ThomStratton.com

The other day, while on a website for a company I do regular business with, I was prompted to give feedback on my assigned representative. It was your typical zero-to-five-star scale measuring a handful of different aspects of the service rendered. Now, I really, really like this particular person. He’s been with me through some difficult situations, and would have to do an awful lot to lose my business. I gave him five stars in every category but one, where I gave him four–and part of my reasoning for the deduction was the fear his superiors might think I make him look too perfect.

Later on I was speaking with this person, and he thanked me for the positive review, but then focused almost entirely on the four-star category as if I had intended it as criticism, when in my mind the four other five-stars were intended as high praise.

I’ve noticed this in a lot of places. For me you really have to be spectacular to earn five stars. For much the rest of the world, apparently, you only give less than five stars if they did something wrong. To me, if I give everything five stars I leave no room for anyone to come along and completely blow me away with their awesomeness! I almost never give a book five stars on Goodreads. I only give five stars on online orders if the company/product exceeded my expectations by a significant margin. You don’t get five stars from me if you simply deliver according to expectations.

But I increasingly feel I’m alone in this. I have a business partner who gets anxious if our store’s cumulative rating starts creeping toward 4.5, and perhaps he’s right to be concerned, since it seems so easy to earn a five-star rating these days. On the other hand, we did set out deliberately to create a store with customer service second-to-none, or at least significantly better than our competition. My partner takes this very seriously, and I know he is quite capable of delivering 5-star service in all but the most trying circumstances.

So who knows, perhaps the problem really is just with me. Perhaps all these ratings should be split in two. The first rating would be for the person/business being evaluated as normal, but the second would be a rating for the evaluator: how difficult are you to impress? I’d probably have to give myself five stars.

Of the many things that concern me about the current political environment, one thing that worries me most is the erosion of our freedom of speech. People have become so afraid of being offended that they’re demanding it be taken away from the people they disagree with, all the while forgetting that anything that can be taken away from one can be taken away from all.

So far this disturbing trend seems to be most centered in our college campuses, which strikes me as bizarre. Colleges and universities used to be the place to go to be exposed to different and differing perspectives and ideas. Now they’re increasingly becoming enormous, publicly funded panic rooms where the small-minded can escape anything that might challenge their beliefs.

I went to a university in an area where a particular religion represented a majority of the population, yet even then a large portion of the faculty felt it a duty to oppose and criticize that religion, and both professors and other students would sometimes single out that religion for criticism and mockery in class. It bothered me, but I was a big boy. I could take it. I grew up understanding that our First Amendment rights were not there to protect popular speech, but unpopular speech. I may not have liked the criticism–much of which was quite bigoted, ill-informed and offensive–but felt our freedom of speech too important to try to censor those with the views I disagreed with.

I had an economics professor that I loved. He was often blunt, and he could often be critical in his lectures, though I saw he didn’t usually single any one group out–anyone was fair game, and often was. His criticisms of my own religion were uncomfortable and sometimes unfair in their generalizations, but not exactly wrong. It didn’t matter to me, as he was a darn good teacher, and to this day I remember more from his class than most of the classes I took (and I took a LOT of classes in my -mumble-mumble-mumble- years of college).

But someone took offense, and reported him to the administration. He was an adjunct professor, and his contract was not renewed. I don’t know for sure what the complaint was about, but I can guess, and I sadly suspect it was from someone of my own religious persuasion. We lost a good teacher because someone felt they didn’t need to endure criticism of something they held dear.

Today entire groups are being singled out, ostracized, and even banned from campuses simply because a large, vocal contingent (I won’t go so far as to call them a majority, though that may very well be true) don’t want to be exposed to ideas they don’t like–no, worse than that, they don’t want anyone else to be exposed to them either. It’s not like they have to go to listen to certain speakers or join certain student groups. They just don’t want them to exist. And their administrations are supporting them in this denial of rights, insisting that universities are immune to the rules of the rest of the country. Even publicly-funded institutions are denying they are subject to the same rules as the public that pays their salaries.

