A film that will make the saga fans yell.
On the “Mandalorian” from the very beginning great hopes were pinned. Still, this is the first “live” series on Star wars – something that they probably dreamed about, but which they did not even dare to imagine for several generations of fans of the saga. The hope was inspired by the fact that the professionals of the highest category took up the project – with John Favreau and his “Iron Man” the Marvel cinematic universe once began, and Dave Filoni really loves and knows ZV, no matter how anyone relates to him The Clone Wars and “Rebels”. The final result met expectations. The charismatic protagonist, the well-tuned style of the cosmic western, the memetic kid Yoda in the end – all this allows …
What? Why are we even talking about the Mandalorian? Ummm … Well … Just discussing it is much nicer than what we are offered under the guise of the final episode of Star Wars. But nowhere to go – work is work. Let’s talk about Skywalker Rising or whatever it is.
In order to at least approximately, in the most modest degree, describe the greatness of the film, you have to spoil it a bit. But do not worry – everything described either falls out right in the opening wall of the text, or speaks out in the first ten minutes.
So, behind the atrocities of the First Order and all the troubles of the New Republic stood none other than Emperor Palpatine. It was he who created Snowk and used it as a proxy to educate Kylo Ren. But how did he survive the fall into the mine and the explosion of the Death Star? “Alchemy of the Sith,” some rebel speaks expertly, although, it seems, even yesterday the Jedi were considered a fairy tale. But ok, let’s omit it. The bottom line is that the ugly old man is located on a planet that from ancient times served the Sith as a secret shelter. And there, by the way, since ancient times, a powerful imperial flotilla has been parked, capable of turning the tide of the war. But in order to find the forbidden planet, Ray and her friends must first get a special artifact, which will indicate the location of another artifact on which the secret coordinates are already recorded. But this is still not the most difficult task – the creators of the trilogy, who are trying to convince the viewer that from the very beginning everything was conceived, are much more difficult.
Apparently, “Star Wars” without a desert planet, Abrams considers impossible.
There is such a concept – “suspension of disbelief”, which can be clumsily translated into Russian as “suspension of disbelief”. This is a conscious or subconscious acceptance by the viewer (reader, player) of the proposed rules of the game. Yeah, here we have a giant in nervous pants fighting with the god of the Scandinavian pantheon – probably you can score on the laws of physics. And here elves with wizards run around – that means we consider any miracle to be the norm, while the heroes consider it to be such. But there are separate episodes or plot moves that simply knock the viewer out of the dive. In The Lord of the Rings the eagles cross the line of trust Batman vs. Superman “Martha!” A Skywalker. Sunrise ”consists of almost half of such moments. And this despite the fact that “Star Wars” from the very first film ruthlessly exploited this same “suspension of disbelief”. You can take space wizards with laser sabers, you can take explosions in a vacuum and a consanguinity between a farm guy and the worst villain in the galaxy. But to accept on faith everything that the ninth episode offers is very, very difficult. And not because what is happening on the screen is stupid (although it’s damn stupid), but because everything is clearly artificial and tortured. Before your eyes, the owl is pulled onto the globe with such force that it seems that a mournful hoot is about to sound in the hall.
The film introduces several new characters, but does not really do anything with them.
Ryan Johnson rightly presents many complaints. He really scored on the main story, and was also too carried away by twists for the sake of twists and turning canons upside down. But at the same time, he at least somehow developed the characters of Rei, Poe, and Finn, even if for this he had to scatter them at different ends of the galaxy. He also brought several fairly fresh and relevant topics to Star Wars – the relativity of good and evil, the harm of the personality cult, the senselessness and crime of war. Yes, I didn’t twist it, but at least I stated, simultaneously changing the status quo.
Abrams and his team threw Johnson’s achievements into the basket, as if in revenge for the fact that Johnson did the same with the achievements of Abrams. Everything has returned to normal, and the impudent postmodernism has been replaced by the already familiar The Awakening of Power worship of the original trilogy. Everything is sewn to it, regardless of whether it looks organically or not. Again ubiquitous quotes, parallel scenes and rotten cliches.
The Last Jedi scolded for the fact that one of the storylines was built on the principle of “go there, bring it.” So, in Skywalker this principle is elevated to absolute. The whole scenario is a movement from point to point in order to find someone and get something. Only the list of quests in the corner is not enough. At the same time, the entire central line came from nowhere. Imagine that at the beginning “The Return of the King” it would become clear that Frodo should no longer go to Mordor, but to a country about which no one had spoken a word before. And the ring … you can even throw it in a ditch. Well, the comparison is not entirely correct, because Tolkien knew from the very beginning where and why he was leading his heroes. In LucasFilm, everything was clearly decided on the go.
The fight under the waves really came out spectacular. But she is diluted enchantingly dull moments
And by and large, it doesn’t matter how beautiful and spectacular the film is. It is clear that masters in special effects, artists, make-up artists, cameramen and other specialists on projects of this scale are laid out to the maximum – these are professional standards. Yes, and Abrams director is extremely talented – after all, Spielberg’s protege, and this leaves its mark. But the next spectacular flight of the Millennium Falcon cannot cause delight when the viewer was just pulled out of the dive by some idiotic moment, be it a plot hole, an inappropriate sending or an awkward retcon attempt.
From Poe Dameron for two films it did not work out to make a worthy replacement for Han Solo with decent methods, so they resorted to scam – he turns out to be a former smuggler and a hero-lover. Now everyone can see, everyone understands? Well, Finn … He just has it again. It was as if Abrams was not sure whether or not to fall in love with Rei, so he left this to the audience – think what you want.
Adam Driver still tries hardest of all, but the script does not help him a bit. Yes, many of Kylo Ren’s actions can be explained by the fact that he is psychologically traumatized and unstable, but sometimes even this excuse does not work – the character is simply storming.
Ultimately, Skywalker. Sunrise “makes almost the same impression as the final “Game of Thrones” – epic, grandiose, but enchantingly stupid and tasteless. Half of the storylines were chopped off as unnecessary, the remaining ones tied in a crooked knot.
What place in history will take the trilogy of sequels, only time will tell. Once upon a time, prequels blasphemed all and sundry, but now for a generation it is a classic. But right now it seems that Disney has created a completely optional appendage to the original saga, which exploits old ideas, but not brought to mind any of the new ones.
So look better than Mandalorets.
