I write a lot about Star Wars. It makes sense. I like the original trilogy a lot, and I like thinking about Star Wars. But unless you're really enjoying my writing, you're probably not looking to search through my list of blog posts to catch up on all of that. This blog post is meant to be my collection of better organized opinions and thoughts about all of the major movies. I'm skipping the specials. I haven't seen them since they came out, so I don't remember them well enough to say anything useful. I'll also mention that I'm not bothering with the special edition releases of the Original Trilogy because while some of those changes were pretty (I liked the windows in Cloud City and the extended Trench Run battle), the substantive changes were worthy of strong cringes or in one case of taking offense at the stupidity. Greedo shouldn't have gotten a shot off. It's an important part of setting up Han's character as being sort of dark. It makes his transition from "willing to do shady things" to "understanding being part of something" much more impressive. I hate Greedo shooting at all. Therefore, I'm ignoring those versions of the movies. Now that you have that set up, let's jump in...
Below is the table of Stars Wars movies in order from top to bottom as worst to best. It gives my emotional rating, my opinion of the quality of the movie, and a comment to explain a little. The emotional rating is how much the movie resonated with me and made me care about the characters. The quality of the movie is about how good the logic is behind the movie. For example, the trench run in Episode 4 doesn't really make enough sense, so its quality rating is docked a tiny bit, but the emotional content of the trench run is off the charts, so the emotional rating gets bumped up. Another example: Episode 1 has a convoluted political scheme with gobs of illogical decisions and actions. It also includes a waste of time in the pod races and I don't need to see Anakin as a child bumbling about. The movie COULD have contained so much better substance, setup, and detail than it had. It hurts me that they wasted one of the nine Skywalker episodes to such a degree. Episode 1 is going to get a very low quality rating from me, AND it did almost nothing for me emotionally.
| Movie | Emotional Rating | Quality Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Episode 8: The Last Jedi | 0 | 0 | Terrible meandering movie with zero upside and does actual damage to the setting |
| Episode 1: The Phantom Menace | 4 | 4 | Awful waste of precious movie time filled with bad logic and a poop joke |
| Episode 2: Attack of the Clones | 4 | 5 | This movie turned Jedi from awe inspiring monks to cannon fodder. Also... horrid romance writing. |
| Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith | 6 | 6 | Could have been the amazing emotional story of Darth Vader's birth. It wasn't amazing. Or emotional. |
| Solo: A Star Wars Story | 50 | 40 | It wasn't terrible. It wasn't great. It was okay. |
| Rogue One: A Star Wars Story | 80 | 20 | I'll admit I was emotionally engaged, but the details were pretty awful for this. |
| Episode 7: The Force Awakens | 80 | 30 | This could have been an amazing re-introduction to Star Wars that gave us a good basis for 8 and 9. I liked the characters though. |
| Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker | 85 | 72 | I am giving this one a little bit of a pass because it had to start from the abomination that was Episode 8. Some fantastic emotional content. |
| Episode 5: Empire Strikes Back | 90 | 87 | Counter to popular opinion, it's not my favorite of the original trilogy. Episode 4 had the trench run and Episode 6 had the father/son duel. |
| Episode 4: Star Wars / A New Hope | 95 | 85 | There are definitely faults here (lowest quality rating of original trilogy), but it's so good. |
| Episode 6: Return of the Jedi | 100 | 95 | It gets dinged for Ewoks, but also has the best scene in all of Star Wars: the duel between Luke and his father. |
You can ignore this part if you want. I'm really just collecting links to all the previous blogs I wrote about Star Wars in one place. If you want to read them it would make me happy that someone does. Most recent is at the top.
- More Thoughts on Star Wars Episode 9
- I like Star Wars Episode 9
- If anything, I hate Star Wars Episode 8 more than ever
- Review: Star Wars Episode 8... again.
