILERS **

Star Wars: The Force Awakens welcomes us all back to the summer of '77. Everything old is new again, especially that feeling audiences have craved for thirty years that the maligned prequels only fleetingly touched upon. The feeling that can only come from the Force. Director J.J. Abrams and his co-writer Lawrence Kasdan gleefully take us on a lightspeed ride on the Way Back Machine straight to the first Star Wars (also known as Episode IV - A New Hope). Once again, and stop me if you've heard this one before, an evil galactic army (this time known as the First Order), led by an evil warrior strong in the Dark Side of the Force named Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), threatens the Galaxy. Opposing them is a ragtag band of rebels (this time called the Resistance), led by General Leia Organa. Caught in the middle are new heroes, discovering their destinies while joining in this epic struggle of good vs. evil, walking nearly identical paths as the generation that came before them, but with intriguing new twists and a few answers to pivotal questions purposely withheld. 

The Force Awakens' greatest triumphs are how powerfully it recreates the sheer exhilaration of seeing Star Wars done well. The Force is a feeling, and The Force Awakens truly feels like Star Wars. When Rey (Daisy Ridley), the plucky scavenger from the desert world of Jakku, pilots the Millennium Falcon by the seat of her pants through the wreckage of a Star Destroyer while her new friend, the ex-Storm Trooper Finn (John Boyega), shoots down the Tie Fighters chasing them, it's practically an out of body experience to witness. The movie's other great triumph are our new lead characters. The Force Awakens belongs to Rey and Finn, along with Poe Dameron and the lovable droid BB-8, all of whom are truly fantastic additions to the Star Wars universe. They are heroes worthy to succeed Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and the former Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), along with Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), C-3P0 (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2, all of whom make appearances, some more impactful, and some frustratingly fleeting. Ford seems to once again be enjoying playing Han Solo, now older and even gruffer, but serving in the Obi-Wan Kenobi mentor role as he reluctantly guides Rey and Finn into the struggle between the First Order and the Resistance. It's been thirty years since the First Galactic Empire fell and Solo and his friends are the stuff of legend to Rey and Finn. "It's true. All of it," Solo assures them, and us. He should know, he was there and he was frozen in carbonite for a part of it.

Ostensibly a quest to find the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker, missing, we're told, since his new Jedi Order was massacred by one of his pupils, The Force Awakens more than homages -- it outright mirrors (too) many key plot points of A New Hope: a droid hiding secret plans the First Order desperately wants. The First Order possessing a super weapon, Starkiller Base, many times bigger than the Death Star (with holograms shown to us helpfully illustrating this) than can destroy several planets at once (the physics are shakier than ever). This time two of our heroes, cool X-Wing jockey Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and Rey herself, are captured and tortured by the First Order. Han Solo leads Finn and Chewbacca into Starkiller Base to bring down their defensive energy shield so that a fleet of X-Wing fighters can destroy the base via its one weak spot. ("There's always a weak spot," Han winks to the audience. We know.) A conflict between father and son. And yes, a beloved character tragically dies, murdered by a red lightsaber. Meanwhile, Rey receives a quickie download on the mythology of the Force from Maz Kanata, sort of an alien version of the woman who designed the costumes of The Incredibles, played by Lupita N'yongo. Rey suddenly is haunted by visions of Luke Skywalker she receives after being lured to his ancient lightsaber, as the Force awakens the dormant powers inside her. If we've seen this stuff before, it's because we have, and Abrams colors within the lines too closely. Abrams asks key questions, dazzles us with space battles and lightsaber duels, and then bolts out the door before dropping the answers we wait breathlessly to finally hear.

Who is Rey? The trailer answers that she's "no one" (dialogue not spoken in the movie). But this isn't true in the slightest: she's obviously the most important new player in Star Wars (and thank you, J.J. Abrams for creating a new female hero!). The Force Awakens teases Rey's "classified" (her words) identity throughout. Rey's parents abandoned her on Jakku as a child where she was forced to eke out a meager living waiting for them to rescue her, but she's tight lipped on even who they are. The obvious question: is she Luke Skywalker's daughter? The evidence is there: Luke's (and prior to that Anakin's) lightsaber called to her. She's an expert pilot, good with machines like Luke was. She's clearly powerful in the Force and meant to be a Jedi. But here's another theory: could Rey somehow be a progeny of Obi-Wan Kenobi? These clues are right there in plain sight: she speaks with a British accent (echoing Alec Guinness' Obi-Wan being the only actor in the original Star Wars who had a British accent but wasn't a villain). The color scheme of her clothes echoes Obi-Wan's robes. When she's captured by the First Order, she uses the Force to Jedi mind trick a Storm Trooper to escape, and then she skulks around Starkiller Base echoing how Obi-Wan once skulked around the Death Star. The truly important thing is Rey is wonderful, and Daisy Ridley is wonderful playing her. By the end, Rey deservedly inherits everything belonging to the heroes of the original Star Wars, from Luke's lightsaber to a mother figure in Leia to the Millennium Falcon itself. How frustrating we'll have to wait years now to perhaps find out whether the blood in her veins is Kenobi or Skywalker.

