‘Star Wars’ Month: The Soaring Highs And Dragging Lows Of The Skywalker Saga

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, and spread out over four decades, a space saga emerged. One that has endured for those decades, touching minds of all ages across almost every conceivable entertainment medium that exists.

Welcome to Star Wars month at Comicon.com, and May the Fourth (Force) be with you.

Across the month of May, our intrepid team will talk about this grand space genre franchise. Our pieces will touch the big screen, the small screen, the pages of novels and comics, toys, and who knows what else. Just in time to celebrate the 49th anniversary of the original film’s debut, 2026’s Star Wars Day and the franchise’s long-delayed return to the silver screen with Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu.

Star Wars has been part of my life since the moment my parents put that first film on the television. I devoured those VHS tapes and was happily in line to see the original trilogy on the big screen for the special edition releases. Joy was released when the franchise was coming back to theaters with the prequels, as I watched the trailers of all three films to death online as they came out. The extended universe of novels was my home as I read them from Timothy Zahn’s Heir of the Empire trilogy all the way through the Yuuzhan Vong war era and the eventual fall of Jacen Solo in the Legacy of the Force span of books.

I say all this to say that I’ve consumed a lot of Star Wars, and I didn’t even mention the scads of comic books, video games, cartoons, and television shows that dot that resume as well. For this entry, I’m going to look back at all nine of the films that make up the so-named “Skywalker Saga” — the original, prequel, and sequel trilogies specifically and not the stand-alone films (though Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is clearly superior to all).

So, let’s get started with some of the highs, and the lows, of the Star Wars saga.

High: They’re Iconic

Let’s just say it, this is one of the best and most regarded franchises around. There is so much fertile ground surrounding its core, a pretty simple “chosen one/heroes journey” nugget. There are lines and moments which transcend pop culture itself dotting the minds of people who have barely seen the films as well as those who have lived the Star Wars. You don’t continue to be a franchise that populates the media for decades without having something that generations of audiences can grab onto firmly.

While too much of fandom wants to pit Star Wars and Star Trek against each other, they share so much in common — chiefly the fact that they have captured imaginations across the timeline and continue to resonate with people long after their inspired inceptions.

Low: They’re An Absolute Canonical Mess

Oh brother, the Star Wars films — and their television counterparts — are just the definition of too many cooks in the kitchen. At some points, like the prequel saga, it’s the case of a head chef who is too high on his own supply. There is so much about these films that contradicts, retcons, ignores, and brazenly flips off their siblings at any given turn. George Lucas forgets his own prior films with the prequels, condensing things into a timeline that makes many of the pieces and references in the first trilogy now look baffling.

At the same time, that doesn’t even match the mess that is the sequel trilogy, which clearly lacked a single backbone thread of a foundation to share between them. It shifts from nostalgic-but-fun, to daring and progressive, to absolutely regressive and baffling and truly boring. Somehow, J.J. Abrams pulled off two of those opposing feelings, pulling a Lucas with the amount of retcon contradiction that was thrown around.

Low: They’re A Nostalgic Circle

As noted in the previous segment, the series has a problem with consistency. A lot of that comes from the fact that any progressive momentum with the franchise in the film area is quickly rolled back. This isn’t an issue only with the films, as it’s beginning to seep heavier into the other mediums as well. A whole snake eating its tail in the goofiest, most harmful of ways.

Favorite toy characters are inserted where they shouldn’t be. Whole story arcs are reverted for the sake of trying to recapture what was lost. As fun as Star Wars: The Force Awakens can be, so much of it is a retread of the original Star Wars film that it kind of hurts. Let’s not even get started on the repeats of the bad guy fascist regimes and how circular their plans continue to be. Some repetition is true to life, but being stuck in the same cycle for 40 years isn’t the best of looks at times.

High: The Characters

In a way, this is connected to the original statement about being iconic. As these characters, who all fit the mold of trope-style character, stand out and are remembered far and wide. We have the farm boy turned hero Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to the scoundrel with a potential heart of gold in Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and the badass rebellion leading Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher).

Oh, but they’re just the start. As they are surrounded by a litany of characters so compelling that most have earned their own stories across untold mediums over the decades. Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew and Joonas Suotamo), the droids (Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker), Darth Vader (David Prowse, James Earl Jones, and Hayden Christensen), Rey (Daisy Ridley), Po Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness and Ewan MacGregor), Darth Maul (Ray Park and Peter Serafinowicz), Yoda (Frank Oz), Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman), Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson), Finn (John Boyega), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), and so many others. The list goes on and on, as there are litany of Jedi, Sith, and others who inspire masses across generations.

Low: Let’s Talk About Race(ism)

Yeah, you had to figure this was going to be on the list. There’s no way, especially as someone who is mixed race, that I couldn’t talk about the blatant and not so blatant moments where Star Wars has really crossed some lines when it comes to choices. The prequel trilogy — hell just Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace alone — is one of the biggest offenders in so many ways.

It ranges from the obvious issues with Jar-Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) to the issues with Watto (Andy Secombe) the slave trader and the egregiousness of the Trade Federation representatives. Or how about we talk about how few Black people there are appearing at any given time, following that old “only one Black person at a time” trope or something. Oh, sorry, in the final (awful) film of the saga we got to briefly have two of them cross paths and speak to each other. Progress? (Spoiler, it’s not).

While Lucas was the big culprit in the prequels, the whole saga and all it’s handlers have their fingerprints on this particular franchise stain.

Low: They’re Just As Sexist Too

Yeah, we weren’t going to leave out the “Huttslayer” gold bikini. For awesome as Princess Leia can be at times — because Carrie Fisher was beyond awesome — there was a lot that left us shaking our heads over the years. Much of Padme’s time in the prequel is only centered around her (bizarre) love affair with Anakin (also Christensen) to the point that they have her die during childbirth because she “lost the will to live.” Almost cringy beyond words really.

While Rey was an attempt to change that, there still wasn’t enough done throughout the films to really give any woman a meaty role to chew on. All the male characters, be they hero or villain, were routinely pushed out in front. It doesn’t help that the fandom is a massive toxic black hole that hisses at the presence of any woman or character with skin darker than a sheet within the franchise.

High: Time For A Fight Scene

I mean, how can you not have this as a high with some of the fights we’ve seen across the films, and hell the whole franchise really. We’re not just talking about the obvious lightsaber duels that had us all running around like we were Star Wars kid. Everything to do with space and the battles too are just so good whether we’re talking the original Death Star run or the jaw dropping Holdo Maneuver moment from Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Humming “Duel of the Fates” while watching Obi-Wan and Anakin duel Darth Maul sure made an otherwise iffy film feel five times better than it should have. Speaking of which…

High: John Flipping Williams

This should just be an absolute given that needs no words.

But because this is a written piece, I suppose I do have to use words. Or I could also just drop this into the middle to speak for itself.

Enough said folks. Enough said.