Character Arcs

"A character's want is the surface level goal driving them.  Their need is the lesson they gradually learn over the course of their story."  (A Closer Look)  "That lesson is almost always to learn how misguided their initial want is."

"At the beginning, show how the character is stuck in some way.  The characters are doing something, but it's not a fulfilling existence."

While I would use different vocabulary to approach this concept, the idea itself is perfect.  A character is a narrative element that has motivation that is driving it.  Rey is looking for a place to belong, Rey is looking for a way to unlock the potential inside her that will allow her to do good and therefore justify her belonging.  Rey has to find her own path to realize that potential rather than relying on some outside force.

Where this breaks down, however, is when we have a character with no motivation.  For example:  Ep 7: Fin is running from a life of  brutality and violence. Ep 8: Fin is trying to find a new life with the Resistance that is opposing the violent First Order.  Ep 9: Fin likes to follow Rey around.

You see how in this progression, Fin starts out with a motivation and is successful.  But in the second film, his motivation begins to falter.  By the third story, Fin has no motivation whatsoever, and is merely a presence on screen.

The second vocabulary change is in The Lesson.  Closer's Boseley suggests that the lesson is to learn how misguided the initial want is.  I think about this in terms of a character's Arc.  It's not a straight line, but it is a trajectory, a pathway that takes that person from their initial motivation to a place of resolution.  As suggested, that final resolution may not be what the character initially envisioned.  But in order for an arc to have taken place, the character must resolve the initial tension with which they begin the story.

The Force Awakens - Rey: initial tension:   waiting for someone to return and make her life better but she understands that something is wrong.  Progression:  realizing that the person she's waiting for is not coming back.  Resolution:  Accepting that she can no longer wait on Jakku, and instead will be happier struggling for something larger and better than herself.  Rey follows a classic arc in that she starts with initial tension, undergoes a transition that both brings enlightenment and starts her on a different pathway, finally resolving the tension and placing her in a new and more powerful situation.

Now, how can a character fail?   The obvious possibility is that they fail to undergo any of the elements of a character arc. They are the same at the end as at the beginning.

But the failure can be more subtle as well.  For example, a character seems to have an arc and goes through transition, but ultimately ends up where they started.  Similarly a character describes an arc that doesn't end up resolving the central tension that they started with.  Yes they end up in a different place, but the central tension remains.   

So in Rise of Skywalker, the Emperor offers Rey unlimited power as an inducement to undergo his ritual transformation.  But since Rey has never expressed any interest in unlimited power (unlike Kylo, for example), the audience doesn't see any tension in this offer:   What he's offering is not even a choice for her; it doesn't offer Rey anything that she wants.  To the audience, this seems confusing and not really a test of her character. But if this choice is devoid of tension, then the scene is also devoid of tension.  It's merely spectacle.  It's like the Bond villain gloating over his plan, leaving Rey and the audience feeling powerless. 

In addition, Rey never seems to find the heroic, altruistic place in the galaxy that she seems to be looking for.   Palpatine is defeated, Kylo is lost and Han, Leia and Luke are no more.  She strides away, alone on another desert planet, not much changed from where she began the series.

More subtly, the character appears to change over the course of the story, but the audience doesn't understand why the changes are happening:  the changes appear un-earned.  We see the changes but we don't follow the arc that led the character to their new perspective.  

Scenes.  We've discussed that Characters have arcs where the tension of their unresolved wants are slowly resolved.  Scenes also have a similar trajectory.  Scenes exist so that story elements can take place within them.  We sometimes call these story elements "beats.":  Characters can have beats just as scenes can.  A beat is the important thing that is happening in the scene that  leads the narrative toward its final goal.  Beats are often moments of tension that resolve in a particular direction, and through their resolution create a new framework in which the story takes place.

For example:  in SW: ANH, in the scene where Han and Luke are preparing for the impending arrival of the Death Star, Luke is dismayed that Han is running away from the battle.  The tension in this scene is that Luke has higher expectations for Han's moral character.  The story beat is that Han is simply out for himself and has no allegiance to any greater good or higher calling.  We need to lay down this beat here, so that we can resolve the tension in a later scene where Han returns to the battle to clear Luke for his attack run.

The outer motivation:  the visible goal

The inner journey:   how the character needs to change

Typically a character is caught between these two desires:  the outer, visible, obvious goal, and the inner state of things that is preventing the outer goal from being realized.  They are stuck in this exterior dilemma because of their unwillingness to abandon the safe status quo of their inner state.  this is the Inner Conflict.  Put simply, in order to resolve their outer problem, they need to work through their inner conflict.

Stage 1:  the setup  establishing who the characters are and we see the full realization of the character's inner identity. 

Stage 2:  the opportunity.  this is the chance that the character receives to begin working toward a different state.  Something happens to the character that forces them into Stage 2 is a new situation.  and in stage 2, the primary goal of the character is to figure out what's going on.  In stage 2 the character gets a glimpse of what living in his new inner identity might be like.  He sees a vision of a better world, though he isn't able to grab it yet.  and just as importantly, the audience sees that same vision.

