Every time I hear, from Disney or Lucafilm or any other source, that “Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker” is the conclusion of the “Skywalker Saga” it throws me off a little bit. Because I just can’t make myself understand how this movie is going to be the end of a story. I don’t feel the excitement that I should about the impending climax of a story I’ve watched unfold over my entire lifetime.
How could I? Even now that the final trailer has been released, you’d be hard pressed to find anything that feels like the first two entries in this new trilogy moved things toward some big finale. And frankly, it’s impossible to watch the previous eight numbered “Star Wars” movies and think, “Yes, the next one could be the end of the story” without being told it is. You’d simply never come to that conclusion on your own.
Here’s what we know about “Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker”: The characters who survived the last movie will be in it. Even though he’s dead, Luke Skywalker will pop up, probably as a Force ghost. Emperor Palpatine will be there, even though he also is dead. Lando is coming back too, but I don’t think he has died yet. Our heroes will go to a desert planet, and it may or may not be one we’ve seen before. There is a place where giant icebergs float in the sky. It looks like C-3PO is going to sacrifice himself for some reason, judging from his “taking one last look, sir, at my friends” line. The resistance — sorry, we mean the Rebellion — somehow acquires a huge new fleet. Our heroes are also gonna go to where some Death Star wreckage is. And Rey is gonna use a janky new foldable lightsaber while looking evil.
What we don’t know is what anybody is actually trying to do in this movie. We don’t know the central plot beyond “good guys fight bad guys and probably there will be a twist.”
And looking back on the previous two films in this trilogy, “The Force Awakens” basically remixes “A New Hope” without actually explaining anything about the universe 30 years after “Return of the Jedi.” And nothing about “The Last Jedi” says “we’re nearing the end of this epic” — it actually plays more like the tragic end of a trilogy than a middle chapter.
It was basically the same ending “Revenge of the Sith” had — the bad guys won, the good guys have lost almost everything, and the hope for the future rests with children. But in the case of “Revenge of the Sith,” the story was leading into an 18-year time skip between the prequels and the original trilogy. In the case of “The Last Jedi,” the story was apparently supposed to be setting up the climax of the whole Saga, but there aren’t any leftover threads to pick up. The resistance is gone. The First Order is in control of everything. And for some reason, it was plainly stated that none of the things we were expressly or implicitly told would be a Big Deal in this new trilogy mattered at all. “Let the past die” and all that.
Beyond just the bad guys still being out there, there’s nothing we can infer from the previous films about where this whole thing is going. Ask yourself, if you hadn’t been told that the end of everything related to the story that began in 1977 was imminent, would you really be expecting it? Given the way “The Last Jedi” set the galaxy back into more or less the state it was between the prequels and the original trilogy, it would make much more sense to assume that Episodes X through XII would eventually be on the way, with “The Rise of Skywalker” setting up a big new story arc.
This whole situation reminds me of the marketing campaign for “Transformers: The Last Knight,” the fifth of the Michael Bay series, which awkwardly and out of nowhere claimed the movie would be “the final chapter” and encouraged fans to “find out how it all ends.” It was a weird direction for that film’s marketing because nothing about the trajectory of the franchise indicated “The Last Knight” would be the last main series “Transformers” movie. And the film itself directly contradicted that idea, ending with a cliffhanger that explicitly teased another sequel.
It makes me wonder when exactly they decided to end the saga here and fully embrace the shared universe thing with the slated Rian Johnson trilogy and whatever it is “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and DB Weiss are doing. The first instance I can find of a declaration that “Episode IX” would wrap up the main series comes from JJ Abrams back in 2017.
Speaking with Rolling Stone, Abrams said that he saw the then-untitled “Episode IX” as the end of the saga, adding the caveat that “the future is in flux” — meaning that was not an official statement on the matter. The confirmation came during the summer of 2018 in the press release revealing the new cast members of the film. It casually referred to the movie as “the final installment of the Skywalker saga” in the first paragraph.
