Better reviewers than I have summarised 2016 and Rogue
One. My rating of 2016 has been poor
from a personal level, Things Happened which knocked me down. Like a mid-90s anarchist punk song, I [tried]
to get back up again. Everyone seems to
agree that 2016 was a sad year for deaths, the [increased] rise of the far
right and further instability for security.
They also tend to agree Rogue One was pretty great.
Let’s be right about this, Star Wars has always been a continuum. It didn’t end in 1983, it continued with the
various novels and comic books and the adventures I created with my hand-me-down
action figures in my Granny’s front room.
I’m not keen on the narrative that Star Wars ‘came back’ in
1999 and it was crap, and then ‘came back’ in 2015 and it was ace. Because, for all it’s flaws, Lucas was trying
to expand the universe of Star Wars with the Phantom Menace, he tried to show
us a different world to that of the sterile Empire. He tried to introduce the Jedi council, not
the disparate Jedis in hiding in deserts and swamps. He tried to set up the dawn of a new
character arc for Anakin Skywalker. He obviously
failed, because Phantom Menace is an incredibly flawed film, like a stuttering
lightsabre trying it’s best to vzzz and
vuummm.
By contrast, 2015’s The Force Awakens is a riotous romp, but
recycles a huge amount of materials it’s hard to differentiate the references
from the tributes. There are so many
nods to the other 6 films it’s like a vigorous head shake. But it’s forgivable because it’s fun, frantic
and funny. It’s everything Star Wars
should be, heroes vs. baddies in SPACE.
So what is the worst Star Wars film? Attack of The Clones of course, because even
though Lucas failed to craft a decent film with The Phantom Menace, he had the
chance to rescript, recast and pass the baton to another director, as he did
for Empire Strikes Back. As it stands,
he did not and we are left with another outing of CGI nonsense and lacklustre
plot.
Even though the previous instalment was rubbish, he didn’t
learn his lesson.
That’s why The Force Awakens tried to play it safe with
familiarity. And though chronologically
Rogue One comes before The Force Awakens in the Star Wars story, clearly the
2016 is a contextual ‘sequel’ to 2015 film and Gareth Edwards toned down the
references and nods (though still there) to try and explore a new (old) world
under the surface of smugglers, traitors, saboteurs, assassins and rebels and
not the force-wielding samurai of the other films.
And that is why, if we consider 2017 a sequel to 2016, we
must take the past and make it better.
Each year we inevitably say:
“Have a happy and peaceful 2017” and wish each other the best, but all
years have negatives and positives, with the remnants of the old year, whether
good or bad, still clinging to the hull.
Creating our own sequel is hard, we cannot erase the past, and we cannot
erase the right-wing victories and rise of fascism that will bleed into this
year. But we also have the opportunity
to rethink this 2017 as we always rethink a sequel.
Let’s make 2017 neither Attack of The Clones, nor even The
Force Awakens. Although not perfect, let’s
make it the Rogue One of the 2010s.
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