At the end of stage 2, another event happens that drives the character to making a change towards this new vision.  Taking the first steps to achieve it.

Emotion grows out of conflict, so the more difficult the obstacles to overcome, the more invested and more interested the audience will be.   Another example is empathy.  We feel sympathy for the obstacles the character has faced in the past.  Putting a character in jeopardy makes us feel empathy for what a character might face in the future.

Stage 3 is Progress. where the character formulates a plan and starts going after that goal.  They face obstacles, which start to multiply, but they appear to be "making progress" toward the external goal

On the inside, on the inner journey,  the inner state begins to hinder their progress.  They begin to be confronted by the things about the inner state that have always kept them "stuck" in the past.  Contemplating changing the inner state is terrifying, however.  In this stage, the hero will vacillate between changing to a new inner state, and running back to the old one.  They will advance along their inner journey and then retreat, causing problems for the external goal.  Each advance will take them incrementally further.

At some point in this oscillation, the character will progress the internal transition to a point of no return.  Their interior journey will continue to a new state, where they can no longer retreat back to their original status, and they face a crisis.  Something will happen to demand or lead the character to make a deeper commitment to the goal. 

Moments of Dramatic Impasse:   a dramatic moment where two characters are striving against each other but neither can gain the upper hand in the current conflict.  They must find another way to achieve their objective

Moments of Dramatic Synthesis:The moment when characters who were previously at odds find a common goal or common ground, so they are no longer in conflict, at least for the present.  they can move forward together with a better sense of understanding.

Interiority:  the emotional and psychological space that they occupy at the moment.

Spinning Plates:  When the story begins to layer a number of elements of  tension on top of each other.  The danger isn't coming from just one direction, but from multiple threats.  There could be a physical threat, an emotional threat, and a psychological threat.

Out of the Frying Pan...  Escaping one predicament only to land in a greater one.

Stacking the Odds:  Escalating the danger the protagonists are in.

Character Foil:  A character in circumstances similar to the hero, presented with the same moral choices, makes different and less optimal decisions.  Used to demonstrate how badly things could have gone if our hero lacked moral character.

The Ending is Earned:   good payoffs come from good setups.  Action that is foreshadowed, action that is prefigured is always more satisfying.

What's the thing the characters could do at the end of the movie, that they couldn't do at the beginning?

Just because we know the ending does not mean this can't be a good movie, but we have to care about the people.  "We had characters with emotional stakes and different motivations that conflict with each other. What's interesting is having different characters with different motivations that play off each other and show their humanity.  Watching someone go to a place to get a thing that you know they are going to get is not interesting."

A Story.

The simple definition of a story is, a Character is placed in a Setting from which a Conflict emerges which Develops and then Resolves.  The development happens through cycles of tension and resolution.  These cycles are not linear, that is one doesn't follow after another when the first is resolved.  Instead, they can be happening on differing time scales and with differing story elements, often at the same time.

Cycles.

It is these cycles of tension and resolution that draw the audience through the story.  For example, the main character can develop relationships with other characters in the story.  If that other character is the main antagonist, often this tension is the main Conflict.  But the other character could be an ally as well, or a mentor or competitor, among many other possibilities.  

Even if the other character is an ally, there could be any number of sources of tension that make the interaction interesting.  For example, the ally could have a slightly different objective than the protagonist that could eventually express itself.  Or, the ally could have a weakness that everyone has to deal with.  A mentor may have information that affects the protagonist in unexpected ways ("you should become a knight like your father"or "Though you never knew her, your mother was also a grimm"), or a competitor's challenge could drive the protagonist to greater proficiency than they would otherwise achieve.

Cycles can break down, however, leading to failed storytelling.  Typically, a tension that is never resolved leaves an unsettled feeling in the audience that cast a shadow over the entire story.  This can lead to a feeling of dangling loose ends that need to be tied up.  The audience can feel that the resolution of the main story is overshadowed by the unresolved elements.

Arcs

The other engine of the story is the long term arcs.  Unlike the pattern of tension and resolution of cycles, character arcs and story arcs are linear progressions where the fundamental parameters change through the unfolding of the story.  This often happens on the level of the character, where the country girl takes her place in the big city, or the high school loser shifts his focus from his miserable existence to the struggles of others.   It could happen with the setting, where a dystopian isolation gives way to an open world filled with more possibilities, or an oppressive monarchy takes the first steps toward egalitarianism.