This trend is escaping out into the public forum as well, and I doubt it’s limited entirely to one political or social group. It’s becoming increasingly popular to believe dangerous ideologies can be safely silenced, even while the definition of “dangerous” continues to expand to the point of meaninglessness. Promoting behaviors that have long been viewed as simple foundations of a functional society and economy are now being decried as racist, sexist, elitist, etc., to the point that these terms have largely come to mean “someone I disagree with or don’t like.” Far too often the argument boils down to something like:

A: We shouldn’t allow this speaker to speak. It’s not safe.
B: Why not?
A: His presence might provoke violence.
B: By whom?
A: Me.

There is hope, however. There are still many out there who realize that our freedom to say what we want is more important than what we say. Take this example from Bremerton, Washington:

Kevin Chambers is a local radio host in Bremerton, Washington, and a Democrat – albeit one with a good sense of humor. While out of town in November, a Republican friend put up a Trump/Pence 2020 field sign in his yard as a joke. The sign got defaced with graffiti, so another sign took its place – this time on 15-foot stilts.

That’s when, Chambers says, things got a little weird. Two days before Christmas, he received a letter from the city of Bremerton informing him that the new sign violated city code concerning commercial signs. And that’s when he became defiant.
…
He told me that some folks made comments in a Facebook group for the local community that they would come to his house to deface the sign, egg the sign, and damage his property. Chambers then said, with a chuckle, “At that point, I decided the sign was going to stay up. As much as I’m not a Trump fan, I’m even less of a fan of people threatening to come to my house and damage my property. I figured if I took the sign down, it would somehow allow them to think that they caused me to take it down.”
…
In our interview, Chambers told me that the larger issue around the sign is whether other people can tell him what to do with his property. “We can argue whether Trump is a good president or not,” he said, “or whether he’s a quality guy. I’ll have that conversation all day long. The larger issue for me is, why do we allow neighbors to tell other neighbors what they can do in their yard? The sign is not a safety issue. It doesn’t overhang into the sidewalk. You literally cannot see the sign unless you’re looking directly at my house as you drive by. “
…
The lengths to which political opponents will go to censor each other really bothers Chambers. “The thing that has been highlighted in this thing is how divided we’ve become politically,” he said. “We used to be able in this country to agree to disagree. I now must stop you from sharing your opinion because you’ve offended me. I think it’s dangerous.”

— Jeff Reynolds, “Washington Democrat Forced to Take Down Trump Sign, Will Put Up Even Bigger One“

For the longest time I’ve been hearing people call for dialogue, insisting that only by talking about the issues can we resolve them and improve our society as a whole. I whole-heartedly agree. And that’s why it’s so dangerous that too many are deciding their only option is to keep others from expressing any viewpoint contrary to their own. When only one side can talk no one learns anything. Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I feel that to be a bug, not a feature.

As I said at the start: Anything that can be taken away from one can be taken away from all. Once we cross that line we give everyone else permission to do the exact same to us.

Some lines should never be crossed.

It’s pretty much expected that you’ll have sports heroes as a kid. But I never did. Oh, I knew about them. I knew who everyone else got excited about. But I never had any posters on my walls, and I most certainly couldn’t have discussed any sports figures or teams at length. I just was never into sports that much.

That’s changed somewhat now that I’m older and have kids. Through them I’ve come to appreciate several sports–and the people who play them exceptionally well. While I still don’t have any posters on my walls (I do have some posters for books, but they’re also artwork, so that doesn’t count), I am starting to have some heroes.

Is it any wonder, considering my soft-spot for underdogs, that most of my heroes are on the Utah Jazz? They’re not the flashiest team, and they don’t attract superstars. Few of their players make it on All-Star teams as starters. You don’t see them setting the records most people know about, like all-time highest scoring.