- Movie Review: Star Wars Episodes 7 and 8... another attempt
- Movie Review: Star Wars Episode 8 - The Last Jedi
- More Thoughts on the Star Wars Movies
- Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi - Review
- Star Wars Flaws (important one)
- The new Star Wars movie: Rogue One
- Star Wars - Lightsaber Duel Scenes Review (another important one)
- My thoughts on Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens
What follows now is just a section for each of the movies with what I intend to be succinct comments on them. I'm going to put them chronological order in the timeline, so start with Episode 1. There will be LOTS of spoilers. One paragraph for what the movie did wrong; one paragraph for what the movie did right; and one paragraph for ideas I have on that movie...
Bad: The movie has bizarre political schemes as a basis for its story and the logic is broken. The characters are poorly written and some of them were pointless (like Quigon). Actually, RedLetterMedia did a fantastic job of skewering Episode 1 in a clear and entertaining way that is more fun to watch than Episode 1. You can find it at: https://redlettermedia.com/mr-plinketts-star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace-review/. They point out the flat unegaging characters; the poor decision to start with Anakin as a child; the creepy romance between a child and a teenager; the lack of logic around Palpatine's plans that only work out because the writers made it work out; the horrible writing for Yoda; and more. Episode 1 has a lot that's bad with it. Oh yeah... there was no reason to force R2-D2 and C-3P0 into the story. I mean, R2 is one of the best characters in the movies, but there was no reason for it.
Good: Hmm. Uh... Ewan McGregor is a really good Obiwan Kenobi. I liked him in that spot. I like Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley, but the inclusion of actresses I like doesn't make the movie better. I'm struggling here. Yikes.
My Idea: This isn't actually my idea, but one I support wholeheartedly. If I find a link to it, I'll definitely share, but the basic idea is that the prequels should have lined up with Obiwan's telling of history to Luke in Episode 4. Obiwan tells Luke that when he met Luke's father, Anakin was already a great pilot and a cunning warrior. Episode 1 should have started out with Anakin being somewhere from 18 to 25 years old, and he should already be a guy that has been out and about in the galaxy. Obiwan also tells Luke that Uncle Owen thought Anakin shouldn't get invovled in the Clone Wars. To me (and this person I'd like to find to credit), this means that Owen was a more important character. We don't need some virgin birth origin story. What would have been cool would have been if Owen and Anakin are full brothers with parents and friends. This would mean Anakin has a much bigger emotional connection that can be used to help explain his fall to the dark side later. Obiwan gives us a couple more choice pieces of information of course, but for Episode 1 this is enough. It could have been the story of Obiwan meeting Anakin and noticing his potential. Obiwan tries to convince Anakin to study the Jedi way and get involved in the war to make the galaxy a better place. Anakin has emotionally charged conversations with his brother that Obiwan can even witness so he knows that Owen didn't want Anakin to get involved. Anakin can even have a love interest of some kind that doesn't have to be a queen of a nation. And we don't need the rule for Jedi that they can't have relationships. But as Anakin is falling to the dark side, his pregnant love interest can start to pull away and it turns out she's part of the Alderaanian family. Luke has the stronger connection to the Force right away so, when the babies are split up later it's because Obiwan was going to watch over that kid and train him when the time is right, and Leia stays with her real mom on Alderaan. But I'm getting past Episode 1. Last thing I'll mention is that the Clone Wars should have made more sense. Episode 2 gives us a Separatist War with each side being fought primarily using droids or clones... not a good enough reason to call it the Clone Wars. Whatever good definition we can come up with would have to be established in Episode 1 since Obiwan is meeting Anakin during the Clone Wars.
Bad: As mentioned in the previous section, the Clone War is better referred to as the Separatist War. It would have been nice if Lucas had come up with something that made sense here. On top of that, Episode 2 is the moment where Jedi become cannon fodder soldiers that run into big battles and get killed like they're not really that special afterall. It wrecks the legend. The Original Trilogy sets them up more as people who accept the Spider-Man philosophy of "With great power comes great responsibility". The Jedi are rare and generally try to do good with their power. And I got the impression that they got swept up into the war instead of being part of some government body where they just naturally participate. Anyway, my impression aside, Episode 2 had scenes of Jedi charging into fights and one in particular has about a dozen Jedi fighting the Geonosians... and not all of them live through the fight. It turns the Jedi from mystical monk into soldier that isn't very special. I hate that Episode 2 diminished the Jedi this way. But the badness doesn't stop there. There's a horrible forced romance between the queen/senator and the sociopath Force user. Not only does it make no sense that she'd be interested in an obsessive emotionally immature person that treats her like the One Ring, but the dialog is awful. It's the only part of Star Wars that I fast forward through... that stupid scene in the field with the cow-creatures.
