Star Wars - A Faded Hope

MarkRet
Star Wars - A Faded Hope

Star Wars - The Lucas Years

When Star Wars - A New Hope came out in 1977, it just blew me away, along with everybody else in the audience. People were actually clapping their approval at the end, and I wanted the story to just continue running. George Lucas created one of those movies that emotionally pulls you in, you forget you’re in a theater on Earth, and you actually feel you are there with Luke, Han, Leia, and all the rest of them. Empire Strikes Back was also good, even though it was a lot more melancholy, and the good guys were always on the run. Return Of The Jedi was a terrific ending to a great epic. The prequels (the Jar-Jar Binks ones) weren’t as good, but they still had that Star Wars connection.

The Disney Years

Many years later, Star Wars creator George Lucas handed the franchise over to Disney. Kathleen Kennedy, who had worked for Lucas and Steven Spielberg for years, was put in charge as producer. I had thought that it would be great to have some more Star Wars movies. There were rumors for years about Lucas having an idea for three more Star Wars movies set after Return Of The Jedi, but that never happened with him. He handed some ideas over to Kennedy concerning which direction they wanted to go, but as I heard it, these ideas were tossed in the trash. Still, Kennedy seemed to know what she was doing, so I took it on faith that she could come up with some good ideas. Rogue One was good, as it fit right into A New Hope (also, Felicity Jones was pretty cute).


In this video, Kathleen Kennedy lies to George Lucas, to his face, about not changing the existing Star Wars characters.

When The Force Awakens came out, I had some doubts. The New Order, looked just like the Empire from the original. Their uniforms were altered a bit, but still pretty much had that same Nazi officer style from before. They had this secret mega-weapon that could destroy planets, just like the death star, which the good guys had to knock out. Kylo Ren had a pretty cool looking face mask, but other than that, he was just a Darth Vader ‘mini-me’. The cast was very diverse, which was fine with me, as it kind of over-compensated for the all-white cast in A New Hope. Rey was interesting, but she was giving off the impression of being a Mary Sue (A Mary Sue is a woman hero who always wins with no effort, just because she’s a woman). Harrison Ford AND Carrie Fisher both looked old, and didn’t have much impact anyway. As expensive as this film was, it seemed like it shouldn’t have even been made. It was a retread of what had already been done before.

Much worse was The Last Jedi. In The Force Awakens, the buildup was that Rey needed to find Luke Skywalker, who had been in seclusion for some 20 years. When she finally finds him, she hands the light saber to him, and I’m thinking, “Alright! Luke’s there, and he ALWAYS gets it done!” What happened next was the biggest of letdowns. He just tosses it over his shoulder, and sulks away. Rian Johnson was the director for The Last Jedi, and apparently, his style is ‘subversion’. That is, to make a shocking breakaway from what has already been established, and moving in an entirely new direction. Johnson destroyed virtually EVERYTHING from the past, to set a new course.

Luke was always positive, in fact, that’s why A New Hope was titled the way it was. Jedi Master Yoda had told Luke that Darth Vader could never be turned from the dark side of the Force, and Luke proved him wrong. Now, Rian Johnson has painted Luke as a pathetic old curmudgeon, who’s been hiding for 20 years. Luke provides Rey with virtually NO guidance, although it doesn’t seem to matter anyway, since Johnson has turned Rey into a full-blown Mary Sue. Luke DOES show up for the final confrontation, and I’m thinking, “At last, Luke is back to kick some ass!”, but Johnson pulls another one of his ‘subversion’ moves, and has Luke as just an illusion, while the REAL Luke just plain disappears. Leia is blasted into space, and presumably killed, but once again, Johnson pulls another twist, and has Leia doing a Mary Poppins-style float back to the ship. Then there’s the ‘code breaker’. When I first saw this guy, he seemed like an untrustworthy slime ball, but I figured he’d redeem himself and do something positive. That turned out to be a wrong assumption, he was just a slime ball the whole time, who didn’t do ANYTHING.


Flying a ship into hyperspace to blow up an enemy ship shows that Johnson doesn’t understand the concept of hyperspace. Hyperspace isn’t about ‘flying extremely fast’. If it were, then the rebels could have destroyed the death stars that way. it’s about taking a ship into another dimension, and then taking it out of that dimension. Star Wars had always had the concept of Jedi master/ Jedi student, and it took a student a long time to master the Force. Not anymore, now you can just touch somebody, and enhance their Force powers.

The Last Jedi is RIDDLED with SJW agenda. The women are all strong, but the men are cucked, and are portrayed as either stupid, evil, or both. The bad guys are all white males. The purpose of Holdo (or Old Ho) is to smack down Poe, and put him in his place, because he’s an impulsive, stupid MAN. Holdo, of course, gets to save the day by doing a suicide run. Holdo even LOOKS like a purple-haired feminazi. Finn also tries to save his comrades by doing a suicide run, but he’s sabotaged by Rose, who tells him, “It’s all about love”, or something like that. Rose also leads a bunch of horse-like animals through a casino to freedom, because “It’s the right thing to do.” Any thought to what happens to these animals once they’re freed?

Kennedy had said that the old characters Luke, Leia, and Han were VERY important for the new Star Wars trilogy, and that’s true, but not for the reason you might think. They were important as far as luring the old Star Wars fans into the new series, then they were eliminated to make way for the newer characters. Han is killed off, Luke is turned into a broken cretan and just plain disappears, but Leia is kept alive, because she’s a WOMAN, and fits the feminist agenda of a strong woman.

Where Does It Go From Here?

The damage done by the story of The Last Jedi destroyed the Star Wars legacy. Even if Disney did a complete 180 to repair what’s been done, it’s too late. Part of the fun of the originals was anticipating when the next one would come out, as they were spaced about 2 or 3 years apart. Disney has the idea of saturating the market with Star Wars movies, which will eventually lead to people just being tired of the whole thing. The original Star Wars series is something I’ll always love, Rogue One is really good, and I can even put up with the prequels, but the new series is kind of like visiting the corpse of an old friend. The corpse LOOKS like an old friend, but that friend is long gone. I won’t be watching any more new Star Wars movies.

Star Wars - A Faded Hope
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