From what I’ve seen from the last couple years of actually paying attention, the Jazz seem to know how to attract players who love the game and love being part of a team. They genuinely like each other; they’re generous with praise for one another and quick to own their own mistakes. They celebrate each others’ victories.

For example, in their last game against the Dallas Mavericks, Rudy Gobert made some incredible last-minute plays on defense to seal the game for the Jazz. But when asked about it he let the praise settle on him only lightly: “We win because we play well as a team,” Gobert said.” I’m not able to do what I do — let’s say, if Royce doesn’t hit that shot maybe we lose the game tonight.” (Royce O’Neale did hit a key 3-pointer that put the Jazz ahead for good, and also forced a key turnover only a few possessions earlier to stop Luka Doncic from running away with the game again. Gobert, typically known for his defense, was actually the third-highest scorer for the Jazz that night, and has been second-highest for three of the last five games.)

So yeah, though I’m gaining a higher appreciation for Gobert this season, if I were to pick a sports hero to posterize on my wall, it’d be…the whole darn team, right down to the bench.

My newfound appreciation for sport heroes isn’t limited to basketball, either. I have favorite baseball players now, favorite Formula 1 drivers, and favorite tennis players. I admire their hard work, their consistency, their humility, their attitude, and of course, their aptitude for their sport. I admire their pursuit–and capture–of excellence.

So yeah, if I ever looked down on anyone in the past for their sports hero-worship, my apologies. I get it now. Maybe not with the emphatic enthusiasm of youth, but I get it.

I was never all that involved in basketball during the Kobe Bryant era. I didn’t realize then just how sensational he was. But I’m starting to understand just what he meant to the sport, and to a lot of people playing or watching it today. I feel for all those who lost their lives, and for those they leave behind, but I also understand why so many are mourning Kobe Bryant today.

Okay, the title has nothing to do with the content of this post, really, other than I intend to evaluate Disney’s new streaming series The Mandalorian. I just thought I’d flex my extensive knowledge of literature. I’ve got to get something out of my ten years of college! (…even if I actually had to memorize that speech in high school)

By the way, SPOILER ALERT! I’ll be revealing things here.

So, Disney’s new series! I’ll admit, that’s the entire reason I started using Disney+. I was curious, and unlike CBS Access’ Star Trek offerings, I actually had hope it might be good. What I’ve seen of Jon Favreau’s work has left me reasonably impressed. He knows how to tell a good story, and he seems to try to stay true to the source material he works with.

Even so, I wasn’t an immediate fan. Initially the Mandolorian was more of an anti-hero. He’s good at what he does, but he doesn’t particularly care about the impact of his work. And he says so little in the first couple episodes I was beginning to wonder if they were paying Pedro Pascal by the word.

All of this, it turned out, was necessary to establish his character. He doesn’t become sympathetic until he meets The Child (no, I will not call him Baby Yoda! Can’t make me!) and that’s on purpose. We need to see how the kid changes him. Even then, his personality and dialogue are doled out in grudging teaspoons for much of the season.

But he grew on me. He is the world-weary warrior. He would like to be closer to people–or at least to someone. He does have a code he lives by, and while it’s not always what I would consider honorable, he sticks to it–or breaks it only for good reason. He’s a zipped-lipped Malcolm Reynolds without the attitude–or the sense of humor. And he always seems to attract honorable people.

So yes, I was pleasantly surprised, and I enjoyed the first season, even though it’s clear it was primarily laying the ground work for what’s to come. Thanks to Jon Favreau it felt like Star Wars–even more so than the flagship Star Wars movies. (And I do appreciate Favreau’s continual homage to previous canon, right down to the never-actually-seen-in-movies Imperial Troop Transport that was part of the toy collection when I was seven and at the height of my Star Wars infatuation. My inner Tommy “squee-d” with delight when that appeared on the screen!)

