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27timescinema · 4 years

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INTERVIEW - HANNALEENA HAURU

By Iisa Arvelin (pics © Fucking with Nobody / Jan-Niclas Jansson, Lasse Poser)

What I have learned here at the Venice Film Festival is that – as well as cinema – it is full of opportunities! Opportunities to be part of 27 Times Cinema project as a juror and ambassador, or to get funding and support for your first or second feature film through Biennale College Cinema, or to have an interview with a film director who has been part of Biennale College Cinema and whose film premieres in Venice!

I was more than happy to have the opportunity to interview Finnish director Hannaleena Hauru, as well as her producer Emilia Haukka and one of the main actors Samuel Kujala. As part of the Biennale College Cinema project, Hauru has made her second feature film, Fucking with Nobody, which premiered on Monday 7th of September here at the Venice Film Festival.

The film’s “essential idea was in the themes of love, the borders of love – what is preventing me to love somebody or to receive love” as Hauru describes it. The exploring of these borders of love starts when filmmaker Hanna (Hannaleena Hauru herself) is spending an evening with her friends and they get an idea to make a film about creating an illusion of romantic love relationship in the world of social media. At some point, the building of this romantic illusion between the project’s director Hanna and her actor friend Ekku (Samuel Kujala) starts to challenge the real relationships among the filmmaking crew, revealing the tensions, especially between Hanna and the cameraman Lasse (Lasse Poser). By following the filmmaking process, which uses the creation of the relationship as its material, Fucking with Nobody surprises the audience with its many layers varying from meta-fiction to social media and filmmaking, still retaining a humorous approach on its relatable events and characters.

Together with Hannaleena, Emilia and Samuel, we had a warm and friendly discussion with which I wanted to shed a light on the process of the Biennale College Cinema, as well as the making of such a multidimensional film, from the perspective of the makers. I was fascinated by Hannaleena’s ability to direct the cast through the many layers while simultaneously playing the main character, and I was curious to know how Samuel as an actor found the film and how was working with Hannaleena, who was his director as well as the counterpart in the romance.

How did the process with the Biennale College Cinema start? How did you find out about it?

HANNALEENA: This was the 8th edition of the Biennale College Cinema. When it started 8 years ago, I already spotted this new initiative and thought that maybe someday, if I make a feature film I could apply – because back then I was still making short films. But last year, in the springtime, I had a theme for a new film, and I noticed that the Biennale College Cinema was once again opening their application period.”

What did you need for the application?

HANNALEENA: For the application, you need to have already a director’s vision, visual ideas and an audience engagement plan. In the application, they were asking about the connection to a producer. You can sense that they are not only looking for directors, but they are looking for director and producer tandems. For this kind of project, you really need to have a good connection, director and producer working as a team, so that you are able pull it off in a year.

As ambassadors of the new LUX Award – the European Audience Film Award we have had many panels and workshop about audience engagement. Therefore, I am curious to know, what did your engagement plan entail, did you have certain engagement tricks to convince the Biennale College Cinema team?

HANNALEENA: Everything comes from the content. I am really reassured that this film is dealing with our times – with intimate relationships in the 2020s, so I think that’s the key for reaching people. But the film premieres here now, and its selling to the audience is only starting after this, especially as a social media campaign.

EMILIA: From the producer’s point of view, it is wonderful that the Biennale College Cinema asks you to think about how to reach your audience from the very beginning – and essentially, what they are asking is “do you know your film?”, “do you know this film you’re starting to develop?”. Because, as Hannaleena said, it’s about the content. Then it’s all about how you frame it to the audience, in an honest but entreating way. It is so wonderful that for Biennale College Cinema, creating a marketing and distributing strategy goes in parallel with the development of the actual film and the content, so then it actually gives its strength. And I feel that it has helped us – this being a very particular kind of film mixing social media, our current issues, intimacy – to find those audience engagement keys and points very well.

What were the next steps in the Biennale College Cinema process after the application?

HANNALEENA: I really wanted to build the script so that the actors were involved from the beginning and that’s why I already knew the film’s cast and crew before starting the application period. With 11 other film projects, we were chosen for the first – very intense – workshop which was held in San Sèrvolo, an island near Venice, for two weeks last September. It’s the best workshop I have ever been to – it’s very well structured, but the tutors also study where you are as a filmmaker. I was really impressed. After that, we had one month to deliver a full script and out of them, they selected the four films they gave the grant to. That entailed two more workshops, one week per each, in San Sèrvolo. For all the workshops I went with Emilia and Lasse Poser (actor, cinematographer and co-writer of the film). The second workshop started the preproduction, and then we slid into filming in February and continued it after the lockdown, in May and June. Actually, we finished the film 10 days before the premiere, so the editing process was quite intense [laughs].

What kind of impact did the lockdown period have on the film?

HANNALEENA: Actually, it was really good in the sense that we had made a raw cut with some material before the lockdown, we had shot 40% of the film – and we sent it to all the actors so they were able to see what they had been doing, but also what their colleagues had been doing. I really think that it helped the second part, the actors playing more together and understanding the essence.

