Joe Hildebrand: The Star Wars talk we need to have

With the upcoming launch of Disney’s new series Obi-Wan Kenobi, Joe Hildebrand needs to get something off his chest.

US actor Carrie Fisher poses with a storm trooper at the opening of the European Premiere of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" in London. Picture: AFP

It’s time to talk about Star Wars.

I know what you’re thinking: “But Joe! The last Star Wars movie was released two years ago – what are you talking about it now for?”

And you’re right. It’s still too soon.

But some traumas need to be confronted, and there is no better way of tackling a $300m international blockbuster than with a 300-word newspaper column about television.

The problem is that no one could admit just how bad The Rise of Skywalker was at the time.

Most of us were still too shell-shocked by the medical abomination that was The Last Jedi to even speak, let alone string together a cogent sentence like “Will somebody please tear out my eyeballs with a fork so I don’t have to bear witness to this godless monstrosity?”

And then, just when you thought nothing could be worse than Princess Leia flying through space, along comes Episode IX.

This is not to say that Episode IX was objectively worse – that would be technically impossible.

The problem is that it was the last one – finito, finale, laatste, endelig. It’s not that it stinks more than Episode XII, it’s just that the smell is more lingering.

But we were all in denial at the time, and understandably so.

“What did you think?” I asked my best mate some weeks later.

“I thought it was fine,” he replied. “So let’s never speak of it again.”

And we never did – not until this week, when he told me that his 13-year-old son had finally gotten back into Star Wars.

The catalyst was the impending launch of Disney’s new series Obi-Wan Kenobi, which will be directed by the same woman who did a couple of episodes of The Mandalorian – the last good thing to come out of the Star Wars universe.

Maybe there is finally some hope for redemption. A new hope, if you will.

Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever finished The Mandalorian.
I wonder how it ends …

Joe Hildebrand is on 2GB Nights with John Stanley on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8pm

Originally published as Joe Hildebrand: The Star Wars talk we need to have