Happy Star Wars Day, everybody! May the Fourth Be With You!
This is the first installment of a new series – “What Went Wrong?” – in which I explore different failures within the world of communication, primarily in film, to see what we can glean from them. Today we lay our sights on last December’s “Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker.”
The journey of the Star Wars sequel trilogy has been a strange one. “The Force Awakens”, directed by J.J. Abrams, exploded onto the big screen in 2015, becoming (at the time) the fastest film to earn a billion dollars, only the 3rd film in history to earn two billion dollars and it remains the 4th highest grossing film of all time. (10th when accounting for inflation) Calculations by Deadline Hollywood held it as the most profitable film of the last seven years.
While there was some debate regarding the retreading of past motifs, critical reception was glowing and, while not all fans were happy, response seemed to remain fairly excited and united. That era of peace in the galactic fan community would not last long.
Two years later, writer/director Rian Johnson released “The Last Jedi.” Critical reception remained great, even better than the previous film. But backlash amongst segments of fans exploded the internet into a veritable fandom war-zone. In the end, it earned only $1.3 billion, a box office decrease of nearly a billion dollars.
And then along came “The Rise of Skywalker.” All eyes were on J.J. Abrams, returning to the franchise after the departure of original director Colin Trevorrow. Billed as the conclusion to the Skywalker Saga, the hype couldn't be higher. What came out, however, was critically derided, earned even less money than its predecessor and managed to garner varying degrees of disappointment and disdain from nearly every corner of the fanbase.
So what went wrong? I can talk all day about my personal issues with the film: The obnoxious retreading of elements like Palpatine and even more Death Star knock-offs. The frankly disturbing decision to all but erase the character of Rose Tico even after actress Kelly Marie Tran was bullied off social media by trolls who hated the character. The hugely problematic ramifications of the bizarre “deathbed kiss.”
But this isn’t about my opinion and what I wanted from the franchise. This is a post-mortem on the undeniably disappointing performance of what was expected to be an unstoppable juggernaut. The answer, it seems, is communication.
(Funny how that worked out for the blog, isn't it? Didn't see that coming.)
One of the key elements of story-telling is to know the end before you start the beginning. At some point, for whatever reason, the Lucasfilm team decided against this approach, declining to map out a set plan for the trilogy before production opened on "The Force Awakens". This is not an inherently damaging choice, there are many examples in film history of a story changing direction as it gets told. After all, the pivotal reveal of Darth Vader as Luke’s father was inserted into the saga well after “A New Hope” first opened in theaters.
However, this initial choice was further compounded by the decision to select three separate directors. Again, this is not automatically a problem. The original Star Wars films had separate directors, a strategy the “Mission Impossible” series has also used to great success.
In the end, it was choosing Abrams to helm Episode 7 that proved the final ingredient in a perfect storm.
If nothing else, Abrams is a deeply nostalgic filmmaker. This can be seen both in the tendency to dwell on the past of the franchises he has worked on and also in his story-telling philosophy in general. Classic trademarks of narratives past take center stage in his work, particularly “McGuffins” (objects or people that serve purely as a trigger for the plot) and “mystery boxes.”
In the TED Talk above, Abrams unpacks the details of his “mystery box” strategy. The mystery, he claims, is more important than the knowledge. He uses a mystery as a McGuffin, driving the plot forward in pursuit of the question at hand. You can see this broadly applied in The Force Awakens:
“Where is Luke?”
“Who is Snoke?”
“Who are Rey’s parents?”
Talk about it too long and you start sounding like The Riddler. Everyone loves a good mystery. The problem, however, is that at some point you have to open the box. And when you aren’t in full creative control over your project, that can become a problem.
Abrams left and, for reasons we will likely never know, declined to tell his successor what was inside the boxes. Any of them. Rian Johnson was left with a warehouse full of unopened boxes and, through his own narrative approach, ultimately decided to blow up the warehouse and allow the new characters of the trilogy to stand on their own.
This would prove to be a controversial decision. And when Abrams’ new film opened in December 2019, it became clear that, despite his claims to the contrary, he had not been a fan of Johnson’s work.
Rather than following a natural progression from the previous film, Abrams metaphorically picked up the scraps of his boxes, tied them back together with plot contrivances, and opened them back up again.
Kylo Ren overcame his obsession with Vader only to have it replaced by an obsession with Palpatine. Rey accepts she came from nothing and sets forth to forge her own identity, only to be pulled into Palpatine’s story before taking the Skywalker identity for herself. Abrams attempts to remake Episode 8 and tell his own imagining of Episode 9 in the same movie, resulting in regressed characters, a fractured plot and befuddling messages.
In the end, any amount of communication could have saved the trilogy at each point. The creative team could have collaborated from the beginning. Abrams and Johnson could have worked together on the story for Episode 8. Or Abrams could have taken what was given by Johnson and progressed naturally from there.
Ultimately, this serves to show that, as I said way back at the birth of this blog: Communication is key. Bad communication can bring down even the largest and most seemingly infallible blockbuster franchise. The lessons learned from "The Rise of Skywalker" can be used in any collaboration, large or small. So be wise with the force: Communicate.
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