Good: They do a little bit of character development in the scene where Anakin and Obiwan face Count Dooku. They show Obiwan trying really hard to give his student good guidance and Anakin being an immature moron. It sets up Obiwan as being more wise and Anakin being brash. This is useful later in Episode 3 when they show the same match-up with different behavior. So, there's a little bit in there.
My Idea: This movie should have shown the training of Anakin, the development of his love interest, and show bits of him having dark tendencies. The Clone War would continue and we get the introduction of the Sith. The Sith muck things up royally but something they say resonates with Anakin. He starts to wonder if the Jedi might be wrong, but sticks with them. This movie should REALLY build up the friendship that Anakin and Obiwan have though. Show them working together and joking around with each other. Show them having deep conversations. Anything to make it so that the fall of Anakin in the next movie is way more emotionally engaging.
Bad: This is the least bad of the prequels but it's still bad. Anakin's fall to the Dark Side is not easy to believe. It's just not explained well. It's sad to say that the book adaptation does a much better job on this point. After that, the issuing of Order 66 is weak in the scene with Obiwan and the Clones he's taking on Grievous with. The clones and Obiwan should have come in at the same time so we could see Obiwan fighting alongside the clones, and show them helping each other. Show the bond so that when the order is given, it is much more jarring and pointed that the clones don't care... they've been stripped of their humanity and programmed as obedient soldiers willing to turn on their long-time comrades without pause. This was done wrong. The capstones to the awfulness of Episode 3 is the two lightsaber fights: Yoda vs Palpatine / Obiwan vs Anakin. In the former case, the two giants of the Force of that era use lightsabers? Where's the epic Force battle? And in the latter, the two dear friends fight while swinging over lava for 45 minutes in the least emotionally engaging fight they could have come up with. Incredible failure.
Good:The lightsaber fight with Obiwan and Anakin versus Count Dooku was a nice bit of showing character development as Anakin has learned his lesson and doesn't attack brashly. That was decent. Could have been better in not making a fool of Obiwan. Just have him dropped through a trap door to face a bunch of droids or something and have to fight his way back in time to see that Anakin defeated Dooku. But whatever.
My Idea: This should have been the movie where we feel the heartbreak of Anakin succumbing to the temptation of the Dark Side along with Obiwan. Somewhere in there, Anakin thinks his love interest dies along with his unborn children and it's the tipping point. Maybe he thinks Obiwan is at fault. Obiwan, Yoda, and Padme decide to keep her life hidden from Anakin who has fallen completely to the Dark Side. She mentions that she has family on Alderaan and she could take the babies there. Luke is more obviously Force sensitive and there's a worry Anakin will notice if Luke is too close to the core planets where he has been most active. Obiwan offers up that he knows Anakin's brother Owen who lives on a backwater planet at this point and Luke could be raised by his uncle with Obiwan watching over them. Not Sure a mother would willingly allow her baby to be taken away... so maybe she does die, but after the babies are born... whatever. We can put in a final confrontation between Obiwan and Anakin that isn't about riding floating droids and swinging on ropes over lava. It can be a conversation that turns to an argument that turns to a lightsaber fight more like the one we see a little of in Episode 4. Obiwan has a pained look on his face as his arrogant apprentice tries to strike at him. Anakin has tears in his eyes from the anger and blaming Obiwan for the death of his love. The fight lasts maybe 3 minutes. Obiwan wins as per normal and can't bring himself to end Anakin's life. The Emperor and Darth Vader begin hunting down and slaughtering the Jedi who are a spread out collection of people instead of a big military organization. You know... like Obiwan told Luke that Vader did during his speech in Episode 4. We don't see most of that. It can be the subject of one of the animated series. Whatever.
