Threads was teeming today with Star Wars fans posting hot takes and Episode rankings and throwing gauntlets over which hated movie was actually genius and which truly deserved the notoriety of worst Star Wars movie ever. I left some replies here and there, some of them actually bringing interesting or at least appreciative responses, but I felt slightly left out because I haven't obsessively watched anything Star Wars in several years.
So I sat down and added up how much Star Wars there is and how long it would take me to go through all of it chronologically, just because I think that would be an interesting exercise -- especially if I can put myself in a mindset of, What if I really was seeing all of this for the first time?
Chronological order, of course, means I had to start with The Acolyte ... which might have been a mistake. I don't say that because it's no good, but because I don't have the familiarity with it needed to pretend I'm unfamiliar with it. That is, having seen it when it came out, and rewatched some of the episodes, my memory of it remains clear enough to notice things I did or didn't notice before. That seemed to put my brain in a comparative mode, evaluating this viewing against my previous experience and stymying my efforts to roleplay a novice viewer.
So how did it go?
Well, for one thing, I just couldn't stand to watch it in color. I tried, for a couple of minutes, but the garishness of the color palette and what I consider the low-budget look of the costuming just overwhelmed me. I discovered the first time through (around episode 3) that putting my computer in grayscale mode made the cinematic composition work much better and look more artistic than watching in color, and knowing that just made it intolerable to keep subjecting myself to the show as shot.
It felt like my eyes breathed a sigh of relief when I set the display to black and white and restarted the show. But I think it also made it even harder to indulge in my pretense of finding things novel.
As for the two episodes I watched tonight ... (spoilers ahead)
I didn't remember wrong that the project starts off really rough. Lee Jung-jae is pretty good as Master Sol, and Manny Jacinto is terrific in every scene. But their characters are both playing roles at this point in the story, causing their dialogue to go oblique at key moments and preventing us from immediately getting a good feel for their true personalities and motives.
And unfortunately, almost every character has some similar block making them less accessible than they ideally ought to be. Mae remains masked through almost the entire opening sequence, putting on airs of being a merciless assassin. Osha then has to overcome the barrier of the audience wrestling whether she and Mae are the same person, or if there's some sort of twin thing going on. Yord gives off a stiff, awkward vibe, but how does one measure the degree to which that vibe reflects the unusual situation of arriving to arrest his former colleague, versus how much is simply him being a stiff, awkward person?
As a result, it's very hard to get attached to anyone, even though almost all the characters have likable aspects to them.
I did manage to feel like my uninitiated viewer's perspective made for a more straightforward judgment of the Jedi order during this High Republic period. They're entrenched in their formalism, mired in politics, and constantly express underlying trust issues that hang between them. It's interesting to observe -- but again keeps one at arm's length from whole-hearted enthusiasm for the story. and I actively dislike Vanestra, the head of the Jedi Council, who embodies the entire order by way of her authority.
A personal issue of mine also distances me from the story at this point: I want to watch stories about people who are both competent and good, and these characters are, so far, occluded in both of those categories. By the midpoint of episode 2, Yord is the only one who defies that, as he's pretty obviously straightforward, dutiful, stuffy, and unimaginative even while coming across as a pleasant enough fellow underneath his cloak of formality.
There's more than enough to keep one going -- mysteries as to what's going on with almost all of the characters wafts of engaging personalities from most as well. But so far those attractions merely tease the possibility of a satisfying storyline rather than delivering one.
I know the show gets considerably better. We'll see whether I can follow through on the immense project of a full rewatch ...
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