Mandalorian Season 2 finale. Spoilers galore, stop now!

In 1977, when the paperback novelization of "Star Wars" came out, the subtitle wasn't "A New Hope." The subtitle was "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker."

Let's think about that. Maybe it was Georgie Lucas' idea , maybe it was from the publisher, but at some point in time, the focus point of the Star Wars universe wasn't the dysfunctional Skywalker family, it was Luke! Further adventures were perhaps planned. Luke heading off to different galaxies to face different (non-Empire) bad guys each film. It wasn't going to be all about Anakin Skywalker, the Empire and an ever growing collection of characters.

Imagine a series of films where Darth Vader doesn't even show up! Imagine "Star Wars II" where Luke leaves Han and Leia to roam the galaxy dispensing justice with his badass light saber, like some intergalactic Clint Eastwood. Each film a new adventure!

That didn't happen.

I loved "Empire Strikes Back," but I sheltered a little disappointment in the back of my mind, especially as all the prequels and sequels never got away from the Skywalker family's problems.

Luke as a standalone badass would never happen ...

Until the second season finale of "The Mandalorian." 

Finally, the promise made in 1977 is fulfilled, we finally get to see Luke be a real Jedi Knight, kicking asses and taking names.

Overdue, but it makes up for his crappy treatment in the last few Star Wars films.

Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (spoilers ahead)

The bad news which isn't too bad: Ultimately, it's a remake of Star Wars: A New Hope. It opens with a person under attack planting a message in a robot, then sending the robot off. A loner in the desert finds the robot, and the loner turns out to be much more important than initially thought.
And it ends with an attack on a Death Star that has a fatal design flaw ...again...

..and all kinds of familiar plot elements in the middle.

If you ignore these swipes (and more), you'll have a good time at the movies. It's often exciting, the new characters are great. It's easily better than the prequels. And you have Harrison Ford who is worth every penny of the $20 million he reportedly got.

There's a couple nice surprises: The turncoat stormtrooper, Kylo Ren's parentage.

Some quibbles: It took Luke Skywalker three movies to learn to do things with the Force that Rey learns in one afternoon.

For never handling a light saber before, Finn and Rey are really good with it.

But if you just forget the past, you'll have a good time at the movies.

Film review: Guardians of the Galaxy

OK, we got a ragtag team of rebels who bicker, but must band together to fight a force much more powerful than themselves. I will give you it's a retelling of the Star Wars story, but it's probably the best retelling of the Star Wars story since Empire Strikes Back.

This is the kind of movie George Lucas used to know how to make.

The action sequences were relentless and funny. Yes we've seen jail breaks before, but this one starts with a laugh and ends with a surprise that makes perfect sense.

Everytime Quill puts on his Buck Rogers suit you just know it's going to be great.

We get to hear 70s standards in a whole new way, and  they even acknowledged their homages by giving credit to the Maltese Falcon and the Ark of the Covenant.

I never read the books, so I didn't have that to hold  back my enjoyment, but me and my 6-year-old both had a great time at the movies.

More on Lucas

I can't resist adding one more Lucas post. In interviews he's saying he'll be making small personal films now that he's retired. I've been reading interviews with this guy since the '70s, and he's been talking about making small personal films for 35 years now. He's like that old high school friend who keeps telling you he'll be moving to Alaska to run a caribou farm, but everytime you see him, he's still working at the gas station down the street.

It's OK if we're talking about some shmoe in a gas station, but we're talking about the most powerful man in Hollywood. He was talking about making "Red Tails" back in the '80s. HBO beat him to it, and Lucas wound up recycling cast members from the HBO version.

George, you may be the richest, least ambitious person in the history of time.

Side note: You have to love the Mort Drucker one-sheet for "American Graffiti" above. I always thought it was funny that Drucker would later draw the Mad Magazine parody.

It's a small empire after all

By some Internet law, all bloggers must make a comment about the Disney/Lucasfilm merger. So it's my turn.

If it were done during the Eisner era it would have been disastrous because Eisner wouldn't have spent any money on new Star Wars films. He always took the cheap way out, while turning people against each other. This is one of the reasons the Muppet merger never went through until he was gone. (Read James Stewart's "Disney War," about the Eisner years at Disney).

Now, looking at how they've handled the Marvel properties, the Muppets and Pixar, it's obvious they're willing to spend all kinds of money to make something good. (Even "John Carter," you can call it many things, but at no point did they skimp.)

And after looking at the last three Star Wars movies it's apparent they really can't do worse than Lucas himself.

Here's an idea they will never do: Instead of proceeding with episodes VII, VIII and IX, remake I, II and III.

They were terrible! ( I know it's spitting in the wind to point out shortcomings of films that made a skillion dollars, but, see my first paragraph, it's some Internet law I must obey)

I was in the theaters for the trailers of Episode I, it ended with Darth Vader's breathing. The audience went crazy, a new Darth Vader movie, this would be amazing.

Here's what we get instead
Episode I: A cousin Oliver.
Episode II: Whiny teenager, still no Darth Vader
Episode III: Whiny teenager, Darth Vader shows up for the last 5 minutes, doesn't destroy anything, audience is horribly disappointed, except for rabid fanboys who didn't know they were cheated by subpar writing.

What they should have done was... make the last 15 minutes of Episode III the last 15 minutes of Episode II, then make Episode III two hours of Darth Vader kicking ass and taking names and blowing up planets and being the biggest badass in the galaxy.

We didn't get that. Not even close.

So it's probably a good thing.

There's an interview out there of Gary Kurtz, Lucas' producer for Star Wars and Empire. They parted ways for Return of the Jedi because Kurtz saw it for what it was, a cynical ploy to sell toys by making a best-of of the first two films.

Now, if Disney hired that guy to produce the sequels, we might get something good.