Bad: There was no need to bring Darth Maul back. I understand that he's back in a couple of the animated series, but to put it in the movie as a teaser at the end makes me think they're going to put him into more live action movies. I guess I also would have liked some of the information we're given to be spread out over more movies. They crammed Han's entire known back story into one movie and it feels like we didn't get the detail I would have liked. For example, I would have liked more of a story about Han and Chewy meeting and becoming friends. I also would have liked more of a story about about Han and Lando meeting and becoming... hmm... almost friends. And if you're going to introduce the idea of droids fighting for their freedom and equal treatment... you need to do a lot more. The entire setting glosses over the fact that droids seem to be sentient; used as slaves; and treated like possessions instead of like thinking beings. C-3P0 gets his memory wiped against his will frequently. Droids aren't allowed in bars. You can buy droids and own them and it's shown at the beginning of Star Wars when uncle Owen buys some droids from Jawas (who just abducted the droids to begin with). Even in the movie Solo, most of the characters consider L3-37 to be sort of silly for thinking the way she does. It's off-putting.
Good: The actors did good jobs of portraying the characters. And even though the story felt rushed I did like seeing some more of Han and Chewy.
My Idea: I would have liked a few movies... or maybe do a series like Mandalorian but with Han and Chewy and sometimes Lando. Put in a little more of how the Empire is oppressing people and taking over worlds. Show how Han connects with the Hutt cartels and how he begins his smuggling career. Maybe even end the one season series with the story of Han and Chewy losing that big shipment and we close on Han saying something like "Chewy, I've got a bad feeling about this..."
Bad: It was the life story of a character instead of a spy thriller. Also, for some reason at the end, Darth Vader is a scary badass wading through rebels like they're nothing and moving like he's young and whole-bodied again. The movie leads right into Episode 4 where Darth Vader moves like a person on prosthetics and who is a bit older. I dislike that shift. It feels like a detail they missed. I also hate Vader's line when talking to the guy in charge of the Death Star project who has just been sniveling and annoying. Vader Force-chokes the guy and says "Don't choke on your aspirations"... It's WAY too cheesy for Darth Vader. He's supposed to be menacing and terrifying. He should have Force-choked the guy and then said "go away" in his awesome James Earl Jones voice. Also, the blind character should just have been openly Force Sensitive, but his training was cut short by the purge, and he's just loyally defending a Jedi temple.
Good: I like the characters enough that I cried when each of the good characters died. The droid, the blind guy, and the blind guy's friend. Sorry, I'm not remembering names, and don't feel like looking them up. This lack of remembering the names should be an indication to you that this movie didn't impress me too much. But this is the good paragraph. Some of the characters were engaging and the climax was engaging. Actually, even though I disagree with the logic behind Vader being so powerful and spry, it was pretty awesome to see Darth Vader that way. So, I enjoyed that scene.
My Idea: This movie should not have been the life story of Jyn Erso. This should have been the story of Rebels realizing they need to find a weakness in the big station that's now terrifying systems throughout the galaxy. They send a team of spies and we get a spy thriller. The spies steal the plans and have achieved their goal, but can't figure out how to get the plans off-world. Vader is brought in to hunt down the plans so that we can get the impression that fits Episode 4 where Vader has to spend time hunting for the plans. The spies do a good job of staying on the run, and Vader gets mad. At the end of it, the only way they can get the plans out is during a diplomatic conference that Leia is a part of. Vader catches wind that Leia Organa is mixed up in something shady. We get told about how the rebels were hoping to get the plans without being discovered and their time-table is moved up. Leia has the plans and thinks her cover is still good. She takes the plans and is tasked with picking up Obiwan ahead of schedule. He's on the way. But the cover is broken and Vader just looks at the flight plan to see that Leia is going to Tatooine and follows immediately with a Star Destroyer... which leads right into Episode 4.