SAMUEL: For me, the lockdown was a turning point. I realised something about the rhythm of the movie, how it will be edited, and I was able to ditch some of the presumptions I had told myself as an actor, like that I have to be somehow coherent with my character. But then I realised that we are producing material for the editing and that was really important. And also, it was a really nice treat to see a glimpse of the universe we were creating there. A punch of motivation.

From the beginning, the film is made through the interaction with the actors. How was it to work with dual roles – Hannaleena as an actor and a director at the same time, and Samuel as an actor collaborating with the script?

HANNALEENA: I realised that at this point of my artistic development I sort of needed to have a dual role in order to explore the theme more – it has something to do with the human body as an artistic exploration. I knew that I had to throw myself there. It’s a bit like an installation or a performance. We had to do some arrangements to make this possible, but I had previous experience in acting and directing simultaneously, so I knew it was possible.

SAMUEL: “It was an interesting challenge. I hadn’t written a script before, but I knew that Hannaleena would go through the writings. Sometimes it was hard to distinguish between Hannaleena’s multiple roles because while we were improvising a scene, we were, of course, scripting it, but we were also acting. I was sort of trying to listen carefully what Hannaleena was proposing for the scene, what possible turns it could take, and then just trying to give some of my own input. I felt I started to take more of a role of a screenwriter even while shooting, and that was crucial for me – that I realised I have multiple roles. Sometimes I even got the camera and started shooting. That was amazing.

Speaking of the multiple roles, how was it to work with the multiple layers of the film at the same time?

HANNALEENA: The hardest part was during the scriptwriting; to explain the idea to the tutors. The actors were digesting all the levels quite well – they are dramaturgically brilliant! And in my brain, it was always really clear. But also, because this isn’t the first film I do like this. Let’s say that for the last 10 years I have been working with this kind of mockumentary, autofiction and meta-film, so there’s a bit of practice there. For creating the layers, there were three or four cameras present in some scenes, and all together, there were five camera formats – plus the German spy glasses. I was really happy that in the premiere some people from the audience said that it was interesting that they were able to follow all the layers – because that was also my concern when editing; is it clear for the audience? It’s clear for me because even in my own life there are different levels of presentation of me, different social realities.

SAMUEL: The layers were a challenge at first. I was trying to figure out which camera I should be giving my face or my emotion or whatever I was trying to act out in the scene. But then somehow liberating in the end; I just took some key pieces of the character I had built, and I stuck to them really really tightly. The cameras could have been wherever.

The multidimensional aspect of the film is also presented as the characters’ more or less strange fantasies, how did these become part of the story?

HANNALEENA: The theme of the fantasies and nightmares was one of the topics we were constantly talking about with Lasse on the film. In this level of two filmmakers creating a film, which is also the film itself, it is a fantasy as well. If you take all the layers out, it is the characters, Hanna and Lasse, and their fantasies and nightmares. And for me, it was something to explore, how the human mind operates. If I think of intimacy and intimate relationship, it’s only with my really closest friends or family members I can reach this level; I can share the most ridiculous sides of me, which are the nightmares and fantasies, the fears and dreams. That’s why it’s there. And I can also really relate to the reaction of this being so ridiculous, because I think that’s what intimacy is. It’s sometimes ridiculous things.

***

Fucking with Nobody is a very brave film, trusting the audience with even the most intimate moments, fantasies and nightmares. Simultaneously, it pictures our current conventions about presenting love in social media in a satiric and insightful way. Thank you Hannaleena, Emilia and Samuel for the interview, and once more, congratulations on Fucking with Nobody!

#venezia77 #interviews #biennale college

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rebelsofshield · 4 years

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Ranking a Saga

It’s that time again everyone! Two more Star Wars films have been released since I last posted this ranking in 2017, and one more, sure to be controversial, addition is on the way in just a few hours!

Part of my joy for this saga is seeing my opinions and tastes for it change over time. I find new strengths in works I didn’t originally love and see flaws in my old favorites. This time, I’ve gone ahead and ranked all existing saga films, Solo, Rogue One, and The Clone Wars animated movie from my least favorite to my cream of the crop.

Feel free to reply with your own rankings and favorites! I love sharing opinions on this site and every fan has different wants and needs for this franchise. I know my take on Rogue One has always been a minority, but I love that some find real value in it.

11. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

Watching the theatrical pilot for Star Wars: The Clone Wars is like watching a talented high school quarterback be assigned to play for a major NFL team. It’s taking something that in its own small, minor scale would be perfectly acceptable and potentially even good, and forcing it into a realm where it has no business belonging. This is the unfortunate task faced with director and eventual showrunner Dave Filoni and his crew. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a movie that should not be a movie, in fact it barely functions as one to begin with.

I do not hide my love for the still flawed but at the same time charming, engaging, and compelling animated series that this film would spawn. It’s for this reason that the failings of The Clone Wars feel all the more painful.

