“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was one of the biggest films of 2015 and in the 2010s only “Avengers: Endgame” was more successful at the box office. It remains in the top twenty highest grossing films of all time even when accounting for inflation.
Yet 10 years later the enthusiasm seems to have long since died down, and it’s not hard to see why. It was a good film when looked at on its own, but as the first film in a new trilogy it hinged its long term legacy on the reception of it successors. This turned out to be a grave mistake.
While some were relieved when Disney bought “Star Wars” after the prequels ended up disappointing many fans, others were concerned about the direction Disney would take. This concern grew when one of the first things Disney did was declare the “Star Wars” expanded universe non-canon.
For those unaware the expanded universe was a loose collection of media such as books, graphic novels, video games and other works that explored what happened in the “Star Wars” universe after the conclusion of the original trilogy. They were of varying quality but still had plenty of creative characters, locations, and ideas that drew influence from the original trilogy while still being unique.
A sequel trilogy would not necessarily have had to adapt any of this material one to one, but it could have still drawn inspiration from it when building its own narrative. After all, drawing from pre-existing sources was what Marvel had been doing quite successfully for years, so it would have made sense for “Star Wars” to do something similar. But instead they chucked all of it in the bin to start again from scratch.
And what was their bold original idea that needed to be unhampered by the expanded universe? A soft reboot of “Star Wars: A New Hope.”
For general audiences this shameless pandering to nostalgia worked wonders, but even back in 2015 there were people who could already see the writing on the wall. Instead of taking the series in a bold new direction, they just brought it back to square one.
Instead of exploring the meaningful consequences of how the galaxy had changed since the last trilogy, it actively undid all the victories of the last trilogy just to tell us the same story again. The New Republic is barely mentioned before being wiped out, the First Order appears out of nowhere with no real explanation, all so that the story can have the same evil empire versus underdog resistance dynamic again.
Not only does this undermine the accomplishments of the original trilogy, but it cuts the knees out from under the new trilogy as well. If the victory at the end of the original trilogy could be so abruptly erased, why should we trust the victory at the end of the new trilogy?
“The Force Awakens” was largely given the benefit of the doubt during its initial release on the assumption that the sequels would step up their game and make the new trilogy worthwhile. But how exactly are you supposed to tell a different story when you’ve laid out the same foundation as before? The sequels, “The Last Jedi” and “The Rise of Skywalker” gave us the answer: you can’t.
“The Force Awakens” had the chance to take the series in a bold new direction, but instead played it safe, took no real risks, and left the story little room to grow. While the sequels were worse, “The Force Awakens” was where the problems really began. Despite being a decent film on its own merits, 10 years later The Force Awakens is much harder to return to, knowing where the story goes.
Erik Larson, reporter
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