Only a few things threatened to ruin it for me, and I’m glad to say they failed. The first was the over-the-top reaction to The Child. Memes! Memes everywhere! You couldn’t escape him/her/it! It’s rare that Disney is ever caught off guard when it comes to marketing opportunities, but somehow The Child even flew under their pay-dar. How could they not have had toys ready for Christmas?!

I tend to dislike anything that gets too popular, and The Child was already popular–no, viral–well before I started watching. I wanted to despise the little critter. But I can’t. He/she/it is rather cute. And a little annoying. That’s to be expected, I guess. You can’t have an infant in a show without it being either a short term prop or…annoying. But I was able to overlook that.

What really blew me away, once I started watching the show, was the PC criticism. There weren’t any strong female characters! Too many men! It was as if they were determined to find something to dislike. They wanted to ding Disney for…something! Anything!

And it was entirely unjustified. The Mandalorian is a small show about a small story in a big universe. It doesn’t want or need a cast of dozens just to show its diversity cred. But who were its main characters throughout? The Mandalorian who, for all we know, could have been anyone. He could have been a female with a voice modulator for all we knew (and I still question why they had to show his face in the final episode.)

A guild boss of African-American descent. IG-11, an artificial life form. Cara Dune, a female special forces veteran. An alien who functioned as something of a father figure. A mixed bag of white males who largely turn out to be bad guys. A few other females (including the apparent leader of the Mandalorians, and the closest we’ve seen to a religious leader) who are interesting and strong in their own ways. A mixed bag of aliens. Yes, the show is about characters in career paths not generally attractive to women, but for such a small cast, it’s quite diverse.

Look beyond the script itself and you’ll see two women directors responsible for nearly half the episodes. Quite a few women involved in the production, too.

No, The Mandalorian is a lot more diverse than the critics cared to see. They just went about it quietly. I don’t recall anyone lauding their female producers and directors. No one played up the number of alien species represented, or actors of non-Caucasian descent. They set out to make a good show, to tell a good story, and they let their work stand on its own, not propping it up by playing to the special interests. They made a show for everyone. And they didn’t feel the need to brag about that.

Let’s get back to Cara Dune for a moment. Can I just mention how glad I am they didn’t succumb to the “kick-butt waif” trope with her? For once we got a strong, former elite military warrior woman who looked and acted convincing! As much as I loved Firefly, River’s big scene in Serenity where she’s punch-launching berserkers twice her mass was just so hard to swallow. Yes, there are things women can do to enhance their strength, but a 90-pound girl is still only going to be able to put so much force into a punch or a kick.

Gina Carano looked like she could hold her own. She was believable as someone The Mandalorian would turn to to watch his back. (Okay, I’ll admit the scene where she’s punching him in his full armor strained credibility some.) She looked like she not only knew how to use a repeating blaster, but could carry it for long periods of time. She sold the part, as far as I’m concerned. She could have her own spin-off show, and I’d watch it. People complain that the public won’t watch female action stars, but I maintain it’s only that we won’t watch stupid movies with female action stars.

As a side note, the most recent case of such complaining is the rebooted reboot of the 70’s TV show “Charlie’s Angels.” The show’s director had the audacity to complain that people didn’t watch it because they don’t like female action heroes. Hello?!?! This was a remake of a popular TV series that made the careers of its three stars. If what she claims were true, there wouldn’t be any remakes of “Charlie’s Angels,” because it would have failed miserably rather than running for five seasons and 110 episodes!

Speaking of five seasons, whatever happened to seasons of 22-24 episodes? Why do so many shows these days run only eight episodes to a season? It’s not like that enables them to release them any faster. We’ll be waiting just as long for the next eight as we used to wait for 24. And while the quality is unequestionably higher, it’s not that much higher.

Okay, enough ranting. Bottom line: The Mandalorian. Enjoyed it. Took me awhile. Good characters. Waiting patiently for next season. Stop criticizing things that aren’t there. Wow, I could have saved myself a few words…

Editor’s Note: I wrote this (obviously) over a year ago, but felt nervous about posting it while things were still so heated, and left it as a draft. Well, re-reading this today I’ve decided it’s worth posting anyway, as things have only gotten worse–and yet things also seem to be approaching a watershed moment.

