Tumblr crosspost (5 February 2020)
Sep. 17th, 2021 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineAn anon asked:
I was wondering what your thoughts on the sequel trilogy as a whole are, now that it's over? (also, ty for the jedi & sith lord updates, I've really been enjoying the way you characterize lucy and lucy + anakin and as a whole that series has been an unexpected pleasure)
My response:
Re: Lucy— Thank you very much! The series (flaws and all!) is one of my favourite things that I’ve done, and getting Lucy and Lucy+Anakin right is definitely the thing I care about most. <3
Re: the sequels—
It’s honestly really hard to say, because there’s a lot that I really liked in them, and both in TROS and (to a lesser extent) in retrospect, there are quite a few things that I don’t like. There’s probably more that I like than don’t, actually—Rey and Finn are super charming and engaging, Rose was great, Kylo/Ben is one of my faves and he got a nice redemption, I’m happy (if a little vindictively :P) with Luke’s arc, I was super relieved that they didn’t gloss over the importance of Luke and Leia’s relationship but instead actively highlighted it, and the movies were generally entertaining and sometimes beautiful.
But yeah, it’s hard not to feel vaguely dissatisfied at the same time. I don’t know if it’s the mediocrity of TROS colouring the rest tbh, since there was so much to resolve and it did such an eh job with it. I really liked TFA and TLJ individually and still do, so it’s hard not to pin a lot on TROS rather than the ST altogether. And it’s not particularly devastating for me as someone who’s disliked plenty of SW before—I by and large don’t like the prequels and I have major reservations about ROTJ (I adore some things in it! but also there are things I very definitely do not).
I think part of the issue is that … how much any given thing bothers me or works for me is going to depend in part on how much I care about it in the first place. I’ve always been a Skywalker stan (specifically, Anakin-Luke-Leia) and there’s a lot in the ST that just … doesn’t have anything to do with them, which is fine, but hard for me to care about unless there’s something really powerful about it for me (see: RO).
And despite my liking for TFA and TLJ, the ST as a whole really falls down when it comes to Anakin, who is only the most central character of the entire story. I talked a little about my issues with ST!Anakin (aka ‘who?’) here, but the short version is that I came away with the very decided feeling that they just didn’t care about Anakin, and in fact were actively avoiding dealing with his existence at all apart from Vader paraphernalia. And while I was willing to hold out for some explanation, what we got of him and his legacy in the end was so completely underwhelming and baffling that it kind of taints the whole thing for me.
To be clear, it doesn’t bother me any more than the elements I dislike in ROTJ and, say, AOTC. It doesn’t ruin Anakin for me or the ST. But it does lower the ST (taken as a whole) in my personal estimation quite a bit because there’s such a weird vacancy there, that touches so much when you start to think about it.
So, overall:
- Mostly solid as films and sometimes very good
- Nice characters
- Satisfying at points
- Didn’t do great by the Skywalkers as a family, esp given Anakin’s centrality
As I see it, they … exist, no more objectionably than other questionable parts of the franchise, but as a whole, are maybe not much better, either. I don’t see myself marathoning the ST any time soon. I’ll just watch the clips of scenes I like (of which there are quite a few) and ignore everything else but the soundtracks.
In the end, that’s probably not a ringing endorsement.
I was wondering what your thoughts on the sequel trilogy as a whole are, now that it's over? (also, ty for the jedi & sith lord updates, I've really been enjoying the way you characterize lucy and lucy + anakin and as a whole that series has been an unexpected pleasure)
My response:
Re: Lucy— Thank you very much! The series (flaws and all!) is one of my favourite things that I’ve done, and getting Lucy and Lucy+Anakin right is definitely the thing I care about most. <3
Re: the sequels—
It’s honestly really hard to say, because there’s a lot that I really liked in them, and both in TROS and (to a lesser extent) in retrospect, there are quite a few things that I don’t like. There’s probably more that I like than don’t, actually—Rey and Finn are super charming and engaging, Rose was great, Kylo/Ben is one of my faves and he got a nice redemption, I’m happy (if a little vindictively :P) with Luke’s arc, I was super relieved that they didn’t gloss over the importance of Luke and Leia’s relationship but instead actively highlighted it, and the movies were generally entertaining and sometimes beautiful.
But yeah, it’s hard not to feel vaguely dissatisfied at the same time. I don’t know if it’s the mediocrity of TROS colouring the rest tbh, since there was so much to resolve and it did such an eh job with it. I really liked TFA and TLJ individually and still do, so it’s hard not to pin a lot on TROS rather than the ST altogether. And it’s not particularly devastating for me as someone who’s disliked plenty of SW before—I by and large don’t like the prequels and I have major reservations about ROTJ (I adore some things in it! but also there are things I very definitely do not).
I think part of the issue is that … how much any given thing bothers me or works for me is going to depend in part on how much I care about it in the first place. I’ve always been a Skywalker stan (specifically, Anakin-Luke-Leia) and there’s a lot in the ST that just … doesn’t have anything to do with them, which is fine, but hard for me to care about unless there’s something really powerful about it for me (see: RO).
And despite my liking for TFA and TLJ, the ST as a whole really falls down when it comes to Anakin, who is only the most central character of the entire story. I talked a little about my issues with ST!Anakin (aka ‘who?’) here, but the short version is that I came away with the very decided feeling that they just didn’t care about Anakin, and in fact were actively avoiding dealing with his existence at all apart from Vader paraphernalia. And while I was willing to hold out for some explanation, what we got of him and his legacy in the end was so completely underwhelming and baffling that it kind of taints the whole thing for me.
To be clear, it doesn’t bother me any more than the elements I dislike in ROTJ and, say, AOTC. It doesn’t ruin Anakin for me or the ST. But it does lower the ST (taken as a whole) in my personal estimation quite a bit because there’s such a weird vacancy there, that touches so much when you start to think about it.
So, overall:
- Mostly solid as films and sometimes very good
- Nice characters
- Satisfying at points
- Didn’t do great by the Skywalkers as a family, esp given Anakin’s centrality
As I see it, they … exist, no more objectionably than other questionable parts of the franchise, but as a whole, are maybe not much better, either. I don’t see myself marathoning the ST any time soon. I’ll just watch the clips of scenes I like (of which there are quite a few) and ignore everything else but the soundtracks.
In the end, that’s probably not a ringing endorsement.