The Force re-awakens again

Let’s face it, Star Wars movies as hero’s journey have always been a bit repetitive. At the end of the day, they’re mostly the same films or series of films. At their core, they are Joseph Campbell’s greatest hits on an endless loop.

Rian Johnson record scratch stopped that cycle with the deliciously if not disrespectfully iconoclastic “Last Jedi” two years ago, injecting new life into the franchise, but at the cost of committing something no less than blasphemy against its fans.

Despite mostly critical acclaim, rude fanboys on the interwebs protested the dissolution of their childhood innocence or something. I presume the producers responded to this by re-recruiting Abrams (who fan serviced “The Force Awakens”) to replace Johnson’s bold and elegiac treatment of Star Wars with the safe and nostalgic.

 It sort of makes sense. Star Wars was always at its best when straightforward. Subversion has no place in this universe. It’s why the prequels were so hated; attempts to leaven a traditional battle of good versus evil with trade disputes and discussions about alien ethnobiology were not received well, to say the least.

Johnson, bless his heart, messed with the wrong franchise. He’s one of the finest directors today (“Looper,” “Knives Out”), and he’ll get to play in the Star Wars sandbox again in the near future, but it was a no-win situation for him to drift off his lane.

So the series has gone a bit eternal sunshine of the spotless movie franchise with “Rise of Skywalker.” Rinse and then repeat.

Yet again our heroes have their backs against the wall. They have to go on a quest to find some kind of MacGuffin. Along the way, they find out about themselves and their relationships with each other. There’s lots of PG-13 action violence. Lasers and spaceships. Lightsabers and the Force. It’s almost boring in its action adventure movie competence.

It’s of course a race against time for our heroes. But the pace of the film also seems painfully rushed, probably due to the fact that the filmmakers also seem to be in a hurry to tie up every loose end. In addition, they’re making up for lost time after erasing some of the perceived missteps of “Last Jedi,” so essentially they’ve had to cram two movies into one here.

Many action set pieces are placed throughout the 142-minute run time. The small spaces in between are filled with some moments of drama, a bit of back story fill-in and the trademark quippy humor, usually involving a droid or a smart-alecky swashbuckler type such as Han Solo reincarnate Poe (Oscar Isaac).

The acting performances are way above average for Star Wars. In particular, the interplay between Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) are terrific. The posthumous appearance of the late actress Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) is handled deftly and appropriately.

Annoying are the focus group approved cameos and the overly-forced (but laudable) attempt to improve representation--”Star Wars” as “Hamilton”-- in the series. There are better ways to achieve these goals. Moving forward, I suppose this will be a feature, not a bug of the Star Wars IP.

But any qualms about “Rise” are very small, especially for diehard Star Wars fans and traditionalists, and most importantly for young viewers, which if you think about it, are the real target audience.

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Now that the entire Skywalker saga has come to its conclusion, here is my personal ranking of all Star Wars movie properties including the recent spin offs:

11) Episode 2 (which will forever remain nameless to this critic)

10) Solo

9) Revenge of the Sith

8) The Phantom Menace

7) Rise of Skywalker

6) The Force Awakens

5) The Last Jedi

4) Return of the Jedi

3) The Empire Strikes Back

2) Star Wars (Yes, Episode 1 is called “A New Hope,” but back in the day it was just Star Wars, and my six year old self reserves the right to call it that)

1) Rogue One