I have been doing a great deal of thinking since the Gillette ad impacted the scene this week. I’ve watched the ad. I’ve read the reactions and the defenses. And, at long length, I’ve come to a few conclusions.

By itself the ad is not that big a deal. It was designed to cause controversy, and it delivered. I’m still not sure why society has gone from “corporations are evil” to “corporations are our moral superiors and we should let them preach to us”, but whatever. They go where the money is, and I can see how Gillette might want to hide their “business as usual” behind a patina of “let’s end ‘boys will be boys'”. Yes, I’m doubting their sincerity here. But that is so far beside the point that I’m going to leave it right there.

Ultimately what this ad represents is just one more salvo in the Second Battle of the Sexes. This is not just a continuation of The Battle of the Sexes; this is something new and unique. The First Battle of the Sexes, back in the 1960’s through 1980’s, were to level the playing field. That battle was largely won by women, and it was largely a good thing.

The Second Battle of the Sexes is not about equal opportunity. It’s about subjugation. It’s about “it’s our turn to dominate.” It’s about redefining roles, not just for women, but for men. It’s about mutation of “toxic masculinity” from being a label for those men of baser instinct to being internally redundant–masculinity itself is toxic. Maleness is the root of all the wrongs in the world, and it must be thrown down. They even have the American Psychiatric Association on their side:

In my practice as a psychotherapist, I’ve seen an increase of depression in young men who feel emasculated in a society that is hostile to masculinity. New guidelines from the American Psychological Association defining “traditional masculinity” as a pathological state are likely only to make matters worse.

True, over the past half-century ideas about femininity and masculinity have evolved, sometimes for the better. But the APA guidelines demonize masculinity rather than embracing its positive aspects. In a press release, the APA asserts flatly that “traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful.” The APA claims that masculinity is to blame for the oppression and abuse of women.

The report encourages clinicians to evaluate masculinity as an evil to be tamed, rather than a force to be integrated. “Although the majority of young men may not identify with explicit sexist beliefs,” it states, “for some men, sexism may become deeply engrained in their construction of masculinity.” The association urges therapists to help men “identify how they have been harmed by discrimination against those who are gender nonconforming”—an ideological claim transformed into a clinical treatment recommendation.

ERICKA KOMISAR, The Wall Street Journal

Because some men and boys are taking their masculinity in a bad direction, all men are to blame and must be fixed. And by “fixed” they mean made indistinguishable from women. We’re told these days that it’s perfectly fine to be gay, to be queer, to be transgender, to be female. There are few left advocating that it’s okay to be male. Oh, they’ll tell you such advocacy is unnecessary, as men have all the privilege and always have, but that in itself sounds suspiciously like an argument meant to stir up anti-male sentiment.

There’s no doubt in most any reasonable man’s mind that there are bad men out there who need to be stopped. One only has to watch Kristina Kuzmic’s latest video to see these horrid men on display. The examples she gives should horrify any decent man. It made me mad to watch it, and had those men been with me in person I’d have been ready to punch them in the nose.

But that’s the trouble with our modernized society. Any horrible person (and it’s by no means limited to men) can be horrible with near impunity, kept safe by the anonymity of the Internet. Not only does stern scolding not affect them, they feed on it. (And this is one reason why, however well-intentioned, Gillette’s call to action is likely doomed from the start.)

So here we are, facing a Second Battle of the Sexes. Part of the trouble is that a large portion of the female side still thinks they are fighting the First Battle, while the rest (perhaps a smaller portion, but certainly louder) are fighting the next war and using the others as cannon fodder.