Arcs tend to be story-length changes that happen incrementally in a linear pattern, while cycles are more short-term moments of tension that can be resolved without major state changes.  The major challenge with these long term arcs is that they need to be built on a foundation of story elements that support the major state change that these arcs represent.  We refer to these supporting story elements as Justification.  A character that changes abruptly and without justification can seem shallow and the resulting story can feel unearned

Motivations

As we talked about above, each character has a motivation that drives their actions, even if that motivation is nothing more than simply to continue their undisturbed existence.  The motivations can be shaped in a number of ways.  We discussed the outer want and the inner need of the protagonist as long term motivations, but actually

Justification

Cycles are story elements that build Justification.  In a successful story, events are interconnected, with later events supported by previous ones.  When the audience is invited to participate in a story, they begin to piece together the events into chains of cause and effect.  We might think of them as a series of setups and payoffs.  When we step into these character's lives, we begin to understand that their decisions are motivated by their perspective on the world, and that perspective is shaped by what has happened to them previously. The more we see of these events, the more we can understand the character's perspective and therefore their motivation.  This complex interaction between motivation, history, and perspective supports or "provides justification" for their choices and actions.

Even if the audience doesn't agree with the character's choices and actions, the more they understand the motivations and history leading up to them, the more satisfied the audience will be as to the outcome and resolution of the story.  Unsupported actions or unjustified choices violate the most basic social contract of storytelling, that the events the storyteller is relating are all interrelated and necessary to achieve resolution.

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy: a new direction

The Rise of Skywalker was released in December of 2019, a little over six months ago, bringing to a close the first Star Wars trilogy under the patronage of Disney.  Since then, the Star Wars franchise has been relatively silent, while the undercurrent of disappointed fans has continued to churn and shows no sign of abating.  It's time to look at the current state of Star Wars and see where we can go from here.

Disney's financial reality

Two things have happened in the last six months to the Star Wars franchise under Disney management.  The Mandalorian was a modest success with all fans back in November/December of 2019, and the limited final season of Clone Wars was released earlier this year, without controversy but also without particular acclaim.  Neither of these are situated in the Sequel Era, and in fact, nothing of note has come out of Star Wars in the Sequel Trilogy era at all.  No movies on the horizon, no TV shows in production, one book, few toys or collectables.  It's been basically silence.

The second thing is that rumors have begun to circulate that Disney is thinking about stepping back from the Sequel Trilogy because it is too divisive.  Disney is not about being edgy and divisive, and Star Wars is not about being edgy and divisive. For another franchise, this tension might have been a marketing boon, but not for the family-oriented, feel-good Star Wars saga.   And Disney, an entertainment company that requires the audience to fill theaters and amusement parks, has been especially hard hit over the past four months with the covid social distancing rules.  They need to start generating money and do it quickly.

Disney's new streaming service has a whole channel dedicated to Star Wars and the Sequels are featured prominently but, again, there's been nothing new there since a handful of Clone Wars episodes dropped.  Season 2 of Mandalorian is set for the  late Fall and a confirmed Obi-wan Kenobi series is supposed to be filming this summer, but with the current public health situation there is the possibility of a delay in the release until at least early 2021.  What this means is that Disney has very little to generate interest, and therefore revenue, on one of the cornerstones of its streaming service.

The bottom line is that the Sequel Trilogy has effectively killed the Star Wars franchise and Disney needs to bring it back to life.  Disney didn't acquire Star Wars to break even or to make a modest profit from a few films and then move on.  They needed the franchise to be another major pillar of their licensed properties, reliably delivering one or two tentpole films every year for the next several decades in much the same way that Marvel has done for them.  They were investing in another consistent revenue stream that would throw off not just movies, but merchandise, theme park tie-ins, video games, and all manner of income generating activities including content for its fledgling streaming service.

Star Wars as Creative Content

The reality is that Lucasfilm has not lived up to the expectations of their corporate overlords.  The Sequels are at present generating nothing; neither revenue, nor, and perhaps more importantly, the intellectual creativity that will carry the stories forward.  And this last is perhaps more damaging to the property as a whole.

The Sequels needed to generate intellectual property.  The Original Trilogy was overflowing with creative content including strong characters like R2-D2,  Princess Leia and even Anakin Skywalker, and iconic images such as the Death Star and the Millennium Falcon, and the AT-AT walkers.  It is this intellectual property that not only produces revenue but also drives the next round of storytelling.  So, while RoS has distinct characters in the form of Rey and Fin, most of the visual content is derived from previous trilogies, and all of the storylines are narrative dead ends. Side characters are particularly weak and few in number.  Lucasfilm finds itself in a narrative wasteland having generated no content that any of its fans were interested in, including broom boy.

What's more,  the current round of movies effectively crushed the existing intellectual property of the franchise by tarnishing the images of Luke, Han, and Leia. By foreclosing on Luke's story and leaving his final memory of a green-milk recluse, these films have limited the marketability of his character.  By making Han a deadbeat dad who left his wife and son and in his senility lost his car in the Walmart parking lot, Lucasfilm has diminished his status as a hyper-competent hero.  Our last images of Princess Leia are as a failed general who was unable to hold together the rebellion she started and ultimately let down all those who followed her.