Bad: Storm troopers are described as impressive marksmen and then they are terrible. The guy's arm isn't cauterized by the lightsaber hacking it off. Somehow Luke disappears in the trash compactor water that's only shin-deep. Some of the lines are delivered oddly. For example, Leia saying "They're coming through" when the door isn't opening yet and Han saying "I'm gonna have to shut down, they're not getting me without a fight" (makes it sounds like shutting down is a way to fight back instead of pausing to make them separate things). And the Trench Run doesn't make sense. There are turrets in the trench and on the surface and in the trench you have to fly in a relatively straight line... way easier to shoot. Also, if the goal is to get a target lock on the exhaust port before firing the proton torpedoes, how did Luke's connection to the Force help that in any way? Is it timing instead of a target lock? That makes no sense. We have missiles in the real world that can parse images and find the weak spots on buildings like doors and windows. Proton Torpedoes should be at least that advanced. I'll address this more in the "my idea" paragraph.
Good:Everything else. Heck even the Trench Run fits into the good paragraph because even though it doesn't make sense, it's engrossing and has me on the edge of my seat every time. I know what's going to happen. But it's so good.
My Idea: What I would change about Episode 4 would be a general tweak of the things I listed in the bad paragraph to improve them. But I want to focus on what I would change about the Trench run. Instead of a trench, it's just the exhaust port. It has to be fairly open to deal with the immense power and waste heat the station has. Blasters won't work because it's not a perfectly straight tube and you need a missile that can maneuver itself to reach the target. The port isn't covered by a shield because they need energy to escape the vent, but it maybe has a thick grate over it or something. Recognizing the weakness, they cluster more turrets around there. You could get the target lock from a good distance and maybe everyone flies in with the target locked. But being missiles, the turrets can shoot them down if they're fired from too far away. So they have to get close enough to fire that the turrets can't shoot down the missiles. The first attack run manages to get missiles fired close enough to blow up the grate, but the Y-Wings are shot down in the process. The next X-Wing squad goes in for their run while Luke's squadron harries the turrets to try to provide some help. This attack run fails completely. Now, the Force makes sense as a guide. It helps Luke fly such that he doesn't get hit, and he's the only one that can fly close enough to fire his missiles close enough. And he just unloads all his torpedoes. They all go in the vent and everyone runs away.
Bad: To start with, force shield technology is really inconsistent. I get that it just serves the story and Lucas didn't think too hard about this. But we have shields that hold in air but that ships can fly through; shields called deflectors that act like ablative armor; and shields that Star Destroyers can't shoot through or fly through, but if you land some walkers, they can walk through to get to the generator to destroy it. It's confusing. Another thing that Lucas is inconsistent about is the speed of flying through hyperspace. In Episode 4, the Falcon flies from Tatooine to Alderaan in a time that is long enough to play chess, do some Jedi training, and generally long enough to have to find things to do. It doesn't seem they sleep though so I don't think it's a time best measured in days. I'd guess hours. In the sequel episodes, it seems more like minutes. And specifically in Episode 5, I wonder what's going on because somehow the Falcon moves from Hoth to Bespin using sub-light engines... how long did that take? With the idea that the closest solar system to Sol is something like 4 light years away, if you move between those systems at light speed, it would take 4 years. If you're using sub-light engines, presumably you're going some speed slower than the speed of light. When Han finds Bespin in the star charts, he says it's not too far away, but presumably it's some number of light years away... they'd have to travel for YEARS to get to Bespin. Was Luke on Dagobah for years training? Is the Falcon supplied enough to provide for it's crew for years? I don't think so. So that's a problem. Travel time seems to be whatever is necessary to make Lucas's story work, and that bothers me. The last thing that I find bad about Empire Strikes Back is the scene in the cave with Luke's training. My problem with it is that I don't get it. He goes in, faces Darth Vader and wins only to find himself under the mask, and then Yoda calls it a failure. He failed by bringing weapons with him when Yoda told him he wouldn't need weapons I guess. But what would have happened if he hadn't brought them along? How would it have been different? Or if it was the same, what happens to Luke when the illusory Darth Vader strikes him? I find it confusing and it is what drops the movie down in my ranking.
