During the first review of this series, I gave a general description of the issues with The Force Awakens. The purpose behind this was to show that the makers of this film didn’t really care about the details. They just wanted to create a beat-for-beat reconstruction of A New Hope. And this becomes apparent even from the start. During the title crawl, the writers’ entire goal was to reset the board so they could essentially tell the same story all over again.

This was cynical, and it was also a major blow for many of the fans. The expanded universe, what is now called “Legends,” had created certain expectations among some concerning what the stories were going to be about and how the universe was going to be portrayed. But even ignoring the books, many fans were undoubtedly curious about what a post-empire galaxy would look like.

The reestablished Jedi Order, the New Republic, the potential to follow Han, Luke, and Leia’s children were all topics of curiosity and fascination, and all of this was dashed in the title crawl, traded in favor of a repeat.

This was irritating enough, and the situation was only made worse by the fact that Luke Skywalker was missing, meaning he wasn’t going to be in most of the film. These are not yet plot holes so much as annoyances. Whether they become plot holes will be determined by whether or not JJ Abrams answers the questions he’s raised. Hint, he doesn’t.

“In his (Luke’s) absence, the sinister First Order has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed.”

Okay, wait! So, the First Order has risen to power while Luke was gone, but at the same time, they want to destroy Luke. Why? And Luke hasn’t trained a single Jedi? This doesn’t make sense! How could a group who’d never seen or challenged Luke be so bent on destroying him? And why would Luke not train anyone?

The whole reason the sixth movie was called Return of the Jedi was because it was assumed that Luke would train more Jedi. This is an audience expectation, and the title crawl is surgically destroying such expectations. The writers are essentially saying: “This isn’t Lucas’s story. This is ours, and you’re going along for the ride. We’re doing something new . . . which is old, but with better technology.”

“With the support of the Republic, General Leia Organa leads a brave Resistance.”

Wait. Why has Leia, a princess, been demoted to a general? And why is she leading a resistance when she has the support of the Republic? She’s on the government’s team. That’s not a resistance. That’s an army.

“She is desperate to find her brother Luke and gain his help restoring peace and justice to the galaxy.”

Okay. That makes sense.

“Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission to Jakku, where an old ally has discovered a clue to Luke’s whereabouts…”

Why didn’t she send a spy? Why does the mission need to be secret if the Republic still controls the galaxy? Does the First Order control this planet? Why can’t the ally meet her? It’s almost as if the writers want to create the impression that the First Order already controls the galaxy when, even by the movie’s own plot, it doesn’t.

None of these things are problems in and of themselves if they are explained. But only two details ever are, and the explanations are poor, opening the door for Rian Johnson to do his thing. But the real problem is that the title crawl has created a situation where two things are now pulling against each other, making the plot hard to follow: backstory—or lack thereof—and expectations.

Starting with expectations, I’m not just talking about what I mentioned before; that is the dashed hopes of people expecting to see more lightsabers and Luke operating as a wise sage, nor am I just talking about what the audience wants. I’m talking about clarity and scale.

The Return of the Jedi implied that the Jedi and the Republic would be restored. Now, there are no Jedi, save Luke, but the Republic is still in charge, yet it’s operating like the First Order is just as powerful, if not more so.

Now, the rise and fall of the Jedi, the rise of the Republic, the fall of the remnants of the Empire, and the rise of the First Order have all taken place inside of thirty years. People tolerated this at the time because everyone kept waiting for answers. That’s the brutal trick of this movie. It continuously teased answers but never delivered.

In light of the expectations on the part of the fanbase, a backstory of some kind was required, not just for Luke and the Jedi, but for the Republic, Empire, and First Order. The audience needs this backstory to offset their expectations and reestablish what is and isn’t possible in this universe. Otherwise, you get massive plot holes like the First Order being able to construct a superweapon the size of a planet without anyone noticing. A giant weapon being built in secret isn’t strictly speaking a problem, but how the universe got here, how the First Order could build this secret weapon, needs to be explained.

At this point, some may be asking why a backstory and the audiences’ expectations matter. They don’t if you don’t care whether or not the audience enjoys the movie. Clearly Disney didn’t care all that much because they burned this franchise to the ground. But if they had cared, the answer would be stakes.

I’ve used this analogy before, and I’ll repeat it here. Stories are a little like games. The tension comes from whether or not the players can win the contest using the rules provided. In chess, the whole point is seeing one opponent outwit the other. If the audience feels like the story is completely arbitrary; that is, empires can rise and fall on a whim, then there’s no reason to think a protagonist is in any peril.

There’s no point in trying to guess what happens next because the audience has no comprehension or access to the rules since there are none. Part of the fun of a film is trying to guess what’s going to happen or being scared because you can’t see how the protagonist is going to get out of a situation thanks to the rules provided. This is all a part of immersion—the suspension of disbelief.

This backstory is not meant to remove all mystery from the plot, and that distinction has to be made. But the first point I’d like to make is that the mystery does have to be solved eventually. I’ll contrast two questions in the movies to demonstrate my second point: Who is Luke’s father? And who are Rey’s parents?

In the first, we have enough background information to understand why Luke doesn’t know, why his father being Vader matters, and that the story Obi-Wan told is now called into question. We know Luke was hidden from the Empire. That matters because we know what the Empire is. Vader being his father matters because he is the head of the Empire, making Luke’s legacy something darker than he first believed. And the answer to the mystery also raises another question leading to the next plot point in the original trilogy; that is, Luke has a sister, and Obi-Wan and Yoda wanted to keep them separated.

Contrast that with the revelation that Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter. This explains Rey’s power—sort of—but we still don’t know how in the world the Emperor built the First Order. We don’t know why the parents were estranged from Palpatine beyond the fact that they thought he was evil.

We also don’t know why they left Rey beyond just wanting to hide her, and even that doesn’t make complete sense because they left Rey with yet another villain. In short, we don’t have enough background information for the revelation to bring any clarity. There’s a difference between leaving one or two things unanswered to build suspense and refusing to establish the rules and players for an entire game.

In this situation, one can’t even decide what players are on the board. Throughout this trilogy, the writers can’t seem to make up their minds about whether or not the Republic even exists and to what extent. Think about how insane this is! The writers have no idea what to do with an entire government that three previous films spent trying to reestablish. They just wanted to remove it so the heroes could remain underdogs, but to ignore an entire government is, to put it simply, cheating. The rules are already arbitrary, but nobody realized it at the time because the films kept insisting that the answers would come eventually. I’ll discuss Poe’s introduction in the next review.