Disney can't use the young, heroic Luke on posters or future content of any kind without also calling to mind his ignoble ending.  The same is true for Han and Leia, but also by extension every other Original era character.  All the intellectual property that Disney paid $4 billion for has been tossed onto the trash.  And this makes sense from a certain point of view.  Disney/Lucasfilm didn't want to be forever tied to the past, and possibly felt they needed to clean the slate so they could move on.  The problem is that the Sequels didn't seem to move on to any thing new.  They didn't generate the numerous potential plot arcs and concepts that could, themselves, spawn new stories.  This is the real disappointment of the new trilogy - the creative bankruptcy that both killed the old concepts and failed to replace them with story elements of equal potential.

 We aren't, for example, putting together a story with Rose Tico and Poe Dameron, or tracking the revenge/redemption arc of Cpt. Phasma.  I'd be interested to find out what Maz Kanata was up to (one of the few new and innovative characters of Force Awakens) but Zori Bliss or Jannah were given little more than flashes of screen time, not nearly enough to create intrigue or even recognition of any kind. 

This brings Lucasfilm to the predicament they are in now;  instead of launching a new era of Star Wars movies under Disney, the drive to "end the Skywalker saga" has actually killed the Disney era just as it was beginning. Disney is in a financial crisis where they need to draw on their properties to sustain them.  Lucasfilm has only a very few active revenue streams (ex. their streaming service) and the have little new creative content in the pipeline.  What they do have in development builds on George Lucas era material.  Their own trilogy did not fill the creative air with possibilities.


Speculation has it that one-third of the fanbase enjoyed the Sequels, one-third hated them, and one-third were ambivalent.  This cannot be true, however, based on Disney's response to the sequels, which has been to ignore them, and go with Original Trilogy content.  If 2/3rds of their audience either strongly or moderately approved of the Sequels, they would be doubling down on that content and they simply aren't.  If the haters were merely a small vocal minority, Disney would be ignoring the haters instead of ignoring the Sequels as they are actually doing.

Instead, we have creative silence from the story factory, and rumors of finding a way to rewind the Sequels.   Disney must make changes that will re-gain the fans without losing the ones they have retained.  But more importantly, they must find a way to move the story forward creatively.  And they must find a way to move Forward  with the saga.  Looking back to the Old Republic era, or the inter-trilogy era, as they are doing now is fine for a while.

But the most powerful stories can only be written when the creators have a free hand.   When they aren't constrained by endpoints predefined by existing canon.  We already know what happens between Episodes III and IV, so the Obi-wan series can be meaningful but it can't really break new ground.  These side stories won't be the engine that drives the space opera; that requires stories of a grander scale and scope.  This is where the Disney Star Wars era must go now.

Rise of Skywalker - lingering questions

Positives

•  To someone who hated the previous episode, this movie seemed like a total repudiation of everything that happened in The Last Jedi.  All of the decisions that went wrong in that film were put right.
• Specifically, Rey was trained, albeit by Leia.  Rey was finally given an origin story and has parents and ancestors. Rey struggles with the discipline necessary to become a Jedi.  She was, in fact, totally defeated by Kylo Ren until Leia interrupted  Ben's concentration.  At last we see how Kylo represented the dark side ascendant.

Negatives

• Still never fully communicated the state of the Galaxy.  Was the First Order  truly dominating the galaxy, or were they just a limited power.  Had they taken over all of the old Empire holdings, was there anything of the New Republic left?  To me, this seemed like an essential piece of world building that was simply neglected.  In contrast, this is handled very satisfactorily in The Mandalorian. 
•  So, what happened to the First Order?  At the very end, when the emperor was again defeated, what happened to First Order ships scattered around the core worlds busily dominating planets?  Do they collapse, presumably without the cohesion provided by Kylo Ren.  This seems like a very unfinished victory.
• And while we're talking about it, we see Kylo firmly in command of the First Order, when the film opens.  What happened between the death of Snoke and the beginning of this episode?  where was Hux?
• 
  

Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child. S1 E1-4

Synopsis:  Two teachers, Ian and Barbara, discuss one of their pupils who seems to be highly unusual.  She is particularly intelligent and eager to learn; and while she is advanced in some areas of study, is less familiar with more local subjects such as the British monetary system.  Barbara had decided to check on Susan at home but when she went to the address given there was nothing there but a junkyard.  Concerned for Susan's welfare, she enlists the help of Ian to try again and find out where Susan lives.

The teachers track Susan back to the same abandoned lot but this time they meet her grandfather, the Doctor, a contentious old man who only wants to be left alone and will answer no questions about Susan or himself.  When Susan appears, the Doctor allows Ian and Barbara inside the Tardis whereupon he activates the transmat and dematerializes the Tardis.  The Doctor has, in effect, kidnapped the two teachers and has no intention of returning them to London. Ian and Barbara are immediately struck with the impossibility of the interior of the Tardis, being "bigger on the inside." Ian has a particularly difficult time wrapping his head around things that contradict the science he knows to be true.