Good: I love Yoda's part in the movie in its entirety. Yoda is awesome in this movie (which makes it more of a shame the writing for Yoda is so bad in the prequels). I enjoyed the movie overall from the battle of Hoth and the general theme of the rebels having a hard time while the Empire hunts them. My favorite scene is when the good guys are lead to the dining hall, and the moment Han sees Vader, he draws his blaster and starts shooting. No time to consider... Han knows Vader is evil and powerful and it's his only chance. It's so good that Han is so quick to act here. I love it.
My Idea: It might have been better if they could have conveyed that the shield on Hoth was an umbrella shield specifically to protect against bombardment from space and that it doesn't contact the ground, so walkers can fit. I'd also deal with the trip to Bespin by saying that Han found the part that burned out, and he borrowed a part from somewhere else on the ship that will be good enough for one short jump, so they have to make it count. Finally, the scene in the cave... hmm... that's actually tough. You have to show something where he could have better handled it without weapons, so that the part of the lesson around listening to Yoda is in there, and have a clear lesson in there too. Maybe have Vader standing there near Luke's friends but without a lightsaber drawn, and the good method would have been talking first, but Luke is brash and he immediately attacks. Vader's first drawing of the saber is only in defense. It's true that in the movie, this is the order of events but it isn't clear that Luke attacking is the failure the movie intended. Adding friends that Luke might be worried about would highlight him attacking unprovoked. I lauded Han for doing just that, but Luke is going to become a Jedi where impulsive action is generally a bad idea. Anyway, when Luke strikes down Vader, if the lesson is supposed to be patience and consideration, it should be that Luke discovers Vader's intentions weren't violent somehow. If the lesson is around warning Luke away from the Dark Side and avoiding becoming like Darth Vader, then the mask revealing Luke's face makes some sense. Either way, Yoda should explain a little how Luke failed for the audience.
Bad: Luke's plan for rescuing Han is a bit convoluted. Get Lando a job there; get the droids captured; get Chewy captured and Leia there in disguise; plan for getting captured by putting your lightsaber in R2; assume Leia will be discovered and captured after getting Han out of carbonite (did he knowingly put Leia in there just to get Han out of carbonite without telling her she'd be captured as a result?); try to use the Force to get Jabba to let everyone go and fail... and assume Jabba will bring everyone together so you can fight your way out? I don't know... that's just a weird series of events. But the biggest problem with Episode 6 is the Ewoks. George Lucas was originally going to use Wookiees as the primitive species on Endor, but Chewbacca being tech-savvy, it didn't make sense. Wanting to stick with a primitive species the rebels meet there, he came up with Ewoks. The problem is that the ewoks shouldn't have succeeded against the imperial troops. The movie even shows an arrow bouncing off the armor. Why did the storm troopers lose? Why did they panic? They're soldiers right? When the ewoks popped up it should immediately have turned to storm troopers shooting ewoks. The ewoks should have lost badly. And the traps they set up for the AT-STs? When did they set those up without the Empire noticing the activity near their base? And why did the rolling log trap work at all? The AT-ST's legs started wobbling in the movies before the logs got to it. The trip line might have helped if they had tied the ends of the rope to trees. But even if they had figured that out, it wouldn't have turned the tide.
