9 Greatest Absurdities of Disney's Star Wars Trilogy
Wait, what I just watched made no sense. Star Wars have closed the third trilogy and it's high time to ask if all that we've seen holds any water.
Table of Contents
Let's start with the facts. Disney acquired the rights to the Star Wars brand in 2012 for $4.05 billion. Three years later, The Force Awakens hit the box office, earning more than $2 billion. Then, there was Rogue 1, The Last Jedi and Solo. Now, cinemas show episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. Disney has achieved return on investment quite a while ago. The first four films made $4.8 billion in theaters alone. Add to that Blue Rays, streaming, and books (Disney canceled Expanded Universe, but it's still making money), t-shirts, lunchboxes... Hence, a total financial success. The question is, has the new trilogy earned the recognition of the audience?
HEY, MARTIN, WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?
I recently argued in a text that Disney did the right thing by cancelling the Expanded Universe. I genuinely think that even the best books created in it were average at best, and it was just messy. However, I mentioned in the same article that the direction taken by Disney did not seem right to me. Today, after watching the final, I can say that I was right. It's bad.
DO YOU EVEN LIKE STAR WARS?
I love Star Wars. I know the old trilogy almost by heart, I love the sequels (I acknowledge their shortcomings, but I love them so much), and, above all, I love the coherent whole, the story of the bad Palpatinie and the lost Anakin.
I will analyze the entire new trilogy, everyone has their opinion about it. I will name, however, nine of the biggest absurdities, that really make evaluating those films difficult. It's hard to believe the vision behind them.
SPOILERS
Yes, there are spoilers in the text. I have taken a chronological approach, so I begin with the Awakening, which spans the first three pages. The next three are about the Last Jedi. If you haven't seen Skywalker please stay away from the last three. There, you've been warned Awesome, let's get going.
The First Order appears out of nowhere
ATTENTION, SPOILERS
The Force Awakens
Do we remember? The Return of the Jedi, the second Death Star, no Emperor, no Vader. The power structure based on fear crumbles (I already compared the Emperor to Stalin). The Rebellion is still weak, the Empire is still strong (dozens of fleets, hundreds of divisions, administration, etc.) and thousands of star systems that don't like the Empire. We can assume that, seeing the great success of the Rebellion, some will join it, and create a New Republic, which, after all, is what this conflict is all about. The Empire will probably struggle with change and with itself (filling the power vacuum after Palpatine) for some time to come. It would be logical, and the war could last a long time and end in different ways.
It takes 30 Earth years. There's no trace of the Empire, the rebellion has changed its name and is fighting the First Order, and the New Republic watches from the sidelines like it didn't care. What happened along the way? Did the Alliance quarrel with this new entity? Has the Empire been reformed?
The First Order inherits white armors, more or less triangular ships, and a passion for giant battle stations from the Empire. But if this is the remnants of Empire, then why is everything new? After the fall and the long war with The New Republic, the heirs of the Empire would presumably be short on the dough, yet their every soldier has a brand new helmet and every ship's bridge is flatter. Palpatine, creating his army and Navy, had the resources of the Republic, and the First Order? It could be explained – the real absurdity is that no one even tried.