Because he decided to leave in a hurry, the Doctor didn't adequately calibrate their destination, and he has no control of where they will end up.  In fact, they materialize in a desert wasteland and when they leave the Tardis to explore the surrounding area, the Doctor is taken prisoner.  His captors are the local paleolithic community whose main concerns are finding enough meat to eat and discovering the secret of fire to sustain them through the coming winter.

Leadership of the tribe depends on providing those things, and one aspirant kidnapped the Doctor to provide fire for the tribe and claim leadership in the ongoing struggle between Kal and Za.  The recalcitrant Doctor refuses and is about to be attacked by the tribe when Ian and Barbara intervene.  The whole group is confined to the Cave of Skulls while the tribe determines their fate.  An elder woman of the tribe is convinced that fire will only cause conflict within the tribe and she sets the party free.

The tribal leader discovers the escape and, urged by his wife, pursues them.  In the forest, however, he is wounded in an attack by a wild animal, and Ian and Barbara come to his aid.  However in doing so, they allow the tribe to catch them and bring them back to the Cave of Skulls.  At that point, Ian makes fire for the tribe in hopes of being released. The leader Za refuses, hoping they will join his tribe.  Eventually the group sets up the spectacle of burning skulls on sticks and makes a break for the Tardis, narrowly escaping the pursuing tribe.

Review:
For a variety of reasons, this initial episode was a very uncertain start to this very successful franchise.  The season began in 1963, shot in a murky black and white, just three years before Star Trek was released in the US and in technicolor.  While technical sophistication would never be Doctor Who's strong point, in comparison to its contemporaries, the brightly lit Perry Mason or Andy Griffith, it seemed to reflect the styling of something shot 10 years earlier.  I also got the impression that the most effort was spent on the set design of the interior of the Tardis.   The rest of the episode was all styrofoam caves and boulders, with dripping water and wind as background noises.

My intention is not to be needlessly critical, but this seemed to be a very slow start to so auspicious a series.  The greater weakness of the episode was the rather static storytelling of the whole narrative. 

The main story of the plight of the stone age tribe felt rather static and drawn out.  If the story meant to interest us with the struggles between Kal and Za it largely failed.  I'm also unconvinced that this entirely imaginative portrayal of paleolithic life had any historical value at all.  We don't have any idea what a stone age existence looked like so this is all simplistic speculation.  In short, the cave man story was boring.  Our party is made captives, escapes, is kept captive again, and escapes a second time, finally making it to the Tardis.  Neither the Doctor nor Susan contribute anything of import, while Ian passes on a few words of wisdom and Barbara models compassion by saving the injured Za.

The majority of the story concerned the internal politics of this stone age tribe, rather than dealing with our main characters, but in doing so it established one of the basic premises of the show. Most of Doctor Who is about him as an observer of other people's stories.   It isn't about a grand quest that he himself must complete.  He generally doesn't go to these worlds with things that he wants to accomplish.  He largely has no deeds to do, and no where that he has to be.  Instead, he stumbles into a complex situation and spends much of his time figuring out where he is and what is going on.

His position as an outside observer can be a strength, giving a perspective that provides a solution.  This can also be a weakness, however, when the Doctor can be entirely passive, merely watching what is happening as seems to be the case with the cave men.  In the end, it is Ian who give the tribe the fire, and Barbara who goes to help the injured Za. This is a tension that the entire series attempts to balance, and sometimes struggles with; is the Doctor the prime mover in creating the narrative's resolution, or is he simply a passive observer, offering us a window into these unusual science fiction worlds.

The other tension that the story must negotiate is the position of the companions.  At their worst, companions are simple narrative devices that function to ask questions that the audience needs the answers to, (what's that, Doctor?) or as plot devices to get captured, feel confused or frightened, or act irrationally.  In this episode, Barbara is called on to scream, and be overwhelmed with emotions, providing some of those basic functions.  At their  best, companions offer insights into solving the problem, and bring a humanizing element to the often bizarre stories they are thrown into.   Not only can they ask the questions but also provide the answers.  At the least, the audience must sympathize with the companions, because they often don't really understand what the Doctor is feeling.

Throughout this first story, we  aren't sure who we are supposed to identify with.  Is the irascible Doctor a hindrance, or the prime point of contact for the audience?  At least in this episode, we more closely associate with Barbara and Ian.

There is an interesting moment when Ian and the Doctor clash about marching orders and then later when challenged by Za, Ian defers that leadership of his "tribe" belongs to the Doctor.  It's a moment  of development for Ian, where he recognizes the Doctors wisdom.  And I think that also affected the Doctor as well.  Earlier, the cave men were about to kill the Doctor when Ian plunged in to his rescue, and while he only succeeded in getting himself and the others captured along side the Doctor, at least he did forestall the Doctor's execution.  It is the character of Ian who has the most nuanced development here

This first episode had the seeds of the great show that Doctor Who would become.  However, it constantly felt unsure of itself.  My overall rating is 2 stars out of 5.

There is a difference between Superhero comic book characters and the kinds of characters found in more traditional storytelling.  The difference is that comic book characters are infinitely malleable.  There is no limit to the degree to which comic book characters can have things happen to them that may negatively impact their character.  But there is always the possibility, if required by the author, that these negative changes can be reversed. 