The Gillette ad is a fine example of this. It’s a Second Battle of the Sexes assault on men using First Battle weapons. It’s an appeal to the noble, protective aspects of masculinity wrapped in a “men are our equals, so give us a hand here” message from the First Battle. It completely ignores any culpability on the part of women. Its as if they honestly believe that a constant barrage of “all men are rapists, masculinity is evil, they all need to be displaced and overcome” isn’t partly responsible for some men adopting an “us vs. them” mentality. Male “safe spaces” where they might have been able to learn how to channel their masculinity appropriately have been under attack for years. Activities they enjoy are increasingly held up as examples of toxicity because of the poor examples of a few. And yet males of sufficient celebrity or the right political leanings are regularly given a pass.

These toxic feminists have worked hard to make men feel guilty for being men. Competition? Bad. Aggression? Bad. Protective nature? Outdated, unwanted, unnecessary and, yes, bad. So it’s ironic, and even cynical to appeal to men’s protective nature when it’s useful, while simultaneously denigrating and undermining it.

I can already hear the arguments building. “We’re not all like that! We love and respect men! We have wonderful husbands who are raising our sons to be wonderful young men! We don’t want to emasculate men, we just want the bad ones to stop. We’d never let things go as far as you’re suggesting!”

Let’s step back a minute, then. Via this Gillette ad men are being asked to stand up to the jerks among us, the ones who aren’t treating women respectfully as equals. We’re being asked to use our influence to set them straight and keep them in line. We’re being appealed to through our positive masculine qualities, as if it’s okay to be masculine.

So can we turn to you, women, with a similar request? There are some rotten elements among you, too. Some are using you to further their fight to overthrow men. Some are undermining your own reasonable objectives (see that Kristina Kuzmic video. Most of her examples of people who disagree with her fighting back against the sleaze-bag posters were women). Can we ask you to use your influence to set them straight and keep them in line? If our bad apples are on us, and our responsibility to clean up, can we agree that your bad apples are on you? Can we work together as equal partners to set our houses in order?

Maybe then our job of policing men will be easier, as fewer will have the excuse that they’re only fighting back against an increasingly hostile society that doesn’t value them and doesn’t want them. And in the process you’ll help yourselves, as the same women who are hating men and seeking their downfall are also the ones putting down any woman who doesn’t make the life choices they feel you should make. It’d be ironic if women shrugged off the expectations of men only to then saddle themselves with the expectations of other women who care nothing for their happiness, only their own agendas.

Perhaps the real “battle of the sexes” should be against those who would pull us apart and make us fight one another instead of working together to make things better for everyone.

(More on that APA guideline here)

(Spoiler Alert for Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker and other movies in the Star Wars universe (and Marvel))

I’m about a month late, but I finally saw “Rise of Skywalker.” I hadn’t been all that interested in seeing it, to be honest. “The Last Jedi” left such a bad taste in my mouth that I didn’t think they could recover after that. Long story short? They didn’t.

What they did do was wrap up in a reasonably good way the inferior story they chose to tell instead of what might have been. I know, a lot of people thought it was great. I won’t call them wrong. They enjoyed what they got, and that’s fine for them. I suspect my gripe is as much about Hollywood itself these days as anything specific to any one movie. And perhaps what’s really wrong is me. I think I just want something different from movies these days; something Hollywood, for whatever reason, no longer delivers. Ultimately I think my criticism of the latest three Star Wars movies is this:

They went way too big.

Let’s look at the original trilogy a moment, shall we? This is the Star Wars I grew up with, the movies that defined what Star Wars is for me. What were the key points of the first three movies?

• The Empire develops a superweapon, blows up a planet with it, and threatens to blow up more planets. Luke makes single awesome shot to save the day.
• The Empire kicks the rebellion out of their new base, and Luke’s friends get captured in an attempt to capture and turn him to the Dark Side. Luke trains to be able to fight really well and lift objects, plus gets prescient visions.
• The Empire sets a trap to destroy the rebellion’s main battlefleet and again capture Luke and turn him to the Dark Side. Luke fights really well, influences weak-minded.

And what do we get in the latest three movies?