Hastily edited together out of the initial five episodes for the series, quite simply everything about The Clone Wars is a mess for a film. Despite the best efforts of Director Dave Filoni, The Clone Wars cannot escape its slipshod construction. It moves along in hurts and jolts and switches focus too quickly to attain much of any narrative momentum.

It also hurts that the animation itself, while perfectly serviceable for a CG animated series for the late 2000’s, is stiff, clunky, and oddly flat. Environments are sterile and lacking in texture. Characters move in jerky motions and lack facial expressions. In a year that would bring us kinetic and gorgeously detailed CG animation from films like Wall-e and Kung Fu Panda, watching The Clone Wars is an ugly and even depressing affair.

The only passing grace for this film are the creative and at times epic in scope battle sequences, but when the film itself is this lacking in cohesion and heart it is hard to raise anything more than half-interest.

It’s unfortunate that this film would be the world’s first introduction to such beloved characters as Ahsoka Tano, Captain Rex, or George Lucas’s take on Asajj Ventress. It’s the definition of a bad first impression and it only grows more ugly and messy with each passing year.

Score: D

10. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

By far the weakest of the so far released Saga films, Attack of the Clones acts as a call to action for all those who have issues with the prequel trilogy. While it has dropped the bizarre racial stereotyping of its predecessor, George Lucas’s second installment in the series’ second trilogy is filled with strange decision making and a convoluted plot structure.

Trying to understand the narrative of Attack of the Clones is often very difficult. While it is relatively easy to tune out and simply enjoy the spectacle of it all, the attempts to meld space opera with noir and political intrigue prove unfortunately more convoluted and stale than intriguing. In particular, the circumstances surrounding the creation and implementation of the clone army stretch credibility.

While The Phantom Menace made extensive and competent use of combining miniatures and digital effects, Attack of the Clones falls back on computer generated images to detrimental results. While it serves the sweeping battle sequences and wide arrange of alien creatures well, the pervasiveness of digital additions to the film’s world becomes distracting when it oversteps its bounds. In particular, the decision to make the armor for each of Temuera Morrison’s clonetroopers digitally rendered is an unnecessary decision and it gives a slightly uncanny feel to the clone army itself. Even worse are the completely digital environments which feel detached and weightless in their interactions with movie’s cast. It quite simply stands as the ugliest looking Star Wars film and that doesn’t seem slated to changed any time soon.

Ultimately though, the biggest failing of Attack of the Clones is Anakin himself. While Jake Lloyd may have struggled in The Phantom Menace he at least succeeded in turning Anakin into something of a likable character. While Hayden Christensen is a talented actor and he certainly improves by the time Revenge of the Sith arrives, it is hard to relate or even sympathize to the manner the character is presented in Attack of the Clones. He oscillates between arrogant, angry, and uncomfortable without giving us much to fall back upon. If we are meant to feel for his temptation and fall from the Light, then there needs to have been somethings there worth saving in the first place. By the time Attack of the Clones closes, we don’t have much of that.

The same can be said for the much maligned romance at the film’s center. While the concept is compelling in and of itself, Lucas’s writing and staging of the scenes can’t help but feel forced and impersonal. Both Natalie Portman, who was one of the previous film’s highlights, and Christensen struggle in finding a chemistry in the material that feels natural and the end result is something that at times approaches unwatchably uncomfortable in its presentation.

That being said, once the film’s political powder keg explodes, Attack of the Clones evolves into something intense and actually quite fun. Both the unique arena sequence and the Battle of Geonosis are visually stunning and entertaining action set pieces that are bolstered by a swashbuckling and charming performance by Ewan McGregor. While it does close out in the most disappointing lightsaber duel of the saga, it still ends on a relative high note given the meandering and detached mess that preceded it.

Score: C-

9. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

While still one of the weaker films in the saga, The Phantom Menace receives significantly more ire than perhaps it deserves. Much of this is likely due to the initial hype and disappointment that it brought with it during its release in 1999. Some of this is understandable considering that it does mark a significant step down in terms of quality from 1983’s Return of the Jedi and an even further one from the first two films. However, when viewed in context of both Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars animated film there is something about The Phantom Menace that feels inherently more watchable and even entertaining.

Much of this is that despite the fact that the film’s structure is strange and lacking in cohesion, it does move along at a pretty steady speed and provides us with a wide variety of locations and faces. There is also something about the aesthetic of the whole thing that feels significantly more in line with the original Star Wars than both the other prequel films would provide. It helps that Lucas’s action direction, even if it does tend to the over complicated and unnatural, is visually arresting and engaging. Both the extended podracing sequence and the stellar lightsaber duel between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Darth Maul are representative of the sort of fast moving fun that make the Star Wars films what they are.

