We very favorably reviewed The Force Awakens when it came out. The slate was blank and the future was wide open. I think it was exciting to see new Star Wars, and in isolation, the first movie was .. good enough to get us started. We knew there were some issues but few of us expected perfection. In terms of expectations to final product, the movie delivered enough to keep us coming back.

So many people declared The Last Jedi an abomination. There was some fallout because essentially Rian Johnson was trying to take the series in a new direction. I really liked what The Last Jedi was trying to do. I think it made some missteps, focusing too much on Rey and relegating all the other new characters to an afterthought so far outside the plot that they had to tack another plot on to get them to do something. But I LIKED the idea that Rey was nobody. I liked the idea that at the end, the Force was for everybody, not just the Skywalkers. I liked the idea that after thinking about it for most of his life, Luke realized the Jedi were really kind of stupid.

The problem there is that my favorite thing they were doing with Star Wars was deconstructing Star Wars. The problem is that I’m a 50-year-old guy who saw A New Hope in the drive-in before it was called A New Hope. The problem is that I had spent 40 years thinking about Star Wars with a mind that went from the intended audience, a child, to a grownup with a perspective on the Star Wars universe that wanted depth and complexity. The adult mind didn’t want to accept that “The Jedi are the good guys because the story tells us so.” That nuance existed and light and dark aren’t the only choices in the galaxy. The complexity I was asking for resisted the idea of the Skywalkers being a magical space wizard family for no real reason. And The Last Jedi put on screen the ideas I had in my head. Rey can be a savior of the galaxy without being related to Darth Vader. The Force binds ALL living things and anyone can tap into it. Yes, Rian, you read my mind! This is what I was thinking!

But this is just for thinking about, and not for putting on screen. Deconstructing Star Wars within Star Wars starts a whole domino chain falling down. When you dwell too deeply on it and acknowledge that characters within the universe have thought the same things, the underlying theme of good vs evil, freedom vs oppression, and action heroes saving the day, all falls apart and what made it golden in the first place tarnishes.

But I thought it was bold. I really wanted to see where this would go. I had heard that Rise of Skywalker was bad, but I thought that was sour fanboys who didn’t get the movie they wanted. Since all these people complaining about it were also really down on TLJ, I thought it might be the best one for me. So I saw it with an open mind. And as I watched, it systematically undid everything TLJ had set up, and that burned every hope I had for the story. Scene after scene I felt the stupidity of the story building. And then, the future of the franchise crumbled in three words: “Somehow…. Palpatine returned”

There was no coming back from that. I came out of the theater thinking I’d seen a fan film. Which it essentially was. But it felt like a fan film by someone who neither saw the previous films nor understood what they were about.

Was it the worst movie I ever saw? No. But it was one of the biggest drops from expectation to delivery that I ever experienced.

–Chris