Solo's under-performance in theaters forces creators and fans of Star Wars alike to question why. With four movies by Disney-owned Lucasfilm out over three years, many theorize they've simply over-saturated the fans--too much of a good thing over too short of a time.
While it did release at a different time of year than the previous three movies, that alone cannot explain Solo's under-performance.
Hmm... Avengers: Infinity War came out recently, but not the same weekend, so that's not it.
Star Wars fans consume fanfiction, official fiction, and video games. They bought EA's Battlefront 2 just for a scrap of new lore. They bought another blue ray release of Episodes 4, 5, and 6 with less special effects just to see the "pure" original versions. They bought the new canon books just to have better context for 7. So saturation seems an unlikely explanation.
Even with other franchises, saturation seems not a problem. The Marvel cinematic universe contains 20+ films over 15-ish years and Infinity Wars continues to profit. Wonder Woman, despite coming out after other disappointing DC live action films, profited greatly. No one blames Disney animated features for over-saturating the animation market. The Star Wars franchise doesn't even have the problem of superhero saturation that Marvel and DC deal with, so what's the issue?
In my opinion, the inconsistent style and tone of the newer Star Wars films explains the under-performance of Solo better than fatigue. For starters, Force Awakens began a trend towards realism in the writing and acting, while keeping the content of a mythic space western. It attempts to portray the stormtroopers as effective killers and terrifying antagonists who unfortunately fail to kill every named character. On top of that, the protagonists smile and joke while avoiding the troopers. Like other Star Wars films, we have another big bad guy who is unsurprisingly related to the heroes of the story and who murders, yet the movie expects the audience to pity his feeling caught between light and dark. This happens even though, just like Vader, his actions show him as "dark" more than "light." The new Star Wars crew seems to want desperately to include the most intriguing traits of both Anakin and Darth Vader, but they just can't do the same things with a character like Kylo. I mean, Kylo's personality is so mismatched with Vader and his "special powers" undercut every potentially intriguing aspect of his character. Lost potential, I'd say.
With that, Kylo and Rey both break the previously established rules on using the Force, which is ghastly if you want any semblance of continuity in the Star Wars universe. For example, typically, undisciplined and/or unlearned Force users can only utilize minor passive powers, like crude pushing of objects. In the case of the new movies, Kylo being undisciplined and Rey being unlearned, neither of the two should be able to use mind reading or freezing blaster bolts, which require mastery and specificity. However, they are somehow able to defy previously established laws of the Force. And without holding to the rules created for this universe in the previous movies, audience acceptance of the fantastic dwindles fast.
Also, in Rogue One, the style, tone, and writing try to create a complete tragedy with characters who slowly realize their own demise, yet the rushed beginning, callbacks, and "comedy" push the movie from feeling a complete tragedy. Rogue One renounces the realism of Episode 7 for a feeling similar to an opera, yet gives such an overwhelming sense of insignificance that it fails to resemble the other movies at all.
Then, Episode 8 leaned away from the non-realism of Rogue One and instead used realism not as a part of the story, but as a lens for the whole story, attempting to deconstruct the expectations and tropes of the epic fantasy that happened in previous Star Wars entries. Episode 8 refuses to follow the tropes of the original trilogy and sets itself apart from Episode 7 by way of a dismissive tone towards the nostalgia and wonder of all previous Star Wars movies. The latest installment in the new trilogy also attempts to give more of a hard sci-fi tone to the tech, but every time the series leans more to realism, the whole universe cracks more and shines less. The movies still feature cool over-the-top sequences and surprising victories that come from behind, but never feel as valuable or central as the plot and character moments of the original six movies.
These new Star Wars films attempt to copy the basic concepts of its predecessors with no attention to the context or lore that the first six movies gave. Both the original and prequel trilogy contain grand plots that drive characters to great action; they feature operatic, emotional individuals fighting for the fate of the universe. The effects flesh out a world beyond the story this film tells. The context feels mythic as does the plot and characters. An audience doesn't question the logistics of space travel or galactic economics for a planet destroying space station when these films establish themselves as fantasy through the writing and dressing of the world and characters. The new films, on the other hand, can't choose the style and tone they want from one film to the next, and as a result, completely lose that special Star Wars magic.
From both the decided ignorance of the original style and the massive shifts in writing and tonal consistency between three movies, the new Star Wars movies fail to recapture the spirit of the films their titles stem from. Their vague appreciation of the series clearly shows in the production budget and recycled ideas, but no matter how many new Death Stars or rogue Jedi in black masks the new films feature, it still falls flat without the non-realism, mythic, epic fantasy context that defined Star Wars.--Rozlynd
(Ed. by Corey)
No comments:
Post a Comment