Unfortunately, this is about where the praise for The Phantom Menace ends. I have already spoken at length about the rampant presence of racial stereotyping in the film and one does not have to spend much time discussing the flaws behind Jar Jar Binks or Jake Lloyd’s performance of a young Anakin Skywalker. The fact of the matter is, much of the negative aspects of the film have been so ingrained into popular culture that even discussing them at length would feel almost unnecessary. Jar Jar is annoying. The acting is stale. Etc.

However, perhaps the biggest detriment to The Phantom Menace as a whole is the lack of a direction when it comes to its characters. Of the cast on display only Liam Neeson and Natalie Portman are given characters with much of anything to do and while they may lack depth or charisma, their portrayals are competent and engaging enough to avoid boredom or disinterest. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the rest of the cast. Although there is nothing inherently poor about his presence in the movie, Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi is given next to nothing to do in the film and in the process his sudden importance at its conclusion feels half-baked and insincere.

Ultimately, The Phantom Menace is a disappointment, but it remains a watchable and at times entertaining movie, especially in contrast to the worst of the saga.

Score: C+

8. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

The second of the so-far released Star Wars films released by Lucasfilm since Disney’s heralding of the franchise is also the weakest. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story represents the first live action, theatrically released film in the Galaxy Far, Far Away that centers itself outside of the main Skywalker saga. It styles itself as both a prequel and spin-off and strikes out to capture some of the genre-bending style that has been Marvel Studios’s secret success. Telling the story of the theft of the Death Star plans, director Gareth Edwards styles Rogue One as a science fiction war epic filled with intense battle sequences and clever camera work.

When Rogue One is at war, the film is a success. Edwards’s strong visual eye, especially when detailing scope and scale, is the movie’s true secret weapon. Rogue One is a gorgeous film to look at and more so than The Force Awakens finds a way to inhabit the aesthetic of the Original Trilogy while also updating it for a contemporary audience. The blending of practical and digital effects is close to seamless (outside of the infamous digital recreations of Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher). As an extension, the battle sequences whether they be urban shootouts in the ancient city of Jedha, storming the beaches of Scarif, or capital ships crashing into one another in high atmosphere, are stunning to behold and perfectly capture the chaos but also emotion of galactic warfare.

Similarly, when Rogue One functions as an allegory for the battles of oppressed people against fascist or totalitarian governments it is effectively stirring and even emotional. Sacrifice for freedom is a key theme of the franchise and Edwards and screenwriters Chris Weitz, Tony Gilroy, John Knoll, and Gary Whitta are keenly aware of this.

It is unfortunate then that so much of Rogue One is so starkly impersonal and flat. Throughout the film’s runtime there is an undeniable texture of ideas and concept that are intriguing. There are different political factions, sub-cultures that have clear beliefs and unique meanings to the franchise, and characters that are well drawn and conceptualized. These ideas just often feel untouchable or nebulously realized.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the film’s central cast of characters. While the ensemble of talented actors do their strongest to bring these rebels to life, many struggle to stretch beyond their initial drawings or conceptualizations. Few outside of the film’s lead, Jyn Erso, possess much of a clear character arc or personal stake in the proceedings, but even those that do experience some form of personal realization do so in a stop gap manner that is hard to follow. At its most basic, Rogue One’s characters lack agency; their wants and desires feel removed from the central thrust of the plot and instead feel like game pieces moved about for a larger force. While this may have been done as a way to ape grunt work in military campaigns, there is still a storied history of war films that explore the personal and human side of battle, especially when the war concerns struggles of freedom against totalitarianism. Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor may hint at a lifelong history of war and trauma, but we don’t see how this shapes him as a human or why he comes to realize that this has harmed him in the third act. It says something that the most iconic scene in the film concerns a cameo from a villain from a more successful movie. As a result, Rogue One functions as a series of beautifully executed set pieces and ideas, but is told through an emotional distance and relative lack of humanity.

Score: B-

7. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

While it is not flawless, it is refreshing to see the franchise reorient itself so strongly during the closing act of the prequel trilogy. Revenge of the Sith is a film that blends mythos and character and at its best does both rather well.

At its worst, Revenge of the Sith recommits the sins of its predecessors. Hayden Christensen, while as a whole is significantly better than his previous take on the character, still has his moments of woodenness and has a proclivity for overly heightened melodrama. Lucas’s script also continues to struggle in providing dialogue, particularly in romantic scenes, that feels human often resulting in stilted and even sometimes nonsensical phrasings. Overall, there is something also strangely off about the tone in Revenge of the Sith which changes from relatively fun and light hearted space adventure to dark and brooding tragedy often times rather close to each other.

Similarly, there is a staleness to how much of the dialogue in the film is directed with characters frequently aimlessly wandering around rooms without clear purpose or urgency. As the stakes of the film rise this sort of detached storytelling becomes more and more distracting, but it is likely not enough to overpower what does work.

Anakin’s eventual fall from grace and the rise of the Galactic Empire carry with them a great sense of dramatic and mythological weight, even if the transition from conflicted Jedi Knight into child murderer does feel a tad rushed. The fact of the matter is, Revenge of the Sith knows how to play into its subject matter. Its story is appropriately weighty and once Grievous falls and Sidious makes his masterstroke the film evolves into some of the most consistently entertaining and weighty material in the saga, easily surpassing its predecessors in the prequels.