Someone who certainly has Skywalker blood in him is Kylo Ren. The Force Awakens makes no bones about who he is: the former Ben Solo, son of Han Solo and Leia, who betrayed Luke Skywalker and the Jedi to join the evil Knights of Ren, controlled by the new menace of the Galaxy, Supreme Leader Snoke (voiced by Andy Serkis). Ren's turn to the Dark Side literally drove her parents apart and wrecked their marriage. Promising the burnt ember of his grandfather Darth Vader's helmet that he'll "finish what Vader started," Han laments that Ren has "too much Vader in him." But it's actually more like Ren has too much Anakin Skywalker in him -- Kylo Ren is an emotional wreck, prone to fits of destructive fury, and it turns out he's actually an enormous puss, losing the  climactic lightsaber duel to Rey, a complete novice just discovering her Force powers. He even just stood there and watched Rey let the Force flow into her and did nothing when he could have finished her off. Sadly, Ren does accomplish what Luke Skywalker could never do and kills his father, granting Harrison Ford a wish he's had since he asked to have Han Solo killed off in Return of the Jedi. Driver plays Ren intriguingly however, conveying the conflict between the light and dark that's "tearing him apart," until he gives himself over to the Dark Side fully by committing patricide. As for Ren's master Supreme Leader Snoke, a CGI-creation witnessed only as a gigantic hologram, after six movies of Ian McDiarmid's fearsomely gleeful turn as the Emperor, Snoke is a rather unsightly letdown who should be trying to kill Hobbits rather than be the new Big Bad of Star Wars.

Perhaps the most relatable of the new Star Wars characters is Finn, formerly Storm Trooper designation FN-2187. Taken from his family as a child and brainwashed into a Storm Trooper, Finn nonetheless rebels against the bloody horrors the First Order makes him participate in and does a sensible thing: he runs. In the process, he discovers his first real friends in Rey and Poe Dameron, and becomes a warrior for good, a part of something greater than himself. He even gets to wield Luke's lightsaber for a while. One can't fault Finn for wanting to get as far away from the murderous First Order as he can. Boyega is fantastic playing a young man who struggles against his fear to become a hero and rescue his friends, and he draws one of the big laughs of the movie when he turns the tables on his former commander, the chrome-plated female Storm Trooper Captain Phasma (Gwendolyn Christie). With the short moments they have together, Finn and Poe Dameron quickly build a fast camaraderie and Poe is right, his borrowed leather jacket does suit Finn better than the white Storm Trooper costume does. Thumbs up, as BB-8 hilariously gives Finn when they abscond with the Millennium Falcon. BB-8 himself was simply amazing, instantly winning us over and upstaging his older Droid brethren Artoo and Threepio when they show up in the movie. 

Upon reflection, in a way, it's almost a shame Rey and Finn met Han Solo and Chewbacca. They were doing just fine on their own flying the stolen Millennium Falcon, and their getting mixed up in the Resistance war with the First Order created the circumstances that directly lead to the loss of Han Solo. The power of The Force Awakens felt strongest when we are hyperspace jumping along for the ride with Rey, Finn and BB-8, the new kids discovering the greatest sandbox in moviedom and playing with the toys of Star Wars for the first time. When Rey and Finn became part of the Resistance, they're a hot new young band ending up in a cover song playing most of the same notes and lyrics we've heard before. At least what happened in the second half of the movie was new to them, if not to most of us. Abrams and Kasdan punched too hard on the nostalgia button to recreate the magic of Star Wars, but for most audiences (especially the older folks still hellbent on "reliving their childhoods," whatever that means) it was a welcome familiar ride. In the grand scheme, this cover is a pretty worthy song on its own right. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the Millennial Falcon, the past lovingly refurbished to be all shiny and like-new for the next generation. But with Rey, Finn, Poe, and BB-8, Star Wars has genuine and exciting new heroes we'll enjoy going on more rollicking space adventures with for years to come.

Luke Skywalker vs. Wolverine

Guys, real important question: Luke Skywalker fights Wolverine - Who wins and how?

25Like ·  · Promote · Share

• 

  April  ooooh, my nerdiness is not sufficient to deal with this mindblow.

  June 26, 2012 at 11:59am · Like
• 

  John  Take a best guess. Adamantium claws, healing factor, rugged manliness. Lightsaber, The Force, Mark Hamill. You must choose a victor and method.

  June 26, 2012 at 12:00pm · Like
• 

  Elya Wolverine by snikt, obviously.

