Rise of Skywalker, Oedipus, & George Eliot: Saved by Heroes or Collective? (Holiday Post #5)
[Spoiler alert: If you plan to see, "The Rise of Skywalker," there are spoilers in this post.] Over the holidays (as mentioned in previous posts), with family members we saw Frozen II , re-watched Wonder Woman , and also saw The Rise of Skywalker , supposedly the conclusion in the latest trilogy from the Star Wars franchise. The Rise of Skywalker had some of the same problems that plagued the last episode of Game of Thrones , perhaps having to accomplish too much in too short a film to please audiences and studio executives sensitive to marketing issues. Many things unfold without adequate explanation, short-changing audiences on back-story and exposition, while delivering plenty of special effects and battle scenes. Just as Shakespeare's Hamlet is haunted by the Oedipus tale, so is the Star Wars franchise. Whereas prince Hamlet is visited by the morally ambiguous ghost of his father, and later in the graveyard, the much kinder memory of Yorick, the spirits that...