While it has come under fire recently for its apparent decision to select spectacle over emotion, the final confrontation between Anakin and Obi-Wan still remains some of the most intense and emotional stuff the series has seen. Its dancelike and kinetic fight choreography coupled with John Williams’s haunting score commands attention and leaves dozens of striking images in the viewer’s brain.

However, it is ultimately Ian McDiarmid performance as Palpatine/Darth Sidious that really makes Revenge of the Sith special. McDiarmid knows how to sell the myth and lore of Star Wars with nuance and restraint while at the same time is not afraid to embrace the hammy and ridiculous side of his character as well. Whenever he is on screen, he owns every second of it and he makes the film equal parts entertaining and haunting.

Score: B

6. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

The very concept of Solo was a hard sell. As beloved as a character Han Solo is, few were clamoring to see a movie exploring the smuggler’s early days and the concept of any actor inhabiting the role of that helped make Harrison Ford a household name was enough to make fans call blasphemy. Given these concerns and the fact that directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired mid production and replaced by Ron Howard , it is a wonder that Solo works at all. This is not to say that there aren’t bumpy sequences or clear moments of clashing creative vision, but the resulting film is one that evolves into an enjoyable adventure despite it becoming infamous for being Star Wars’ biggest financial flop.

Solo aims to capture a Saturday matinee energy that plays well into Star Wars’ roots but doesn’t shoot for the mythological grandeur of some of its best entries. Much of this has to do with the fact that Howard and Kasdan, along with his son and co-writer Jon, keep the film mired in the muck and grime of the galactic underworld. The result builds upon elements of Star Wars media that have never been given the forefront of a feature film until now. It makes for a unique feeling movie that carries an aesthetic of its own but still feels a part of the larger saga.

It is in the smaller moments of heists and robberies and double crossing where Solo leans into its western/crime film roots that the movie proves to be the most thrilling and successful. While the fate of many of its players are known, Solo does an admirable job of keeping motivations shifting and fluid but never unclear and this is captured by some solid performances at its center.

Despite the mountains of criticism and skepticism hurled his way, Ehrenreich does a commendable job of making the role of Han Solo his own. While clearly based in the mannerisms of Ford’s iconic take, Ehrenreich brings his own level of charm and swagger to Han that it is easy to appreciate him as his own character while also not losing sight of the legacy.

The true scene stealers, as most audiences likely expected, prove to be Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian and his droid partner L3-37, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Glover’s casting was lauded since it was first announced and it is a pleasure to see that he lives up to the hype. He plays the smooth talking gambler with the sort of duplicitous charm and arrogance that made Billy Dee Williams’s first appearance in The Empire Strikes Back so instantly classic. Calrissian is a clear crowd pleaser on and off screen and it makes every scene he is a part of magnetic and entertaining.

However, despite all of this, Solo is more concerned with telling a story of origins and smaller scale spectacle than it is picking apart what really makes the central smuggler tick. It’s passable entertainment without a whole lot going underneath the hood.

At the end, perhaps the biggest sin that Solo commits is that it fails to justify the purpose for its existence. This isn’t a film that audiences were clamoring for or that the franchise is necessarily improved by for having. However, unlike other origin stories, it plays with the legacy of its larger than life toys without tarnishing them. It takes them for a ride that is frequently fun and often filled with smart creative choices but can’t help but feeling disposable. It’s the Star Wars movie that inspires the least amount of emotion, one way or another, and is likely to remain a franchise footnote for sometime.

Score: B

5. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)

Despite containing some of the most iconic and even emotional content of the series, there is something oddly stale about Return of the Jedi. It still is a consistently entertaining and engaging film, but in comparison to the two masterworks that proceeded it, something feels off.

Some of this might simply be due to the abundance of slapstick humor, the ill-fitting Ewoks, or any number of frequently cited issues with the presentation and script such as an overly long sojourn to Jabba’s Palace on Tatooine. (I do love the Errol Flynn/Flash Gordon style set piece above the Sarlacc pit all the same.) However, perhaps the most unfortunate aspect about Return of the Jedi is simply the fact that two of its principal characters are played by actors who simply do not seem to want to be a part of the film. Both Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford turn in performances that are competent in their own right, but at the same time are a far cry from their work in both preceding films in the original trilogy. A particular exchange between the famous smuggler and princess on a balcony in an Ewok village contains some of the most forced dialogue and line delivery in the saga and it’s more than a tad distracting and disappointing.

Richard Marquand’s direction also feels relatively bland and perfunctory after the creative abundance that George Lucas and Irvin Kershner brought to the prior films. It handles the scale and action of it all competently enough, but the whipsnap editing of A New Hope or the inventive cinematography of The Empire Strikes Back are missing. It stands as one of the blandest looking films in the saga as a result.