  June 26, 2012 at 12:03pm via mobile · Unlike · 1
• 

  April  I would guess Luke uses the Force to gain the upper hand, lightsabers off one of Wolverine's hands in a reflection of his own dismemberment at the hands of his father, but ultimately loses, as Wolverine's Rugged Manliness makes him a more currently acceptable example of Amurricanism.

  June 26, 2012 at 12:08pm · Like
• 

  John  Slicing off a hand with a lightsaber. That's the Skywalker move, fans! (Also a Kenobi move.)

  June 26, 2012 at 12:09pm · Like
• 

  April  Plus, it seriously cuts down on the number of Adamantium Claws being waved around.

  June 26, 2012 at 12:10pm · Like
• 

  John  Theoretically, Wolverine's healing factor would regrow his hand, but not immediately. And it couldn't regrow the adamantium, so his new hand would have bone claws.

  June 26, 2012 at 12:11pm · Like
• 

  April  Luke is super wicked fast, though. And doesn't the lightsaber cauterize the wound? Does that affect the healing?

  June 26, 2012 at 12:14pm · Like
• 

  John  That's true. And Luke can jump real high. Wolverine will find he's full of surprises. The healing factor, as it is mutant superpower logic bullshit, would probably override the wound being cauterized. In Wolverine's defense, when he goes into berserker rage, he'll probably freak Luke out. No staying calm for that Jedi.

  June 26, 2012 at 12:16pm · Like
• 

  April Luke is not the calmest Jedi, true... luckily, he does best when he doesn't have time to think. It's the drawn out evil speeches that freak him out into making mistakes. ...oh my God, I appear to be nerdy enough for this conversation.

  June 26, 2012 at 12:18pm · Unlike · 1
• 

  John Maybe also not enough lip service is being paid to what Wolverine would be willing to do to win the fight. Luke could cut off his hand, but Wolverine could easily to do the same to Luke's metal hand. Or his real hand. Or his legs. Or destroy the lightsaber. Wolverine fights like a real asshole when he wants to.

  June 26, 2012 at 12:20pm · Edited · Like
• 

  John  I like the underdog in this. I think Luke could do it, he could kill Wolverine. Make his daddy proud.

  June 26, 2012 at 12:24pm · Like
• 

  April I love how because Wolverine has metal claws, we are calling the psychic acrobatic with mind control powers and a sword made of pure energy the underdog.

  June 26, 2012 at 12:41pm · Like
• 

  Rob Is a savage maiming the only thing that constitutes a win, or are there other ways of coming out on top in this one?

  June 26, 2012 at 12:41pm via mobile · Like
• 

  John Naturally, one must assume if Luke Skywalker faces Wolverine, the objective would be death or close to it.

  June 26, 2012 at 12:43pm · Like · 1
• 

  Mimi  Depends if Luke is having an anxiety attack. Or overthinking it.

  June 26, 2012 at 1:08pm · Like · 1
• 

  John  See, I think Wolverine's gruff sexy manliness would work against him. Soon as he says something like, "I banged your sister, bub", Luke will completely lose it. Ask his dad about that.

  June 26, 2012 at 1:09pm · Like · 1
• 

  John  By the way, Mimi, I love that Luke Skywalker is the last Jedi and the hero of the galaxy, but he has a reputation as such a pussy that we have to factor in whether he's having an anxiety attack.

  June 26, 2012 at 1:15pm · Like · 2
• 

  April Agreed. Seriously? How very 70s.

  June 26, 2012 at 1:23pm · Like
• 

  Mimi I am very 70's 

  June 26, 2012 at 2:10pm via mobile · Unlike · 1
• 

  Juan Miguel well, Luke isn't exactly a paragon or anything. I'm sure he could use the dark side of the force and just choke wolverine to death. Does force run out? If it does, he's shit outa luck.

  June 26, 2012 at 7:58pm · Like
• 

  John  I love this debate and the considerations of what Luke Skywalker would do: He'd cut off his hand. He'd Force choke him to death. Here's another: Luke could use the Force to make Wolverine cut off his own head. Luke Skywalker would be delighted to be presented with these tactical options.

  June 26, 2012 at 9:15pm via mobile · Like
• 

  Rob  This is all the stuff Yoda would have taught him if he didn't run off to Bespin.

  June 26, 2012 at 10:19pm · Like
• 

  Kevin  If i had to pick it would be wolverine bc he is actually been through many wars and he is a tactician. when he fights he is calculating and predicting moves. While luke skywalkers force is strong i do believe he would eventually tire out. Healing factor big +

  June 27, 2012 at 12:45am via mobile · Like
• 

  Kevin Wolverine wins by grinding it out over time

  June 27, 2012 at 1:28am via mobile · Like