When it comes to Star Wars, I am an eternal optimist. Sometimes, especially of late, my optimism turns out to be misplaced, but it persists, nonetheless.
When the Star Wars universe was relaunched with The Force Awakens, I was all in. Han Solo has long been my second-favorite character in all of Star Wars behind Darth Vader, but the introduction of Rey, the mystery of her parentage (I still content Palpatine lied and Luke Skywalker was her father), and the prospect of her training to be a Jedi under the tutelage of Luke was captivating. Of course, things went south with The Last Jedi, but the prospect of a new trilogy focused on Rey resurrecting the Jedi order piques my interest.
The Mandolorian was also addicting through the first two seasons, before Kathleen Kennedy did her thing and completely lost me in season three. Mando became a background figure in his own show, the finale of Season 2 was negated when he took Grogu back from Luke and I had to watch encyclopedic videos to even understand what was happening the rest of the way.
Book of Boba? Man, I wanted that to be great and it was … well … one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. It was so bad they dropped two episodes in the middle and inserted the first two episodes of Mando season 3 instead. Just awful.
I loved most of Obi-Wan Kenobi, thought Andor was brilliant, and even without seeing the cartoon predecessor I thoroughly enjoyed Ahsoka. Twice!
So what’s this “new” new hope, I speak of?
Bare with me for a second here.
There is a new book trilogy in the works exploring what happened immediately following the events of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Given what we have seen from Obi-Wan and Ahsoka I think there is every reason to hope we could see a big screen or even small screen extension of this idea. Hayden Christiansen is showing that with good writing and actual direction he can play a bad ass Anakin Skywalker, a far cry from the whiney brat we saw in the prequels. It is past time to unleash his Darth Vader and show us more of what made him the most feared villain in all of fiction. We saw glimpses in Rogue One and Obi-Wan – now let’s GO!
Alec Guinness was in a class by himself as the original Obi-Wan, but Ewan McGregor has revived the character in stunning fashion and is itching to continue telling that story. Vivien Lyra Blair delighted us with her portrayal of Princess Leis as a young girl in Obi-Wan, and most of the other secondary characters from Jimmy Smits (Bail Organa) and Joel Edgerton (Uncle Owen) to Ray Park (Darth Maul) and Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine) are still around. This could be Lucasfilm’s big shot at redemption; a chance to shrug off Kathleen Kennedy’s destructive and idiotic campaign to make Star Wars into some kind of woke feminist movement and get back to telling character-driven stories that have depth and meaning … but are also fun!
I miss when Star Wars was fun and meaningful at the same time.
I also think it would be captivating to see more of the mature, wise Anakin Skywalker we’ve seen Hayden Christiansen portray of late.
-B
Ishmael's Legacy 