A conclusion four decades in the making.
The release of the final instalment of the Skywalker Saga over Christmas in the UK provided me with the first opportunity to visit my fellow film nerd and former employer since moving house, in consequence of which I was very much looking forward to the whole day. The pleasant sense of anticipation offset a phenomenon that I’ve never experienced before in forty years of watching Star Wars: despite having seen both The Force Awakens (released in 2015 and directed by J.J. Abrams) and The Last Jedi (released in 2017 and directed by Rian Johnson) on the big screen, I had no recollection of where the narrative of the Sequel Trilogy had paused when the latter concluded. To make matters worse, I’d confused what little I did recall with Solo: A Star Wars Story (released in 2018 and directed by Ron Howard), which I’d also seen on the big screen (and thoroughly enjoyed) in the interim. This literal loss of plot on my part was unprecedented – unthinkable in not only the Original Trilogy so adored by my generation but even the Prequel Trilogy that proved such a palpable disappointment to so many of us. Even in The Phantom Menace (released in 1999 and directed by George Lucas) at its silliest and most spurious, there was always a clear sense of the narrative direction – working towards the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker, the destruction of the Jedi, and the beginning of A New Hope (released in 1977 and also directed by George Lucas).
