A New Decade Resolution: Don’t End Up Like the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Editor’s Note: This contains minor spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. It does not give anything away about the new decade.
Life is not a movie. We can’t script it out or direct others to act the way we would like. There are no reshoots or overdubs or editing magic we can do to clean up our messes and move our personal narrative along at a clip that keeps others interested in us. In life, we have to aim our X-wing toward the trench, throw a little faith toward the Force and trust that our skills and charm will win the day.
As we begin this new year and new decade, most of us are going to be in the midst of taking stock of our lives thus far and the year/decade that just was. And though life can never be a perfectly packaged film, we can make plans to live the next decade with some sort of clarity and purpose. Making plans of this nature is the default human setting unless you’re a sociopath, a nihilist, or Kathleen Kennedy.
When it comes to Star Wars films, I prefer the original trilogy. Why wouldn’t I? Those three films are the best of the nine movies. They have the most interesting characters who are easy to invest our emotions in and project our desires on and imagine we are more like them. I’d much rather pretend to be the Imperial Guards—silent, prepared, and dressed to the nines—than Finn—loud, reckless, and dressed in someone else’s jacket. Other than the characters we know from the original trilogy, I struggle to name more than three characters from the prequels, and I have no desire to be any of them. (Though, I would love to be Natalie Portman. She’s intelligent and beautiful and probably has a professional clean her house every week. (See what I did there with the “professional cleaner” thing? Portman fans, you get it.))
Look at those cool mofos on the left. This guy on the right has yet again put himself and others in danger when his attempted heroics were not needed. Rey can take care of herself, Finn. She’s a Jedi. Relax.
The prequels are fine. They’re not good but they have some fun and interesting moments when they’re not boring us with civics lessons or confusing us with hyperactive lightsaber battles. I don’t hate the sequels either. The Force Awakens is good enough because it’s A New Hope for today’s moviegoers. It also gives us a glimpse at what our beloved O.G. characters have been up to the last twenty years. The Rise of Skywalker was fine. More fine than the prequels. It’s the best film of this sequel trilogy. And though it has a lot of flaws, it did a great job closing out the mess of a story it was given. The Last Jedi, on the other hand, is crap. And it’s a major reason my new decade resolution is to keep my life from ending up like the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
The original Star Wars trilogy had a clear path. There is a beginning, middle, and end, and throughout, the characters grow and evolve naturally. When watching the original trilogy, we don’t see Han, Luke, Leia, Chewie, et. al. making choices and saying things because the script told them to. It doesn’t feel like they’re there to serve a higher plot. They are subject to their situations, be they situations of their own making—Han’s debt to Jabba the Hut—or those put upon them—the vast power of the Empire. When you look at each film on its own as well as a whole trilogy, arc is obvious and organic. The conclusion feels right, sensical, and absolute.
The prequels had it easy. All they had to do was show us a young Obi-Wan Kenobe training Anakin Skywalker then let us see Anakin make the choice to go to the Dark Side. We got that. The prequels showed us that Anakin’s struggle was real, even if the struggle could have been written, directed, and acted a bit better.
The latest Star Wars trilogy is a mess. Yes, they’re fun movies—even Last Jedi—because at the end of the day, they’re Star Wars movies. We like lasers and spaceships and Force powers. Where they fail and fall apart is that there was no reason for them. The Skywalker Saga ended in Return of the Jedi. Luke becomes a Jedi, he turns Vader back to the Light, the Emperor is destroyed and the Galactic Empire falls. There are always more stories when one ends, of course. And there’s plenty in the Star Wars canon that tells those stories. Did we need the story of Rey and Kylo Ren? I don’t think so. But we got it. And that’s fine. Because in life, we’re given things we don’t always need, much less want.
The sequel trilogy is pure nihilism.
At some point in the next decade, we’re all going to face the unexpected. We’ll face the unwarranted and the unwanted. We’ll face hardships—those ugly moments that challenge us, test us, press us to our absolute end. I faced those plenty over the last decade and several times I failed the test and the pressure broke me. I’ve learned from them, as we all must learn from the experiences as they move from present to past. But we’ll also face the wonderful and the magnificent in the next decade. We’ll face wins—those incredible moments that lift us up, reward us, reaffirm our purpose in this life. The goal, obviously, is to have more wins than hardships, but we can’t control that. We can, however, prepare for it. And we can do so with an eye on the future rather than a lazy eye on the past.
Disney and Kathleen Kennedy did not prepare for the Star Wars sequel trilogy. That’s why we got The Last Jedi with its odd character choices, pointless quests, and eraser dust over everything that might have maybe been set up in The Force Awakens. Had they had a plan, we would have seen character growth from more than just Rey and Ren. We would have seen a conclusion to an interesting saga that didn’t leave us—or maybe it’s just me—feeling underwhelmed because nothing matters. The Emperor dying doesn’t matter. Stopping his evil plan doesn’t matter. He was killed and stopped in the original trilogy. Other than Disney telling us, we now have no reason to believe that this is the end of the Skywalker Saga. Or Emperor Palpatine. The sequel trilogy is pure nihilism.
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I’ve never lived my life by a spreadsheet. Where do I see myself in five years, ten years? Fuck off. Getting too prescriptive can be detrimental. No scripts. Outlines only. This is where Emperor Palpatine failed—twice. He planned everything to the last detail, he “foresaw” all of it. Except, apparently, where he lost—twice. What does this new decade hold for me? More of the same but adjusted for scale is what I’m outlining. Unlike the Jedi, I crave adventure and excitement. And unlike Disney and the sequel trilogy, and Laura Dern’s McGuffin of a character in The Last Jedi, I’m not setting off to blow right through a bunch of shit for the sake of a big, fancy, jaw-dropping moment.
This decade is not going to be a cash grab, though I aim to make and save good money. This decade is not going to be me collecting a random smattering of characters, though I aim to make new friends and foster the friendships I have now. This decade is not going to be me drudging up the past and repackaging it as something new and amazing, though I aim to write about things that have happened.
My new decade resolution is to be a better David Himmel. And if I can’t be better, I resolve to at least be a good David Himmel. That’s much more than the Star Wars sequel trilogy did because the Star Wars sequel trilogy isn’t all that good.
My new decade resolution is to not end up a mess like the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