However, Return of the Jedi progresses the narrative momentum from both previous films into an incredible three part climax that is thrilling and compelling. Whether it is the sublimely ahead of its time space battle between the scattered rebel fleet and the Imperial war machine or the final temptation of Luke Skywalker by the Emperor, Return of the Jedi draws the viewer into its dense dramatic landscape and rarely lets up. Yes, even the relative silliness and levity of the Ewok forest battle even makes for some amusing breaks of the heavy material surrounding it.

What ultimately elevates Return of the Jedi above most of the rest of the Star Wars franchise is its beautiful conclusion to the central drama of the Skywalker family saga. Mark Hamill and Ian McDiarmid are arguably the two strongest actors in the original six Star Wars films and seeing both paragons of light and dark play off one another in such a way is a rare treat that bursts with scenery chewing pathos. The tempting of Luke through family and eventually Vader’s redemption through love for his son is a beautiful thematic tableau. Vader’s slaying of his Master and his gradual death bed re-transformation into Anakin Skywalker makes for the most emotional sequences in the series. Regardless of the tragedy that has brought the series to this point, Return of the Jedi ends on a moment of unabashed peace and unity and it’s both serene and appropriately celebratory. Whether you are a “Yub Nub” fan or a fan of the Special Edition’s galactic victory revelry (I’m the latter), it is hard not to smile as our heroes embrace one another and an old generation sees its sins rectified. Score: B+

4. Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)

There is a certain strangeness to The Last Jedi. While many criticized The Force Awakens for being overly reverential of its predecessors at the cost of a unique narrative, director and writer Rian Johnson takes the franchise to its almost breaking point limit in the series’ eighth numbered installment. Whether it be through its atypical narrative structure, franchise first visual cues, abundant humor, or the frequent breaks from expectation, The Last Jedi is a different form of Star Wars film than we are used to. The Last Jedi takes risks, and while not all of them may payoff, it is to be commended that it takes them in the first place. It’s a movie that has something to say and something worthy as well, and in an era of blockbusters that aim only to please and not challenge their viewers, it’s certainly an appreciated move.

After sitting out almost the entirety of The Force Awakens, Mark Hamill finally receives the opportunity to dig back into the most iconic role of his career and to one of the most beloved heroes in a generation. One of the smartest twists in Johnson’s script comes with the playing of expectations for this. Luke is a broken man and has become that way for a reason. In particular, The Last Jedi continues the Sequel Trilogy’s smart meta-narrative. These films, perhaps more so than any other set of Star Wars media, are keenly aware of the legacy in which they play and it factors into the narrative. Within the Galaxy Far, Far Away and in real life, the characters of Luke, Leia, Han, and, even, Darth Vader have become legends. Johnson crafts a Luke that is cracking under the pressure of the legacy, but in the process creates a strong message on the importance of heroes and what they can mean to the downtrodden and a society in turmoil. It makes for one of the film’s strongest through points and this is done in no small part due to Hamill’s terrific performance. Hamill not only finds a wonderful balance in updating his iconic character to a new era of his life, but by balancing measures of sorrow, anger, and grumpy humor. It’s a move that has proved infamously divisive to both viewers and to Hamill himself, but the end result, especially in an outstanding move in the film’s third act, is pure Star Wars magic.

Paired with Luke is the still lost Rey. Daisy Ridley utilizes this confusion and frustration to craft a heroine that is at an emotional crossroads. While her determination and passion from The Force Awakens still rings through, Rey this time brings with her a strong sense of vulnerability and confusion and it makes for a harrowing character arc that is made all the better for its pairing with Kylo Ren. They see similarities in their shared frustrations and confusion, but they are still two people who are fundamentally separated on the bound of morality. As a result, Adam Driver continues to craft Kylo Ren into one of the franchise’s most successful villains. While he lacks the campy sneer of Palpatine or the undeniable dramatic gravitas of Dart Vader, Driver’s Kylo is marked by his unpredictability and instability. As a result, he’s a villain that feels disturbingly human and volatile and it makes each scene he is a part of particularly fascinating. All of this pays off in a stellar throne room confrontation between Kylo, Rey, and Andy Serkis’s Supreme Leader Snoke that marks the film’s clear action highlight.

The greatest failing of The Last Jedi ultimately comes from a middle act that at times feels aimless and overly cluttered. There are numerous moving parts and an extensive ensemble cast that branches off to multiple locations and teams. It’s inevitable that one story will feel lost in the shuffle and that, unfortunately, comes down to Finn and Rose. John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran as a general rule are a joy to watch. Boyega carries the same enthusiasm and excitement that made him so infectious in The Force Awakes and Tran is inspirational in her quiet moments of grief and casual heroics. However, the lengthy sequence on Canto Bight including a less than inspired chase sequence feels like the film at its most aimless. At a point where all three major narratives feel stalled, it is the Canto Bight section that feels the most distracted and disinterested despite the stellar design work at hand. It’s unfortunate in that this holds back the pacing of the film but squanders a potentially strong story for two of the film’s leads, one of which was one of the standouts of its predecessor. Luckily, Poe Dameron does end up getting the spotlight and his desperate story of responsibility plays out like a tense piece of military science fiction and is one of the unsung highlights of the film.