Almost everything that is external to the character can change, be destroyed, and subsequently be restored.  This is most obvious in the comic book trope, Not Really Dead, where a character is actually killed in a particular storyline, only to re-appear later and they're completely fine.  And it is up to the pleasure of the writer as to whether we get an elaborate explanation of their resurrection or if it is simply passed off without comment.

What cannot change, however, is their style and attitude.  Deadpool or Ironman are both irreverent, wisecracking, anti-authoritarian heroes, and this attitude is as much a part of their character as the more narrative sense in which characters are developed.

Traditional characters are developed through the events that happen to them throughout their lives, and the choices they make when presented with these crises.  For a comic book character, these choices almost don't matter, unless they are necessary to the plot, and then only temporarily.  For a traditional character, the choices made in pivotal moments literally define who they are ever after.  Frodo decides to take the ring, Faramir decides not to take it from Frodo.  These milestones are reflections of who the character is, and also where the character development goes from that point in their lives onward.  

In contrast, the actual choices Comic Book characters make are entirely irrelevant to their character, as long as they make these choices with the appropriate attitude.  Fighting and conflict are classic examples of this.  When Thor fights the Hulk, the outcome is entirely meaningless.  The audience has no expectation that the outcome will have any impact on either of these characters development or trajectory.  Neither of them will actually die as a result of the encounter.  The only impact is on the swagger and attitude that they temporarily project during and after the event.  The event is important because it highlights the differing strengths, tactics, and fighting styles of the two heroes.  

Should a seemingly longer ranging outcome occur, for example if Odin is blinded, it won't have any long term impact on the character, but it might represent a short-term change that causes a temporary imbalance.  And it is through these temporary changes that short run series are created.  The end of a series is usually represented in a return to the status quo.  When Odin loses an eye, it does not meaningfully limit his actual eyesight.  When Thor loses an eye, Rocket makes him a new one.  

Sometimes a comic book state change does occur.  These changes allow the writers to explore the attitude of the character from a different perspective. For example, Odin has gone on to Valhalla and Thor has taken his place, representing a state change in the universe. But if the writers should need to see Odin return, the audience would not be surprised if he made an appearance.

Star Wars Episode IX: Teaser Trailer Review

At the Star Wars Celebration convention, JJ Abrams and his team released the teaser trailer for the next installment of the main Star Wars saga.  The title for episode IX has been revealed to be "The Rise of Skywalker".

So where does that leave me now?

My overall impression after watching the trailer was positive.  I liked the trailer, and it made me want to watch the movie when it came out this Christmas.  Having done this, it did its job as a trailer well.

Episode IX has a difficult task to accomplish.  Overall, it needs to heal the rift between fans, and bring the betrayed disillusioned fans back into the fold.  To accomplish this, it needs to simply tell a good action adventure story involving the struggle between good and evil, and have the good triumph because of its goodness.

More specifically,

1.  It needs to find a way to honor the original trilogy and the character of Luke Skywalker (Luke is a violent hobo.  Han is a deadbeat who abandoned his son.  The victory of Endor was meaningless.)

2.  It needs to repair some of the more destructive decisions that TLJ made.  (Luke is dead. Snoke is dead.  Rey is a nobody. Kylo is a tempermental child. Po and Fin are pointless failures.)

3.  It needs to restore and fulfill some of the long story arcs laid down by The Force Awakens, ignoring most of what happened in TLJ.  (Luke is not dead.  Rey has an important backstory.  The vision of the lightsaber held essential clues to the past and the future.  Luke has been playing the long game on Achtoo that is finally coming to fruition. Leia is an effective general caught in a difficult situation but she holds the hearts and minds of the resistance and of everyone who yearns for freedom and peace in the Republic.)


Now, in watching the trailer, I find that they have addressed many of those elements.  Not perfectly, but at least seriously.

Scene 1.  Opens with Rey in the desert.  Is it Jakku, or Tatooine?  Simple but new attire, but with a lightsaber hilt prominent at her side.

Here, we see that Rey is back, she is confirmed as our main hero and that she is a Jedi.  Something has changed and she is no longer the uncertain Force user she has been previously.  She wears the saber, rather than carrying it.  It is ready to be used.

But which saber is it?  The last lightsaber she had seemed to be torn apart in the force-grip struggle with Kylo Ren. This one looks like it is the same hilt repaired.  Notice, the silver and black longitudinal striping.

So, Rey has taken Luke's broken saber and put it back together, just as, presumably, she has taken the broken Jedi Order, using the sacred texts she rescued from the Jedi Temple on Achtoo, and put it back together.  Rey appears here with a restored saber and a restored Jedi training.

I think this is a subtle acknowledgment of a concern among the fans.  Rey has done the work necessary to restore the saber and make it work properly.  We all saw that it was broken, we knew that Rey took the pieces, and that this restoration must have taken careful study and detailed reconstruction.  What we're saying is that this work is a representation of the work that she needed to do to advance her Jedi training.  It is a representation that things have changed over the year since we last saw her.

