The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy Suffered From the Same Fatal Flaw as Lost
Overall I enjoyed the Sequel Trilogy, especially The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. They felt like Star Wars, brought something new to the franchise and showcased some incredible actors. However The Rise of Skywalker was a disappointment that highlights the fundamental flaw of the trilogy as a whole. It’s a flaw that is shared by Lost, a TV show that also started strong and then ended in disappointment.
After reading and watching interviews with the creators of Lost, specifically JJ Abrams and Damon Lindeloff, it’s clear to me that the writers created a show shrouded in mystery, without a clear understanding of what those mysteries were. By the time the series ended many of us were disappointed in all of the crazy twists and turns that led to generally unsatisfying answers to central questions of the series. To be fair, creating a show built around mysteries for six seasons at 16 to 22 episodes a piece is nearly impossible.
Mr Robot managed to pull off creating an excellent show that was also built around several mysteries, but with only four seasons of 10 to 13 episodes apiece. The main reason why Mr Robot succeeded where Lost failed is that Sam Esmail, the show’s creator, knew the answers before he presented the audience with the corresponding questions.
In The Force Awakens, JJ Abrams introduced several mysterious elements into the Star Wars universe: who were Rey’s parents, who is Snoke and what is his endgame, and will Kylo Ren (née Ben Solo) turn back to the light? Then he handed the baton to Rian Johnson who was given free reign to answer those questions however he saw fit.
RJ then rejected the hereditary nature of the Force by revealing that Rey’s parents were nobodies and that the Force can be wielded by anyone. He apparently didn’t think much of Snoke as Kylo Ren unceremoniously kills him off to become the de facto leader of the First Order, with no hints as to the character’s origin or plan. My take is that RJ meant this as a statement that Kylo Ren had squashed his internal struggle and was now firmly on team Dark Side.
After Colin Trevorrow was pulled as the original director of Episode IX, Lucasfilm brought JJ back to helm the ultimate film of the trilogy. What’s clear is that JJ didn’t like the direction that RJ took in The Last Jedi, and tried to steer it back to his original vision. My guess is that JJ thought that RJ’s film didn’t “feel” enough like Star Wars and decided to steer the ship back in the direction of the Original Trilogy.
The biggest problem with the story JJ picked up is that Snoke was dead. Lucas had redeemed Anakin and JJ wanted to redeem Ben, but for Ben to turn back to the light he needed to turn against a true villain the way that Vader had turned against Palpatine. This lead to Palps’ resurrection to serve as Rise of Skywalker’s big bad. The film never explains how Palpatine survived and his reintroduction, as well as that of his galaxy-threatening out-of-nowhere fleet of Star Destroyers, feels like a hard right turn from where the previous two films were going.
Then there was the matter of Rey’s parentage. JJ wanted to make the reveal of Rey’s lineage a shock the way that Luke’s was. It was time to reestablished the hereditary nature of the Force from the Original Trilogy (“the Force is strong in my family”) and reject RJ’s “anyone can cook” philosophy.
But because the story was developed on the fly and not properly planned from the outset, none of these developments feel consistent and don’t provide a proper payoff for the audience. Luke’s father is mentioned several times in A New Hope before Vader reveals who he is in Empire. Emperor Palpatine is foreshadowed several times throughout that trilogy before his ominous reveal 38 minutes into the final film of it. Even the revelation of Leia being Luke’s sister in Jedi is the payoff of Yoda’s under-his-breath line “no, there is another” in Empire.
Fortunately I’m hopeful for the future of the franchise. The Mandalorian has proven to be much more effective in providing satisfying answers to the questions it poses. The overarching story of the show has all of the hallmarks of a narrative that is properly planned out and overall it feels of a piece with the Original Trilogy.
To that I credit Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni for learning the lesson of Lost better than JJ Abrams did.