Good: There's a fair amount that's good with this movie, but I'm going to focus on the best scene in all of Star Wars. It's Luke's confrontation with his father. And honestly it should be the best scene in all of Star Wars because the original story is the story of Anakin Skywalker. This is the climactic tragic moment that caps the whole story. Luke tries to not fight. Only when the Emperor shows that his friends and comrades are struggling and dying does he think he's running out of time and he has to try to stop the Emperor now. He tries to strike the Emperor but Vader is waiting and stops the strike. Luke and Vader begin their duel but Luke still doesn't want to fight his father. He jumps back out of reach and tries to talk things out again. Vader throws his lightsaber at Luke to bring him down from the catwalk and the fighting continues. Luke manages to hide under the platform in darkness as he tries to figure out what to do. Vader searches Luke's thoughts and discovers the he has a sister... another of Vader's children. Vader taunts Luke by telling him he'll go after Leia... and Luke snaps. He can't deal with the idea of his sister being in that kind of danger. Luke switches from the controlled fighting prior to emotional brute swings, and eventually over powers his father and cuts off his father's hand. It's a mental break as Luke sees the similarity and realizes that he was losing control to anger. He recovers and faces the Emperor proclaiming that he will not kill his father in anger and he will not bow to Palpatine's will. Palpatine begins torturing and berating Luke with Force lightning while Vader recovers and watches... and... Anakin wakes up. Anakin saves his son from the Emperor. My favorite part of the whole thing is when Luke snaps and John Williams accompanies it to perfection. It's such a perfect moment, and the choreography tells the story just right. It's entirely evident what the emotions are from the choreography. The special effects aren't the important part. It's the emotion behind what's happening. I love this scene so much. It puts Return of the Jedi into the favorite position even above Episodes 4 and 5 and despite the ewoks.
My Idea: Finding a better rescue plan for Han would be nice, but the important idea I'd like to convey is around replacing the ewoks. My understanding of Han's story even before the movie of his origin came out was that Han was part of the Empire and the reason Chewbacca likes him so much is because Han rescued him from slavery to the Empire. This puts wookiees in as slave labor to the Empire as a great idea for Return of the Jedi. Just give up on the primitive species idea because it doesn't help the story in any significant way. It would be really easy to say that the Empire is keeping its wookiee slave labor force on the planet/moon below the second Death Star where they are used to mine materials and operate machines to build the parts. When the rebels get there, they realize that liberating the wookiees means a big force of strong fighters that can actually do something useful against the imperial troops. You have really angry beasts that can tear arms out of sockets. And as soon as they kill a few of their captors, they can take blasters and be even scarier to the empire. It's so much more logical than ewoks that I don't understand how Lucas missed that opportunity. Why was using a primitive species so important?
Bad: It's a copy of Episode 4. I'm not rehashing this in my short paragraph. If you read one of the reviews that includes episode 7 that I linked, you can get the full idea. For my short paragraph, I'm going to point out that the map to Luke is stupid and that the creators of this story completely missed the opportunity to write new story that tells us what happened in the last thirty years and bring us back into the Star Wars Universe with the familiar... using that to introduce the new. I'll mention this more in the "my idea" paragraph.
Good: The characters they introduce are good and the actors do really good work across the board in my opinion. The nostalgia bits like the scene where Han says "it's all real" were good. The scene with Han, Chewy, and Finn going to shut down the shield and rescue Rey is excellent... specifically the one where Han gets to say "that's not how it works" and "oh! you're cold?!". The scene where Chewie witnesses Han's death and it triggers him to wreck house is good. Not Han's death. That was weak. But Chewy's part is good.
My Idea: They should have opened up with Han, Chewy, Luke, and Leia. I know we can't build an action adventure story around elderly people, but the transition from no story for 30 years back into the setting should have been with the familiar. Also, things should have changed in 30 years. The Empire should be the small group barely hanging on. A few star destroyers and maybe a few worlds still under imperial control. Luke is running the new Jedi Academy and it has learned from the mistakes of the previous Jedi order. It does not impose draconian requirements on its members, and seeks to guide toward goodness instead of requiring obedience. Ben and his cousin Rey (Luke's daughter) are students at the academy. The new threat to the united worlds that Leia is helping to build should be something like the Thrawn trilogy, except that Ren or Snoke replaces C'Baoth as the dark side Force user, and they found the Knights of Ren. Thrawn begins implementing his plan and this is the new threat that our heroes have to deal with. At the climax of Episode 7, Ben sees a Knight of Ren defeat a Jedi easily, and he begins wondering about the power of the dark side, and the cliffhanger of Episode 7 is Ben talking to Ren/Snoke or maybe just off in the woods seeing how much more damage he can do with rage than with calm.