The timing of that official declaration is interesting, coming two months after “Solo: A Star Wars” story became the first box office failure in the franchise’s history. That development no doubt sparked some major internal evaluation of the direction of the franchise. And then this year, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the theatrical portion of the franchise would take a hiatus after “The Rise of Skywalker,” a decision that I can’t help but think was at least partially inspired by the failure of “Solo.”
Whatever the reason, it doesn’t feel… correct that we’re only two months away from the end of this series of movies that has stretched on for so long. Sure, there is plenty of anticipation for “The Rise of Skywalker,” but it’s not thattype of anticipation. It’s just the normal excitement for a new big “Star Wars” movie where we’re gonna see Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams and the late Carrie Fisher. It’s inherently a major pop culture event.
But if this is the end then it should feel like more than that. But it doesn’t. And that’s weird.
15 Best Stories Ever Told in the 'Star Wars' Universe (Photos)
With 40 years of movies, TV shows, comics, video games, novels and reference books, you'd be hard-pressed to ever run out of stories to read about the "Star Wars" universe, past and present. It's a big universe out there, and every story told in it is connected to all the others. Big stories are told as many different smaller ones, and small stories are told as chunks of a bigger picture.
These are the best chunks, big or small, in the history of the "Star Wars" universe.
15. The Rise of Admiral Daala in the "Jedi Academy Trilogy"
After "Return of the Jedi" in the version of the "Star Wars" continuity before Disney bought Lucasfilm, the Empire fractured into a bunch of splinter governments led by self-proclaimed rulers who would make up new titles for themselves like "high admiral" or "warlord" while still maintaining the pretense of Imperial legitimacy. Daala (a woman!) decided to try to bring it back together, and eventually was able to do so -- for a short time at least. Her brilliant machinations were a compelling as hell tale, and one of author Kevin J Anderson's only good contributions to "Star Wars" lore.
14. The Black Fleet Crisis
This is not referring to the "Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy" as a whole, since two of the three main narrative arcs in those books are unrelated to the event in "Star Wars" lore known as the Black Fleet Crisis.
The Crisis is great because it's the sort of cool scifi story that checks a lot of boxes simultaneously. In particular: unknowable alien force you've never heard of, weird galactic political intrigue with lots of backstabs from said alien force, and a grand mystery regarding how those aliens came to power in the first place. It's a really interesting scenario.
13. Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice
The "Star Wars" universe is full of stories about good apprentices going bad and wreaking havoc on the good guys, but we've very rarely gotten the inverse. That made "The Force Unleashed" a really novel experience. You play as Darth Vader's secret apprentice in the years between the original and prequel trilogies. You're a dark side force user and soldier for the Empire who goes rogue in a really epic way.
12. "X-Wing Alliance"
You're Ace, and you work for your family shipping company. You fly a freighter doing pretty boring things, until your dad's sympathies for the Rebel Alliance come back to bite the whole family in the ass.
You know how this goes: the Empire brings the hammer down, you join the Rebellion as a fighter pilot. But maybe the entire family isn't on board with facing down the Empire. This is the only "Star Wars" space combat simulator that gives you a personal story, and it turned out to be a great idea.
11. Admiral Thrawn
Not specifically thinking of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy here, but the story of Thrawn's life as a whole and his lasting legacy in the Expanded Universe. This guy was such a genius that even a decade after his death the plans he'd laid out were threatening to tear apart the fledgling New Republic. His fingerprints are everywhere.
10. The Battle of Borleaias
Late in the "New Jedi Order," famed Rebel hero Wedge Antilles is charged with holding the planet Borleias from the Yuuzhan Vong, and it's one hell of a thing. Massively outgunned, Wedge pulls a whole lot of seat-of-your-pants gambits out of his ass -- and this pair of books, authored by the late fan favorite Aaron Allston, is full of great and witty dialogue of the sort you just never got from other "Star Wars" authors.