• The Empire develops a superweapon that blows up LOTS of planets in a single shot and threatens to wipe out the rebellion, which has somehow gotten smaller. Rey becomes instant awesome fighter.
• The Empire kicks the rebellion out of their new base and slowly chips away at their main battle force while the Jedi debate on whether or not the Jedi should exist. Rey and Kylo develop cosmic bond that allows physical contact across space. Leia survives hard vacuum and moves herself through space. Luke projects telepresence of himself across the galaxy. Force ghost Yoda calls lightning.
• The Emperor comes back with a mind-boggling-ly large fleet of star destroyers able to destroy planets in one shot. Destroys one planet, threatens the entire galaxy. Rey is now really good at levitation, healing, telekinesis of starships, and fighting really, really well. Her bond with Kylo now includes instant teleportation of materials across space. In the final showdown we learn that Palpatine is able to channel all Sith Lords through all time. The rebels summon an mind-boggling-ly large fleet. Rey is able to channel all Jedi Masters. Palpatine’s force lightning is able to bring down an entire fleet (and yet can’t kill a single person), and he can suck the life force out of people to restore himself. Force ghost Luke is able to levitate an X-wing. Kylo is able to heal.

I hope that makes my point clear. In the original trilogy the threat actually got smaller as time went on, more personal. Yes, we knew that the destruction of the rebel fleet meant the Empire would reign unchecked, but what mattered was that our friends were in danger. In this latest trilogy they tried for a single movie to go small (largely, I think, because they were trying to imitate the original trilogy’s arc), but even then they were trying to re-frame the entire concept of Light/Dark, Jedi/Sith, Good/Evil while introducing Force powers previously unknown (maybe they show up in the video games or The Clone Wars series? I’ve not experienced either) and considerably more epic in scale. And in this last movie we put the entire galaxy in peril, reveal even more epic-scale Force powers, and turn the showdown into The epic showdown to end epic showdowns while simultaneously proving the rules mean nothing and anyone can come back at any time.

Meanwhile, what do we really know about the characters after three movies? Have they changed at all? Kylo Ren is the only one with much of a character arc, and we knew that would have to happen from the beginning.

Hollywood seems to have the idea that “better” means “bigger.” Bigger battles, bigger stakes, bigger powers, bigger spectacle. This is somewhat understandable. George Lucas began to fall into that trap in the prequel trilogy when technology finally caught up with his imagination, and yet he managed to keep the story mostly about the characters. He had to, because on the epic scale we already knew what was supposed to happen. There was no tension around whether or not the Empire would rise, only curiosity as to how.

This last trilogy simply went too big. The cast was large, the plots were large, the battles were large, the powers were large, and we lost the people along the way. They suffered some from changes (ie. clashes) of directorial vision, to be sure, but they also bought into the Hollywood formula of blowing something up every ten minutes. I think they tried to “Marvel-ize” Star Wars. They tried to make Rise of Skywalker the “End Game” of the series, not realizing that End Game worked because of all the preparatory movies that came before. It worked because by the time Captain America is standing alone facing down Thanos’ army we know Captain America. We know he’s going to keep fighting regardless. We know who his friends and allies are, and we care about them. The battle may be huge, but we care about our heroes first and foremost.

End Game worked because there had been a coherent plan played out carefully over 20+ movies so that when they went really big we already knew who was involved and what was at stake, and we could just sit back and enjoy the conflict. We didn’t have that with Rise of Skywalker.

And yet, if I had to pick one, I’d probably have to call that one the best of the three. The Force Awakens was a simpler movie, but it lacked originality. We essentially got an A New Hope remake with new characters. For all its overreach, Rise of Skywalker was at least unique. It didn’t force the characters to be intentionally stupid to move the plot along. We got some nice moments, and our questions answered (largely). At the same time, I had more of an emotional reaction to seeing Wedge Antilles for five seconds than I did from much of what the main characters went through.

That’s a sure sign of doing too much.