Bad: This is a piece of shit movie that is a cobbled together mess of unrelated short-stories that actively damages the setting of Star Wars with ridiculous changes to the technologies, most notably that you can destroy an entire fleet of star destroyers by jumping a carrier toward them. Why isn't that weapon technology and why was it never used before in the thousands of years with hyperspace technology? The movie also makes the most optimistic person in the galaxy (saved Darth Vader) into a broken shell of a man that considers murdering his nephew while he sleeps. How can you destroy the character of Luke Skywalker like that? How can you smile and think this is a good movie Rian Johnson? Subverting expectations? Fuck you Rian Johnson. I hope you die slowly, painfully, and alone. Soon. Oh right... and Leia... what a waste of the character. Her biggest scene is being blown into space and surviving with the Force. But she ends up in a medical bay and misses most of the movie. I hate Rian Johnson.
Good: Poe gets a story arc where he learns the responsibility of leadership. It's poorly written, and the purple haired lady is an idiot and terrible leader. But Poe gets to grow.
My Idea: Scrap the story we're given. This should be the movie where the bad guys are winning. In my version it's where Thrawn is making real progress and taking over Republic worlds and just totally out maneuvering the good guys with his strategic genius. And the Knights of Ren are hunting down Jedi that are spread out in the galaxy trying to do some good. The Knights of Ren haven't attacked the academy... but they're having success hunting Jedi. And this is where we see Ben give in to his lust for power thinking the Knights of Ren can teach him better. Everything is going to crap.
Bad: The movie had to dig its way out of a lot of crap that Episode 8 provided, so there's a fair amount of effort and time spent to adjust things. It's not the fault of Episode 9, but it's a detriment to the movie. I also dislike that the backbone of the story is the scavenger hunt of starting with one clue and following it to the next step. Way too many ridiculous steps... including that C-3P0 knows the location but won't tell them because of some programming. And then the dagger with Sith writing lines up with the Death Star wreckage to tell you where to look inside for the homing beacon? ugh... terrible. I also don't like that the Emperor is the bad guy. It turns Episode 6's victory into nothing, and then the 9 movies become the story of Emperor Palpatine. It's the rise to power, the obstacle of Anakin and Luke that slowed him down, and his big return. Interesting idea I guess that might have been done better, but overall I dislike Palpatine as the big bad guy for Episode 9. The last problem I have is that Rey is a Mary-Sue. She's so powerful so easily without any work to get there.
Good: The movie felt a lot like Star Wars again which didn't happen with 7 because it was a rip-off of 4, and didn't happen with 8 because 8 was so shitty. Episode 9 felt like Star Wars again. It was adventure. I was engrossed. I'm not sure what to credit that too, but it worked. And they hit some pretty good nostalgia buttons. The scene with Luke and Leia lightsaber training was pretty awesome... and I know it was CG, but it felt like it honored Carrie Fisher and the character of Leia some. And there's this quick scene just after Ben Solo arrives to help Rey where his plain old TIE fighter is sitting next to Luke Skywalker's old X-Wing... and that image struck me so well. Seeing Lando again was nice, though putting him in outside of the scavenger hunt would have been nice. I also like the interactions between the main characters. Finn, Poe and Rey... the friendship and banter was good.
My Idea: Ben has to be recovered and not die. Since in my version he doesn't kill Han, he can be redeemed a bit better. If Harrison Ford demands that Han die in Episode 7 still with the better writing, maybe Luke and the Force fail to protect Han and that's what pushes Ben toward the Dark Side and the Knights of Ren. But anyway, the big thing is going to have to be Rey convincing her cousin that he's on the wrong path, and they get to shine taking down the Knights of Ren while Poe, Finn, and Chewy are part of the climactic battle with Thrawn. The movie, and the entire Skywalker Saga ends with Luke talking to Rey and Ben, and saying that the story is never really over... that there will always be something that good people need to stand up to. But we'll be ready.
