I was nine when the first Star Wars film came out and almost ever since I have been a true groupie. I have seen every film, in the case of the original three, dozens of times. I have Star Wars Trivial Pursuit which I should warn you all that I am rather good at. There was even a vague attempt to include in my daughter’s names Leia but I am afraid that the Force was not with me in that battle. And thus my daughter and I headed off yesterday to see the final instalment of this nine movies phenomenon, the Rise of Skywalker.
Of course the special effects were… er special. Director JJ Abrams tried to keep folk like me on board with cameos from a destroyed Death Star, Ewoks and, at the end, Wedge Antilles. Luke, Han and Leia all appeared although the first two were actually dead when this film was made as, so tragically was drugged up Carrie Fisher who played Leia. I am afraid that if I had to sit though much more of this movie, I too would need have needed vast amounts of Charlie.
Abrams has said that folk like me almost have religious belief in Star Wars and I think that the last UK census showed there were more folks who identified as Jedis than there are, for instance, members of the Liberal Democrats. I don’t identify as a Jedi but Star Wars has always been something I take seriously and, so to my horror, after what seemed like an eternity but turned out to be only an hour or so I almost walked out of the film yesterday. The plot was simply dull, and all over the place. It was just not a very good story.
There is one surprise, a twist, but not one that left me gasping for breath. And Star Wars has gone utterly woke. Almost without exception the bad guys, the First Order, are white males. On the other hand the Rebel Alliance was a true picture of cultural diversity and critically most of its leading lights and key players were women. But hang on JJ, I thought, what about the LGBs, have you not missed them out? Fear not, a couple of older lesbians treat us to a big snog in the closing moments.
So the key takeaway is that diversity is good and will, in the end, defeat the white male patriarchy. You know I bet that all those evil white men in the First Order are also homophobes. They are probably into organised religion too. In the old days the fight between patent good and obvious evil was the basis for a good enough story. But now Hollywood insists that it must lecture us all on how we must adopt its liberal values at every turn.
Thank the Force that there is to be no tenth film. It would be a slam dunk that at least one of the few remaining men with a lead role in the rebel alliance would publicly ask that we respect his decision to identify as a non cisgender woman. And the Rebel Alliance would insist that we should respect the actions of Anakin in slaughtering the younglings as a natural extension of abortion up to term which is all part of a woman’s right to choose.
A liberal Hollywood morality tale with a tedious story and a feeble plot. How sad that Star Wars should end like this.