Star Wars & Star Trek - Remakes, Sequels and Re-Imaginings

SPOILER WARNING - This blog post contains HUGE spoilers for The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Solo, Rogue One, the original Star Wars trilogy, Star Trek:Wrath of Khan, Star Trek, Star Trek:Into Darkness, Star Trek Discovery



I am a huge Star Wars fan. I love the original trilogy and despise the prequel trilogy and most Star Wars fans would broadly agree with that view - original trilogy great, prequel trilogy bad. Things have got more complicated with the new Star Wars films. So far in chronological order of release we've had The Force Awakens, Rogue One, The Last Jedi and Solo. When I first saw TFA I liked it and enjoyed it more the second time I watched it. I loved Rogue One from the beginning and is my favourite of the new films. Solo I enjoyed while watching it but haven't given it too much thought since (apart from L3-37 - from the trailer I thought Lando Calrissian would steal the film but it was L3-37). Observant readers amongst you will notice I missed out The Last Jedi.This film has proven exceptionally divisive with many Star Wars fans demanding it be deemed non-canon (and so wouldn't really count in the story) and more recently have started a petition to get it remade. Some people just didn't like the film and Star Wars is very important to them so they made quite a bit of noise about it but it seems undeniable that some of these people don't like the fact that the Star Wars cast has become more diverse. There was a joke in the Family Guy Star Wars episodes where Mon Mothma appeared and it was explicitly stated that she was seemingly only the second woman in the entire galaxy and that was fair criticism at the lack of women in Star Wars. I can think of three female characters who have lines in the original trilogy - Leia, Luke's aunt Beru and Mon Mothma. Kelly Marie Tran (who played Rose Tico in TLJ) has deleted her instagram account because of the months of online abuse she received, purely because she dared to appear in TLJ.

Kelly Marie Tran hugging Star Wars fan
who had dressed up as her character

Personally, I was disappointed by TLJ. I think there are plot holes, there are whole sections of the film that could be cut, that the motivations of many of the characters made no sense, small things about how things would logically work annoyed me. But overall I liked it. And there are great parts in it. Daisy Ridley as Rey was again great and the best character in the new films, her deepening and increasing complicated relationship with Kylo Ren was handled brilliantly, her relationship with Luke Skywalker was really interesting (I also thought Mark Hamill and his portrayal of Luke was fantastic, with Luke being shown to be an imperfect and flawed person). So ten out of ten for Daisy Ridley and Rey.

TFA had also set up the possibility of an interesting backstory for Rey, left for years on a planet by her parents who Rey was sure were coming back - not unlike what happened to Luke Skywalker. There were many fan theories - was she Obi Wan Kenobi's child or grandchild, what about Qui-Gon Jinn's child? Kylo Ren revealed that her parents were, in terms of the larger story being told, insignificant - alcoholic bad parents who sold her and were of no consequence. This has again divided many fans but I loved it. Star Wars could be seen as the tale of the Skywalker family - Anakin Skywalker; a youngling with amazing potential who was brought into the Dark Side, killed his friends and helped set up a dictatorship where he was the enforcer of the evil Emperor and assumed the name Darth Vader. Vader's two children are taken away and hidden and ultimately return to bring down the Empire and help redeem their father. Obviously in TFA and TLJ the Skywalkers were still present (and with Kylo Ren essentially as the villain) but the main character was Rey and she is just a random person who became involved in the war. Kylo Ren explicitly stated that she had no part in this story and to the people watching the film this meant that you don't have to be a Skywalker to be part of the story and that's a good thing.

Oscar Isaac, John Boyega and Adam Driver all excel in their roles - if Poe is a bit annoying at times and Kylo Ren a touch too moody. Kelly Marie Tran as Rose was a thoroughly likeable character who reinforced the previous message that anyone can be a hero. I am completely at a loss as to what anyone can have against her but that's not to say there would be any justification for the way she has been treated.

Then there are just some of the cinematic victories - the final battle on the salt fields that throw up red clouds, the battle between Kylo Ren and Rey against Snoke's guards, the fight between Finn and Captain Phasma surrounded by fire and explosions all looked amazing. And let's not pretend there was nothing to keep fanboys happy - they mention Admiral Ackbar, you see Nien Nunb hanging around, Finn still has the jacket he got from Poe in TFA and you can even see where it's been sewn up after Kylo Ren slashed it with a light sabre.