9. Wedge and Friends Go to Adumar
As the war against the Empire winds down, Rebel hero Wedge Antilles and pals Tycho, Hobbie and Janso, are sent as diplomats to a newly discovered planet full of people who pretty don't give a shit about anyone who isn't a fighter pilot. If that sounds like a sitcom scenario, that's because it basically is. And it's great, incessantly funny and very awkward -- a great little side story that's as witty as they get in this universe.
8. Wraith Squadron
The story of the Wraiths, told over three books, is unique among "Star Wars" stories in a lot of ways. It follows famed Rebel pilot Wedge Antilles as he assembles a hybrid starfighter/footsoldier squadron of emotionally unstable washouts -- the idea being that such a group, when given some operational leeway, might approach apparently normal war scenarios in really unpredictable ways, and that's exactly what happens. It's the most human of all the "Star Wars" stories, full of truth.
7. The Tale of the Imperial Agent in "The Old Republic"
Many of the most interesting "Star Wars" stories are those that focus on characters who can't use the Force, and this is one of those. You play as a spy for the Sith Empire (thousands of years before the movies), doing awesome wartime spy stuff. And you get caught up in a galactic conspiracy to destroy both the Republic and Empire -- by a secret society tired of Force-using factions starting all these galaxy-spanning wars. It's a compelling-as-hell hook.
6. The Rise and Fall and Rise of Revan
Thousands of years before the movies, Revan was a Jedi who led the Republic military against invading Mandalorians -- only to turn to the dark side and wage his own war on the Republic, before turning away from the dark and defeating his own armies. That's the very short, very incomplete version. The story of Revan is thoroughly fascinating and ends up lasting hundreds of years across two video games ("Knights of the Old Republic) and a pile of books and comics.
5. The Jabba's Palace Heist in "Return of the Jedi"
It's become clear in the last few years that a lot of folks never really got what Luke, Leia, Lando and Chewie were doing during the first portion of "Return of the Jedi" -- and now we have all these thinkpieces about how it was reckless and haphazard. But no, that shit was an impeccable heist. They had a plan, and they pulled it off flawlessly and in style.
4. The Dark Wars
This story was told in the video game "Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords" -- a former Jedi who was exiled from the Order returns to known space only to find the Jedi gone from civilization and a pair of mysterious Sith lords wreaking havoc all over. It's a rare "Star Wars" noir story, and it's quite a doozy.
3. "Traitor"
In the '90s the "Star Wars" Expanded Universe got really moralistic and stuffy, and "Traitor" was a total refutation of that approach. It's the darkest "Star Wars" story ever written, but it serves a positive agenda in the end: one that asserts that maybe the Force isn't black and white and the Jedi don't need to stand around wondering about the moral implications of every little thing they do. It was a really great change for storytelling in the EU, and it's nice that it appears "The Last Jedi" might take a similar patch.
2. "Star Wars"
The one that started it all is a silly, not-particularly-well-thought-out movie, but it's tight as hell and covers all the ground it needs to. It establishes a completely new universe so casually, making it feel from the very beginning that this is a real, lived-in place. Everything you need to know about what's going on is right there.
1. "The Empire Strikes Back"
The lesson J.J. Abrams and friends should have learned from "The Empire Strikes Back" widely considered the best "Star Wars" movie, is that you don't make a"Star Wars" movie that stands the test of time by aping previous ones -- you have to go somewhere new. "Empire" functions as a total counter to the first movie, and that's why it's a perfect sequel.
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There are more ”Star Wars“ stories than even you can imagine, even if you think you can imagine quite a bit. These are the best ones
With 40 years of movies, TV shows, comics, video games, novels and reference books, you'd be hard-pressed to ever run out of stories to read about the "Star Wars" universe, past and present. It's a big universe out there, and every story told in it is connected to all the others. Big stories are told as many different smaller ones, and small stories are told as chunks of a bigger picture.
These are the best chunks, big or small, in the history of the "Star Wars" universe.