Rey is breathing hard, in this scene.  It's another reference to the past.  This is hard work.  She is listening, feeling with the force, she can tell that something's coming.  She calms her breathing.

"We've passed on all we know," Luke says in a voiceover.

Again, the obvious reference to training.  The knowledge has been passed on to her, it is accomplished.  Luke has done this, but he says "we", suggesting that others were included in her training as well.  Whatever happens next, one argument for the Mary Sue is gone.

"The thousand generations live in you, now."  Luke's voice continues.

The thousand generations is a direct reference to Obi-wan Kenobi's speech to Luke on Tatooine, "For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic."  We've done two things here:  first, we've given respect and a proper call-back to A New Hope and the Original Trilogy, tying this movie back in.  This is a continuation of that arc.  Second, we've remembered the important elements of that first film, Good vs Evil and the medieval mystic knights that were the Jedi.

It's also a reversal of the claims of TLJ.  The Jedi Order hasn't been destroyed; it continues in Rey.

The scene moves and shows us three things:  The newly drawn saber, a blaster pistol strapped to her side, and the blob of light which will resolve itself into a pursuing craft, as the camera pulls it into focus.

The saber she has drawn prompts the question, "will she ignite it?  It was broken last time we saw it?
But next, our eye is drawn to the pistol.  Why would a Jedi wield a pistol, something that Kenobi and many other Jedi and Sith both disdain?  But this is the same one that Han gave her on the Millenium Falcon. It's not identical, though Rey may have made some modifications to the barrel

These elements of her history are being pulled together to form who she is now.  And it is further pointing out that she is a new kind of force user.

"But this is your fight." Luke concludes.  Fade to a card that reads "Every Generations Has A Legend"   This is the same message that appeared in a trailer for The Phantom Menace.  So we're referencing the prequel trilogy here as well.

In a spinning location shot we move to the side and hear the characteristic sounds of a Twin Ion Engine, as a TIE style ship moves briefly into view, trailing a billowing cloud of sand.  This is clearly an enemy, and a reference to the Imperial enemies of old.

Rey is galvanized to action and ignites her saber.  Not only does it work but it is blue, just as it was when it belonged to Luke.  Rey is poised for action

Jump to a pair of gloved hands, holding the controls.  Not sure who this is, but we've characteristically seen Kylo Ren wearing black gloves similar but not identical to this.  Of course it's perfectly reasonable for Kylo to pick up a new pair of gloves, or it could be someone else.  The controls are not identical to Kylo's old TIE fighter, these being D grips while the old one was a joystic with a thumb stick.  So, it could be Kylo with some new gear, or someone else entirely.

Rey begins running away from the ship and at the last minute hurls herself into the air, leaping over it.

 We get a good look at the TIE Interceptor-style ship, with the red paint reminiscent of the First Order.  This is not identical to the Silencer that was identified earlier as Kylo Ren's personal ship, but I tend to think it is the same.

We never see where she lands as we fade to the next card.   "This Christmas"

Leia's Theme plays in the background as a ship traverses a rocky landscape toward the lights of a city built on three distinct levels.

Jump to Kylo running through a red-tinted woods, his lightsaber ignited as he body slams an opponent to the ground.

A First Order stormtrooper accompanies Kylo's assault.

A mysterious pair of hairy hands, not human but not entirely Wookie appears to be repairing Kylo's broken mask/helmet that he smashed in TLJ.  This appears to be another signal that JJ Abrams is repairing things that RJ broke in the previous installment.

IN the next scene Poe, with a blaster, and Fin, with Rey's staff appear in the rocky desert.  This is something I've been waiting for, something that should have happened in TLJ but was broken: Fin and Poe together on a mission, both appearing competant and getting the job done.

BB-8 and Dio-9 as the cute robot trope is passed along in the next film.

Jump to Chewie in the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon with an unidentified figure in the second seat.   In the reverse shot, that person is revealed to be Lando Calrissian, apparently having a great time as the Falcon jumps to hyperspace.

Card: "The Saga Comes to an End"

Jump to another desert scene as a sand skiff, reminiscent to those on Tatooine at the start of Return of the Jedi.  This further suggests that the film is set on Tatooine, rather than Jakuu.

The sand skiff is pursued by what appear to be Troopers on speeder bikes and eventually jet packs  as it thread's its way through explosions. In the next shot, the occupants of the skiff are revealed to be Fin, Poe, and Threepio, unexpectedly.   Again, this is further promise that Fin and Poe will be getting their adventure time together.

In a very blurry fly-by, a ship crosses the sun and appears to fly in front of the command tower of an imperial star destroyer, and down the length of its upper deck. One of its engines is on fire and trailing smoke and flame.

Fade to a pair of hands, (Leia's?) holding one of the medals awarded to Luke, Han, and Chewie at the end of New Hope.  Jump to Leia embracing Rey tightly as a single tear rolls down Rey's face.  A tear for whom, exactly?

