An early draft of this review was originally published on May 23, 2023,
at Give Me Some Light on Substack, almost three months before it appeared here.
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It’s because of my love for the journey of the original Star Wars trilogy that I’m bothering to write this.

In my experience — which, I know, will differ substantially from others’ experiences depending on their age and the way they came to Star Wars universe — the original trilogy played out as a complete and almost completely satisfying saga in itself, serving as formative influence in my understanding of the art of storytelling.

I saw the films between the ages of 7–13, although I was disallowed from seeing The Empire Strikes Back in that theater because the conservative evangelicals of my cultural bubble were convinced it was occulting and dangerous. (I’ve written about this substantially in my moviegoing memoir Through a Screen Darkly.) Episodes 4–6 taught me about the basic bones of mythological storytelling. They had a daring moral vision that eventually corrected and transcended the basic us-versus-them plotlines that dominated adventure storytelling then and that still dominate media today. They championed love, humility, self-control, patience, kindness, faithfulness, and empathy over enmity. The lightsabers were important, but even more important was when, how, and why they were used. It was, ultimately, an epic instilling the moral vision that today some would call antifa.

Because of that profound experience, I’ve remained skeptical of — and have usually been disappointed by — anything branded as Star Wars post-1983.

The prequels? I’ve made my peace with them. I worked hard to love them because I wanted so badly to return to that context, with those sound effects, that John Williams music, and those themes. But eventually, my optimism — my “new hope,” if you will — collapsed under the weight of increasing annoyance with their bloatedness and their blandness. They were packed with intriguing ideas, but they rarely suspended my disbelief. Lucas had become a very different artist, with very different interests, and by returning to the director’s chair he revealed that the original trilogy’s greatness was a result of remarkable and unrepeatable collaborative chemistry in a particular context that could not be re-created. He revealed that he had become a terrible director of actors; in fact, he seemed uninterested in them as anything more than mannequins in costumes. He revealed inadvertently that the magic of the first series had everything to do with lovingly handmade hardware; very little in the glossy animation of the prequels looks convincing or weighty. And he also revealed that the limitations on his creativity in those first films were a blessing that kept him from spoiling the work with excess and ill-advised tangents. The prequels, while they remain an important historical artifact for their important advances in digital-animation, were poorly cast, amateurish and dull in their screenwriting, overly long, and seemed to exist in a different universe than the original stories.

Regarding all of the arguments about what is “canon” and what isn’t — I don’t accept the third trilogy, especially the two films directed by J.J. Abrams, as canon. Why? The first six films, for all of their highs and lows, were a coherent saga from a single storyteller. There was a human soul that served as the foundation, the conscience, the “yes” and the “no” of things. In the third trilogy, it’s clear that committees are much more instrumental in the storytelling, weighing how to keep fans happy, trying to repeat what worked before, and serving up “surprises” that were just variations on surprises we’d seen in this universe before. They are derivative and sentimental, and they contradict the moral trajectory of the original Skywalker saga, effectively dismissing what was profound about it in the first place.

The exception: Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi has been the only Star Wars film post-1983 that I found engaging and, occasionally, thrilling. Here was a brave storyteller with the guts to challenge audiences with new and meaningful ideas rather than just playing to the crowd. It made me believe that there might still be some potential for genuine artists asking unexpected questions that would lead to significant revelations and consequences within this world of ideas. It was still “fan fiction.” And I believe that’s what were stuck with forever, at this point — fan fiction of varying quality. Fan fiction can be meaningful and even inspiring, sure. But that is very, very hard to achieve.

And now, in the era of Star Wars as television franchising, I’m more likely to cringe and avoid anything branded as Star Wars than I am to invest any time in it. I’ve been insulted too many times, bored too many times, even frustrated. The only TV series of this kind that has really engaged and moved me so far has been Tony Gilroy’s Andor, a Star Wars series for adults with outstanding writing, consistently excellent performances, and a story arc that restored the joy of surprise to the Star Wars universe for me for the first time since The Last Jedi. By my lights, Rian Johnson and Tony Gilroy have set the standard for what is possible. Those guys are authors with meaningful stories to tell.

While The Mandalorian got off to an enjoyable start, it did so by leaning too heavily into fan service, sentimentality, and the kind of plot twists that keep narrowing the Star Wars universe to a community in which everybody seems to know everybody. It also had plenty of storylines that contradicted that core backbone of the original trilogy’s moral vision. At times, it’s shown us what high-spirited fanboys with some imagination and a lot of money can do on a good day. It has expanded the Star Wars universe in an entertaining fashion, but without deepening what it all means.

I couldn’t be bothered with The Book of Boba Fett, and the takes I heard from big Mandalorian fans seemed to consistently support my decision: “Well, it’s not very good until the Mandalorian shows up.” Great.

I avoided Star Wars Visions, Season One as well, as I heard that the storytelling was poor. So I didn’t pay any attention to the promotions of Star Wars Visions, Season Two… until somebody said two magic words:

“Cartoon Saloon.”

Oh.

Okay.

The studio that created The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, The Breadwinner, and Wolfwalkers, the most impressive run of animated masterpieces since the height of Studio Ghibli and the golden age of Pixar?

I tuned in as soon as I had an opportunity, and I was not disappointed… by that particular episode. It was visually dazzling, unpredictable, and… well, I’ll say more later. The price I paid for enjoying Cartoon Saloon’s installment so much was that I ended up watching the whole series in the hopes of more surprises. More often that not, the shorts were disappointing.

So, since I want to make something useful of the time I invested, here’s my report card on Star Wars Visions, Season Two.

GRADE “C-MINUS”

“Journey to the Dark Head”

Letterboxd synopsis:

A hopeful mechanic and a disillusioned Jedi team up for an unlikely quest to turn the tide of war.

All of my anime pet peeves are here:

• More emphasis on emotion than storytelling substance.
• Characters who seem to careen between extreme emotions in ways that make me think it must be exhausting to be them.
• A preoccupation with faces distorted with rage in close-up.
• A boy and a girl falling through the clouds — every single time!
• Seemingly endless fight scenes.

Also, this dude Toul is the worst Jedi candidate I’ve ever seen. Seeing this guy taken seriously and sent out on a mission unsupervised? My faith in Jedi Councils has never been lower.

Also, I do not understand what in the world this is all supposed to mean. Whenever conversations about “the Balance of the Force” conclude with “Welp, the light and the dark will always be equally entangled, and there will always be hope and despair in equal measure,” I’m always like “Great. I’m out. What’s the point? What does hope even mean if we can only hope for a perpetuation of suffering?”