Where to start with the problems:

• Tracking ships through hyperspace - it can't be done and it doesn't make sense and this technology would completely change everything in their galaxy. It would have been much easier to say they had planted a tracking device on a ship or had a spy.
• Leia floating in space and using the Force to pull herself back inside was silly and looked ridiculous.
• The casino planet - completely bizarre sequence that while fun served no real purpose and raised so many questions about space travel - Rose and Finn have time to leave the fleet, go to a planet, spend a while there and get back all before their main ships run out of fuel.
• Snoke - it makes perfect sense that Rey kills him but I think it's weird to introduce him and then kill him without explaining who he is, where he came from and more.
• Admiral Holdo & Poe's mutiny - overall Laura Dern was really good but I think Poe causing a mutiny made sense, she seemingly had no plan. I agree that an admiral doesn't need to tell everyone what is going but these were special circumstances and without Holdo explaining there was no reason to think they weren't all going to die.
• Flying the ship at lightspeed into another ship - the real question is if this was always an option why have they never done it before? Couldn't they have destroyed the Death Star (and indeed lots of other things) this way?
• Finally, there is the big problem - and this was true of TFA - the story is very similar to the original trilogy. TLJ heavily relied on the escape from Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back, both for the opening scene - escaping from the First Order - and the end battle which mirrored the Empire's attack on Hoth. But the state of affairs at the end of the film feel very much like the start of the original trilogy, a small group of rebels taking on a mighty empire. I was hoping that rather than seeing a rebellion it would be more like a war between two nations. The First Order is practically identical to the Empire in every respect and that did feel repetitive.  

So there are a lot of problems and I was disappointed, but it's not a bad film and like I said there is a lot of stuff to love in the film.

As I was writing this blog Ahmed Best, the actor who played Jar Jar Binks, spoke of how he actually contemplated suicide because of the backlash to The Phantom Menace, which is just awful. Jar Jar Binks was one of the worst things about the prequels but that really was George Lucas's fault  and not Best's (not that he should be persecuted either). Lucas himself has previously talked about how making Star Wars was no longer fun.

Lucas directing Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks

Star Wars is really important to me. Films are really important to me. But let's keep things in perspective. A bad sequel or remake doesn't ruin the original thing you loved, you can ignore the stuff you don't like. It's okay not to like something but it's a shame to have something you love but spend more time being angry than happy about it.

That said, as much as I annoyed by the level of hate directed at TLJ, my feelings about the recent Star Trek films - and possibly Discovery - are quite volatile. I could write whole blogs just about the problems I have with Chris Pines' performance or how the best thing in them is when Khan is beating Kirk up*. I have seen Star Trek and Star Trek:Into Darkness - both were terrible aside from aforementioned Khan fighting Kirk. In my opinion there are only two genuine Star Trek characters in it: Scotty and his little alien pal, whose name is apparently Keenser, these two are the only ones who object to the terrible mission they were to be sent on. Scotty, rightly, pointed out that Star Fleet were explorers, not soldiers. Then there are the things that break all the rules set up in previous Star Trek shows - you can't teleport while at warp, you can't teleport halfway across the galaxy, it may sound like nitpicking but in scifi and fantasy you need to have rules about what technology and magic can or can't do otherwise you can do literally anything. The rules around teleporting fed into plots and how they were resolved and I would argue the inability to solve issues just by teleporting made for better storylines.

Then the things that don't make sense at all - why do they hide underwater at the beginning of ST:ID when they can teleport? When Kirk is kicked off Enterprise his escape pod just happens to land not only on the planet Spock was stuck but in the vicinity of him? Why on Earth does Khan's blood bring Kirk back from the dead? And don't get me started on twisting the ending of Wrath of Khan so it is Kirk who sacrificed himself.

But most importantly - Star Trek has a philosophy. Humans in Star Trek are better than humans are in real life. They don't have money because their society has evolved beyond that. On Earth there is no crime, no poverty, people live in peace and not only is humankind united dozens of other alien races have joined them in a Federation. Star Fleet, the closest thing they have to a military, is explicitly not a military. Exploration, science and helping people are seen as equally as important as defence. They worry about what the right thing to do is and whole episodes are devoted to thinking about the morality of their actions. But the new Star  Trek films have abandoned all that for blowing stuff up and lens flare. I often like reimaginings where the things are made darker and grittier but I don't want a Star Trek that is dark and gritty I want one that is hopeful, where being kind, compassionate and thoughtful is not seen as weak. Problems in Star Trek were not usually solved purely by violence but by cooperation, intelligence and trusting others and that is something that is very rarely shown in Hollywood.

I found this picture online and I'm convinced it must
have been edited to put in more lens flare

Even so if they are bad films and if they have changed what I see as the "philosophy" of Star Trek it's not the end of the world. Star Trek V doesn't make a lick of sense and less said about Star Trek: The Motion Picture the better. I'm watching Star Trek - Discovery right now and have similar concerns about abandoning the Star Trek philosophy but have been told by many people to stick with it and it'll be alright in the end. I have never tweeted JJ Abrams or Chris Pine letting them know of my disappointment and I think complaints that are limited to a boring plot, or breaking the "rules" of the universe or something like that need to be kept in proportion and not bombarded at the people who you hold responsible. Maybe save actual angry campaigns for some of the many things Hollywood has done that are really wrong and there are a lot of those.

* I tried to find a picture of Khan and Kirk fighting from ST:ID and well, there aren't any. There is footage of Kirk attacking Khan and Khan just letting Kirk hit him and there is a long fight between Spock and Khan so have I just invented this fight?