Even when it isn’t sticking the landing, Johnson’s script still moves with intention of both theme and character. Lessons regarding failure, myth, personal growth, and courage are abundant and each of the central five characters feels like they have a clear arc and goal achieved by the end of the film, despite some of them not always being the most entertaining to watch or taking priority over others.

Combined with some beautiful imagery, a freewheeling and dynamic musical score by John Williams, and fantastic final act that is simultaneously moving and fist pumpingly fun, The Last Jedi is some of Star Wars at its best. It’s willingness to upend conventions and take risks is likely to irk some fans until the end of time, but there is genuine magic here and it ages better with each passing year.

Score: A-

3. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

Director JJ Abrams and co-writer Lawrence Kasdan stated that the one emotion they wished to elicit in audiences while viewing The Force Awakens was delight. In that they delivered in spades. While the film may tread into some dark and even tragic material, what The Force Awakens does first and foremost is return a sense of fun, adventure, and character to Star Wars’ presence in the world. It makes for a breathless, endearing, and entirely involving viewing experience that only manages to win one over with each consecutive watch.

Much of this is due to the embarrassingly talented and engaging ensemble cast assembled in the film. Not since The Empire Strikes Back has a Star Wars film been this densely populated with genuinely relatable, exciting, and intriguing characters. It’s what makes the movie breathe, live, and thrive and in the process turns it into premium blockbuster entertainment and one of the finest installments in the series to date.

Daisy Ridley’s Rey easily finds herself fitting into the archetype of a loner elevated from poverty into extraordinary circumstances. She makes for the sort of every woman that made the original Star Wars narrative so appealing and was lacking from the prequel trilogy as a whole with maybe the exception of a childhood Anakin. In contrast, John Boyega’s Finn is a boundless source of energy, outward conflict, and humor. Boyega is about as charismatic and energetic character as the franchise has ever had. From his first traumatic introduction through the eventual end of his journey, Finn’s struggle for purpose and arguably redemption adds a level of unpredictability but also flawed humanism. Boyega clearly has a large amount of affection not only for the role but for the film and the universe itself. It’s hard not to fall in love with Finn from the second he appears on screen. Pairing off with him is Oscar Isaac’s underutilized by seductively charming hot shot pilot, Poe Dameron. Isaac owns every scene he is a part of with each spin of his fighter, smirk, and cheer.

Opposing the trinity is Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, whom Abram’s and Kasdan craft into a fractured and unstable meta-symbol of legacy and male fragility. It turns Kylo into an entertaining and uniquely frightening villain that is not sympathetic, but understandably human. It makes the character’s slips towards the Dark scarier in their closeness to real world insecurity. This is not a fall of mythic proportions such as Anakin but one instead fueled by uncomfortably familiar emotion.

Of the returning cast members, Harrison Ford not only turns in his best take on the galaxy’s most notorious smuggler since The Empire Strikes Back but arguably his most lively and enjoyable performance in over a decade. Like much of the cast, Ford seems to be enjoying the role and luckily, unlike Return of the Jedi, he seems to have found what makes the character of Han Solo not only fun but interesting and human. The same can be said for Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa. Fisher has not lost her ability to appear both emotionally torn but also commanding at one moment, and she, like Ford, effortlessly slips back into her old role.

As it is most likely clear by this point, The Force Awakens is a film that thrives by its incredible cast of characters. Star Wars at its best is a series that works best when the mythology, despite how compelling it may be, takes a back seat to the human, robotic, and alien beings at its center. This proves doubly the case for The Force Awakens. While its central plot mostly serves as a means by which to challenge, test, and reveal its characters, it also functions as one of the most structurally weak points of the movie. Those familiar with A New Hope will find a fair share of structural similarities with the beginnings of both trilogies. Most of these center around the mostly ill-advised inclusion of Starkiller base, a third string Death Star that functions as little more than a staging ground for the film’s final act. However, while this overt reverence for the past can prove distracting and unwarranted, it does not prove as detrimental to the film as a whole as some critics and fans have claimed since its release in 2015.

Score: A

2. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)

Viewing Star Wars, or A New Hope, is almost an exercise in examining an indelible piece of pop culture history as much as viewing a movie. It is hard to overstate just how drastically this film has shaped the world and cinematic culture since it was first released to record breaking crowds in 1977. While it may seem inconsequential when viewed in the pure breadth and scope of the behemoth franchise that it has spawned in the 40 years since its premiere, A New Hope laid the groundwork for one of the most enduring pieces of science-fiction/fantasy in the world all the while telling a uniquely entertaining and compelling movie in its own right.

