Star Wars creator George Lucas had declared upon the release of Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith that the Skywalker Saga was complete. From “The Phantom Menace” all the way to “Return of the Jedi”, the story of the rise and fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker a.k.a Darth Vader was told. While back in the day, after the release of the original Star Wars movie, Lucas had stated that he envisaged the story to consist of nine parts, he had changed his mind by 2005.
When Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney a decade later, he did so believing that he would get to write the stories, if not the screenplays, of the sequel trilogy and in fact had prepared treatments for those movies. Sadly, Kathleen Kennedy - whom Lucas had recommended as CEO - rejected his ideas and laid out a “plan” where a different director would helm the three sequel movies.
Director J.J. Abrams, conscious of the negativity towards the Star Wars prequels, delivered “The Force Awakens” as a soft reboot of the original Star Wars movie. Thirty years after “Return of the Jedi”, somehow the Jedi never returned and remained the stuff of legend. Although the New Republic ruled the galaxy, they were threatened by The New Order - basically The Empire reborn - which the Resistance were… erm… resisting. Though it made little sense it was the Resistance and not the New Republic that was at war with The New Order but there you go. In every other respect, almost beat for beat, “The Force Awakens” mimicked the plot of “A New Hope”. Although George Lucas himself expressed disappointment, the movie was a box office triumph based purely on fan-service and nostalgia alone.
The fact that there was no cohesive design amongst the sequel movies was made painfully evident with “The Last Jedi” whereupon director Rian Johnson proceeded to tear up everything that J.J. Abrams had established with the first movie! It was jarring but worse still, Johnson was hellbent on destroying the character of Luke Skywalker. Skywalker was a coward who had deserted his sister and his friends in their hour of need and had given up on the very concept of the Jedi. Whereas the first six movies were centred on the Skywalker family, Johnson posited that the Skywalker family was unimportant, and that anybody could be “The Chosen One”.
Although “The Last Jedi” was still a box office hit, there was a fan backlash to Johnson’s portrayal of Luke and the Jedi. This backlash led to the Solo movie flopping in the aftermath of the negative fan reaction to “The Last Jedi”. This spooked Disney so much that they sacked Colin Trevorrow, slated to direct the final sequel movie, and replaced him with J.J. Abrams, who then set about course-correcting “The Last Jedi” with “The Rise of Skywalker”. Now, Johnson had killed off Snoke, the big bad guy from the first movie, and had Kylo Ren declaring himself the Supreme Leader of the First Order! So was Kylo the big bad guy now? That seemed untenable to Abrams and Disney and their solution was to resurrect Emperor Palpatine as a zombie-field clone!
So, think about this. Remember how Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) sacrificed himself to rid the galaxy of the evil Palpatine and bring balance to the Force. Well, Abrams decided to undo all that! Palpatine has been reborn and in fact is the power behind Snoke and the First Order! In other words, the first six movies achieved absolutely nothing! Anakin’s sacrifice was for nothing, Luke never restored the Jedi to former glories, and the status quo returned after 30 years! What a slap in the face of George Lucas and all diehard Star Wars fans.