Luke's voice over, "We'll always be with you."

We finally see the entire team assembled:  Chewie, BB8, DIO, Rey, Poe, Fin.  and they are off to complete some mission.  Yes! This is what we've been waiting for the entire trilogy.  We've been introduced to these characters, seen them work independently, and now it's time to bring them together.

In the reverse shot we see a windy shoreline and the remains of something immense out in the water.  The outline is reminiscent of the projector dish of one of the Death Stars that housed its super weapon.  Rey is carrying something in her right hand.

Luke: "No one's ever really gone."

Fade to black as we hear Emperor Palpetine cackle in the background.

The black changes to the title card, revealing the true title of the film for the first time:  The Rise of Skywalker.  and then, December.

Pre-Trailer Summary: Episode IX

At the Star Wars Celebration convention, JJ Abrams and his team released the teaser trailer for the next installment of the main Star Wars saga.  The title for episode IX has been revealed to be "The Rise of Skywalker".

So, where was I before the trailer?  My relationship with Star Wars was troubled.  I thrive on new beginnings and the potential for greatness.  I grew up watching the Original Trilogy in theaters.  In 1977 I was seven years old and I went to see it with my uncle and cousins.  I've seen all of the Star Wars movies in the theater ever since.

The original movie was something completely different from all the other science fiction of the time, unlike Star Trek, which was older and clunkier to me.  Lost in Space and Space 1999 were cartoon-like in my eyes (like Little House on the prairie set in space) and Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers, which I watched in their entirety, were fun to my childhood self, but they lacked both depth and realism; they were hyper stylized worlds, actually contained on about 3 sets, and represented noting that I felt I could fit into.  

When I saw Star Wars for the first time, it immediately connected with me, and that connection only grew over the following years.  When Phantom Menace came out, not only did I see the very first screening of the midnight showing, waiting all day in line, but I attended the first Trilogy marathon's that preceded it.

I enjoyed the Phantom Menace, and still do, though I thought that Jar Jar was overdone.  As Attack of the Clones and the Revenge of the Sith were released, I found them increasingly boring.  The decline and fall of Anakin was essentially uninteresting to me and the romance of Anakin and Padme was awkward.  But fundamentally, the second and third of the prequel trilogies were basically tragedies with a downward trajectory, the decline of the Jedi, the decline of the Republic, the fall of the Chosen One, the decline of Ben Kenobi and Yoda and Mace Windu, the decline of peace and justice in the galaxy.  I'm not just talking about low points in the trilogy, but the entire arc of the prequels was downward into tragedy.  And rather than feeling bad, feeling the loss of it, I just felt increasingly indifferent.

The more insidious problem with the prequel trilogy was how it abandoned the essential story elements of the originals, the mystic knighthood, the mysterious power pervading the world, the struggle between good and evil, all set in an environment of a high-tech science fiction action adventure.   Instead, the prequels were about procedural processes in the Senate and trade negotiations and the political manipulations of the Emperor

When I saw The Force Awakens, I was pleased to see that they had returned to what I considered the older style of storytelling.  Yes, many things were derivative of the A New Hope, but Abrams went out of his way to craft elements connecting his movie back to the Original Trilogy.  There were some major missteps, such as the role and fate of Han Solo, but I felt a promise of greater things to come, that I had not felt since...

The Last Jedi was an abomination.  Not only was every directorial and narrative decision wrong, but each was a betrayal not only of the spirit of the Original Series but also of the Abrams movie that preceded it.  Every question that Abrams raised, Johnson answered in the wrong way, seemingly out of spite.  My best approach to TLJ is to simply ignore that it ever existed.  Nothing happened in that film that advanced the plot of the trilogy in any way... to the point that the Sequel Trilogy no longer has any actual plot arc. Many of the characters took steps backward in their developmental arcs, retracing old ground and becoming less heroic in the process, which, no doubt, was Rian's intention.

I was obvious to me that whole segments of the film, including Canto Bight and Captain Phasma, were meaningless and could disappear without changing anything, but as I looked more closely at each scene and each element, I began to realize that none of them advanced the overall narrative from where we left it at the end of The Force Awakens. 

At the end of TFA, the Resistance had defeated Starkiller Base, but the location of their own hidden base was revealed and they have to flee from The First Order.  Rey is seeking out training in the ways of the Force.  She has found Luke. Poe is a skilled but reckless pilot who is maturing as a leader of the Resistance.  Fin is a troubled soldier who recoils from the horror of battle but willing to risk his own life for the sake of a greater cause.

At the end of TLJ, the location of their base is revealed and Resistance has to flee from The First Order.  Rey is seeking out training in the ways of the Force.  She has found the Sacred Texts. Poe is a skilled but reckless pilot who is maturing as a leader of the Resistance.  Fin is a troubled soldier who recoils from the horror of battle but willing to risk his own life for the sake of a greater cause.