As its own artifact, A New Hope is this strange sort of mad genius cooked up within George Lucas’s often baffling but uniquely talented creative space. The sheer amount of consequential but essential world and character building that A New Hope carries within its opening act is a gargantuan feat and it does so with the same sort of on-the-nose optimism and sense of adventure that pervades the entirety of the picture. Whether it’s the thrilling opening clash between Leia’s rebellion and the Empire or through Obi-Wan’s melancholy explanation of the history of the Jedi to an eager Luke Skywalker, Lucas’s script is busy crafting a myth and its one that’s worth listening to.

A New Hope’s secret success has always been its distillation of the hero’s journey into a unique narrative. Lucas imbues his take on this classic storytelling trope with his own creative flourishes and iconic imagery: the long arm of the Empire represented as the never ending Star Destroyer filling the screen, Luke’s desire for adventure represented as an almost self-imposed prison in his aunt and uncle’s farm before it is torn away from him, and of course the cantina that represents the steps into a larger new world filled with oddities and danger. A New Hope’s iconography is memorable and steeped into pop cultural memory for a reason.

In terms of performances, outside of Alec Guinness’s stoic but appropriately haunted Obi-Wan Kenobi and Peter Cushing’s deliciously twisted and sinister Grand Moff Tarkin, A New Hope functions moreso as a stepping stone for future development than an acting showcase. This is not to say that the acting is poor. Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker is impatient and impetuous, but he serves as a more than adequate focal point for the film’s young audience. Harrison Ford’s Han Solo may not yet be the cocky romantic that audience’s will come to love him for, but his devil-may-care swagger makes for a magnetic secondary protagonist. Carrie Fisher is given relatively little to do here, but right off the bat brings with her Leia’s brash confidence, knack for heroism, and utter impatience for those around for her who are holding her back from her mission.

Above all, A New Hope is simply a joy to watch. It’s buoyed by an infectious sense of wonder, adventure, and optimism while at the same time hiding a hints of tragedy and even canny political awareness. It’s an appropriate blockbuster for the ages and likely will feel its legacy stretch out for decades to come. Score: A+

1. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

If A New Hope was the film that laid the foundation of what Star Wars could become, The Empire Strikes Back is the movie that catapulted the series from creatively executed novelty into myth. Director Irvin Kershner and writers Leigh Brackett (to this day the only woman to write for a Star Wars feature) and eventual franchise regular Lawrence Kasdan escalates George Lucas’s original story of a hero’s journey into a layered, philosophical, and beautifully realized story of character and familial drama.

What sets Kershner apart from Lucas from the start is his sinister and almost dreamlike visual style that pervades throughout the film. To this day, The Empire Strikes Back makes for the most visually evocative film in the franchise with its dizzying moments of space flight, incredible battle over the snow drifts of Hoth, majestic and appropriately hazy skies of Bespin/Cloud City, and of course eerie and murky swamps of Dagobah. Kershner establishes a smart language through the movie’s cinematography that reorients the franchise and its characters not only as more mature beings but those that are battling their own struggles of aging and adulthood.

Appropriately, The Empire Strikes Back is a story of growing up and challenging its central cast. Luke discovers that his path to adventure leads not to one of heroism and uncovered legacies but to an inheritance that is tempered with trials and a dark and tragic family legacy. Leia finds her attempts to guide a galactic rebellion clouded by her own personal feelings. Han Solo can’t bring himself to leave because he has discovered that he is maybe addicted to heroism but is also hopelessly in love with the princess at the war’s center. Kasdan and Brackett move these characters into scenarios that routinely challenge them and in the process mines series, and even career, high performances from all involved. Harrison Ford in particular is both a dashing romantic while also remaining a cocky and oddly insecure criminal.

Similarly, while A New Hope may have established Star Wars as a cultural icon, it is The Empire Strikes Back that has left its indelible mark on the franchise as a whole. Whether through the development of the Empire into a multifaceted fascist machine spanning worlds and star systems, introducing the Force as a mystical and philosophical belief system more in tune with Buddhist and Hindu spirituality than as a magical tool through the instantly iconic character of Yoda. (Frank Oz is one of the unsung performing heroes of this series), having Billy Dee William’s bring a sense of moral ambiguity but also undeniable cool to the franchise with Lando Calrissian, or John Williams’s most mature and instantly iconic score of the franchise, The Empire Strikes Back inspires more iconic Star Wars elements than one often realizes.

However, what the central piece that draws the entire film together into pure classic territory is the onyx clad Sith Lord at its center. While Darth Vader carried a presence throughout the previous film, James Earl Jones and the general creative team in Empire establish the character as not only a sinister force to be reckoned with but one with a twisted sense of humor and a dark personal pathos. It solidifies the character as one of the most, if not the most, iconic villain in film history.

The Empire Strikes Back is a triumph. It is intelligently engaging, artistically realized, beautifully acted, and at the same time strikingly funny and entertaining. It is and likely always will be the zenith of Star Wars entertainment. I doubt anything will ever top it.

Score: A+ ----------------------------- So how did I do? Agree? Disagree? Let me know.

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