At the multiplex, at least, Star Wars is about to go back to bed.
On Dec. 20, Disney will close the nine-film trilogy of trilogies that started with 1977’s “Star Wars” (later retitled “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope”) by releasing “Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker.”
The film, directed by J.J. Abrams, purports to tie the bow on the story of Anakin, Luke and Rey, respectively, while reverse-engineering a narrative that unites every episode that preceded it.
Despite the franchise’s multibillion-dollar earnings since Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, the shepherds of Star Wars have indicated it will take a long break from theaters to refresh (read: create more demand for) future films after the main, Skywalker-focused narrative reaches its climactic finish.
Thatap not too concerning when you consider the TV series, video games, comics and other media in which Star Wars will continue to thrive (see the excellent new Disney+ series “The Mandalorian,” which is ). If you step back, itap easy to see that for the past 42 years, Star Wars has evolved in a way that mirrors its binary vocabulary of master and apprentice, parent and child, light and dark.
It never truly goes away, because why would any right-minded capitalist let something that lucrative sleep for long? But itap had periods of deep inactivity, first from 1984 to 1998, and again from 2003 to 2014. Those were periods when no new Star Wars movie was released in theaters.
In fact, before George Lucas rebooted it with 1999’s “Episode I — The Phantom Menace,” the franchise lived primarily as a nostalgic (if mass-market) curio for people of a certain age, passed down to younger siblings and their own children, and aided by the extended-universe lore that Disney later wiped out, post-Lucasfilm acquisition.
Star Wars’ frustrating inconsistency is bound up with its success. There’s always been something elusive and mysterious about the franchise, whether itap the promise of a new adventure around every corner, or the simple scarcity of new, top-notch material. Itap also been fascinating to watch Lucas and his spiritual children scramble to make it look like some inevitable, overarching story that was planned all along — as opposed to tracks being laid in front of a train, real-time, as the money is generated to pay for them.
In that way, Disney faced an unenviable task in resuscitating the film franchise with 2015’s “Episode VII — The Force Awakens,” following Lucas’ critically reviled “prequel trilogy.”
But the company did something smart: It allowed Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm’s president, to set a progressive tone for the sequel trilogy. A longtime producer for Lucas and Steven Spielberg, she understood that the films had to offer both fan-servicing nostalgia and sharp hooks for new viewers. And they had to be good regardless of the costumes, space battles and lightsabers.
The original trilogy cloaked age-old myths and genre tropes from Westerns, samurai films, World War II dramas and sci-fi serials in a shiny new set of fantasy armor that was both exotic and comforting. Later, Lucas’ prequels imagined a galactic, heavily computer-generated past that echoed familiar characters and plots.
Abrams’ follow-up, “The Force Awakens” (written with “The Empire Strikes Back” co-writer Lawrence Kasdan), wasn’t perfect when it landed in the middle part of this decade, but it was damn near close. The director and Lucasfilm put to rest widespread concerns that Disney’s Star Wars would be nothing like a bald money-grab, instead introducing diverse, relevant characters who had style and charisma to spare.
Denver-bred director , the guy behind wrote and directed the 2017 followup, Encouragingly, that film further upended expectations at every turn and denied us — as good second acts should — easy answers and closure.
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Social media trolls would have you believe “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” were terrible movies by nature of clumsy social-justice agendas and whatever other complaints swirl in their fetid pools of toxic fandom. But overwhelmingly positive reviews and billion-dollar global box offices say otherwise. In fact, part of the reason Disney is putting Star Wars to bed after this month’s “Rise of Skywalker” is the relatively poor performance of the 2018 spin-off film which made them rethink Star Wars’ market saturation. (Notably, “Solo” delivered what the alt-right trolls were clamoring for: a white-dude protagonist.)
“The Rise of Skywalker,” however, will mirror “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” in introducing even more strong, diverse characters, including Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell) and Jannah (Naomi Ackie). That follows the enshrinement of multiple women and people of color in the canon, such as Daisy Ridley, Lupita Nyong’o, Kelly Marie Tran and Laura Dern.
At least when it comes to Star Wars, Disney deserves its galactic credits. “The Rise of Skywalker” is already tracking to earn at least $175 million to $200 million in its domestic debut over the Dec. 20-22 weekend, according to , and will likely go on to gross more than $1 billion worldwide.
Certainly, Disney doesn’t need more money, having dominated the box office this year with endless iterations of its Marvel Cinematic Universe, sequels to popular animated franchises (“Toy Story,” “Frozen”) and live-action remakes of animated hits ( ). which already feels distant but was only released in April, is currently .
Star Wars is yet another behemoth, complicated IP (or intellectual property) that Disney is steering these days, pushing through decades of resentment that linger in the franchise to create engaging and soulful new stories. Itap always been this way. Depending on whom you ask, this or that director, screenwriter or corporate overlord has been ruining or saving the Star Wars franchise, building it up or tearing it down for their own purposes.
Only you know what Star Wars means to you, whether itap a diversion, lifelong obsession, unavoidable annoyance or suffocating marketing blitz that just won’t end. As the past few years have shown, itap OK to put resilient, resonant ideas to bed — at least as an ongoing spending/pop-culture concern. They will assuredly awaken in the future.
We can only hope that whoever rips the covers off the next cycle of Star Wars films gives them the same warm welcome and hot meal they got this decade.
