Does the Star Wars Franchise Already Need a Reboot?

There's been a rumor floating around for weeks now that Kathleen Kennedy, George Lucas's hand-picked successor for head of Lucasfilm, is out at Disney. Whether she is stepping down or is being removed is all part of the scuttlebutt, but the speculation is rampant.

While some are saying "they wouldn't fire her just because of Solo!", those people ignore the bigger picture. Whereas Kevin Feige's Marvel Universe has had a nearly perfect score (taking the first two middling Thor films aside), the Star Wars films have only had one slam dunk with both critics and audiences, and that was The Force Awakens. The other three have all faced some sort of blowback.

Anyone will tell you that fundamentals are what drive consistent performance, and with this franchise, they are just not there.

The Last Jedi: A Fractured Fable

**There are nothing but spoilers in this review.**

Definitely the most badass poster since ROTJ

In the closing moments of The Last Jedi, there is a wistful moment where the entire franchise’s lynchpin character gazes out over the horizon in the fading sunlight and remembers where he started from. You can sense how much the turmoil over his life has consumed him, and how he has finally found peace. It is a deep and meaningful moment in a movie that can’t decide if ‘deep and meaningful’  is what it wants to be. Does the new trilogy want to commit itself to forging out in new directions that the first trilogy blazed for films to come? Or does it seek to replicate the action-film paint-by-numbers cacophony of last year’s Rogue One in all its superficiality and inauthenticity?

A Beloved Franchise Goes Rogue

Twelve months ago, I entered a movie theater with anxious, but cautious, anticipation for the first installment in a new era of Star Wars films. JJ Abrams rewarded this anticipation with an exceptional piece of entertainment that also just so happens to be an excellent Star Wars flick.

Fast forward to this week, when I sat down for the first foray into a new realm of Star Wars entertainment, one the diverges from the episodic format of all the prior films, though still telling a story familiar to anyone who knows the universe even remotely. Reports of reshoots heightened the similarly cautious optimism that I felt and made me worry this may not live up to the example set the year before.

Was I wrong to worry?

My Love Letter to JJ Abrams

Dear JJ,

Four years ago, you made a film that showed such tremendous potential, it was nearly heartbreaking. Super 8 provided one hour of nostalgic, pure and euphoric entertainment before devolving into an hour of mind-numbing contemporary Hollywood monster movie theatrics. Had the full film lived up to the promise of that first hour – oh, what could have been!

Of course there are spoilers, silly!!

So when I heard it announced that you had accepted the role of writing and directing Episode VII despite your very legitimate reservations about the franchise’s cultural significance, my heart leapt with possibility. Sadly, in the intervening timeframe, I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness and possibility turned to panic. But I remained optimistic nonetheless, as it certainly couldn’t be worse than the prequels…

Could it..?