IT’S coming up to that time of year again. Excitement mounts, arguments occur, adults start behaving like children. Yes, it’s time for the new Star Wars movie. This one – The Last Jedi – is also known technically as Episode VIII. Mathematicians among you will know that the order of the Star Wars films is 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8.
This is because back story and forward story have been added to the original trilogy. If octology has never been a word hitherto it is now – make it so! (Oops, wrong Star series) – and, indeed, by 2019 we will have had a nonology, which doesn’t sound like much (or even a word).
You say: “Actually, big nose, this isn’t complicated enough for me. Could you not make it more so?” I can, my dear old wages-payer, I can. For episode VIII is the second in the trilogy of films commissioned by Disney, which acquired the franchise from original creator George Lucas in 2012.
The first in that trilogy, The Force Awakens, came out two years ago. Last year’s December effort, Rogue One, while endorsed by Lucas, was the first in a separate series of “Anthology” films set before events in the original Star Wars. Enough already!
I’ve seen all the recent Star Wars films at the cinema and can’t remember anything about them. Is it something to do with outer space?
The original films were utterly daft, with their risible teddy bears squeaking in the undergrowth.
Maybe you had to be there. At the time, I was so removed from society (no, madam, I was not in prison) that I didn’t see the films until years afterwards and, for an occasional sci-fi buff and full-time Lord of the Rings theologian, remained curiously unmoved by them.
Since then, Star Wars has become a whole universe unto itself, with an ersatz history and greater depth given to the characters, which is the great literary trope of our times and mostly a terrific bore.
Let the bad be bad and the good be good, I say. Just because real life is grey doesn’t mean that art and fantasy have to be, surely? Indeed, there’s been speculation that the forthcoming movie will see Rey become a “Grey Jedi”, straddling a fine line in the Force – ken? – between light and dark.
That would be a shame and, indeed, the atmosphere in this latest offering is said to be darker, which is the way of all art as it matures. Episode IX, Star Wars: Nae Hope.
Luckily, the droids will remain dense and lack complexity of (or any) character, which will help the action enormously.
And, at any rate, anything that has the imprimatur of Disney upon it is good enough for me. Indeed, I’d rather Walt Disney had been God rather than, you know, Yahoo or whatever the proper one we’ve got is called.
Short of my uninformed guesswork, trailers and teasers have shown the usual stuff flying aboot real fast, folk running with their fingers held vertically (as they always do in movies), and naebody cracking a smile. So, it’s pretty much a new movie based on all the old movies, which is how folk like it.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens in cinemas across Scotland on Thursday.
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