The Rise of Skywalker is not a direct sequel to The Last Jedi that many of us saw back in 2017. Let's just start there. The Rise of Skywalker is a sequel to a version of The Last Jedi that we didn't see.
When I heard that J.J Abrams was back for the wrapping up of this trilogy, I knew he was going to look at Episode IX as damage control for the backlash that The Last Jedi had received. And herein is the issue with The Rise of Skywalker right off the bat. It services its need to be what it thinks fans want from a Star Wars film following the loudest reception to The Last Jedi, which takes priority over delivering a good story. And as a result, what J.J ended up doing is making the weakest film amongst the three. This isn't exclusively because it disregards so much of The Last Jedi, but this plays a huge part which impacts so much of how this film became what it became.
I should warn you at this point that this is a spoiler filled review. So only proceed if you have watched this film or you just don't give a fuck.
The Rise of Skywalker isn't a complete retcon of The Last Jedi, but it does its damnest to 'fix' what it felt The Last Jedi broke. The only things which are untouched from The Last Jedi are Luke joining the Force ghost committee, the Resistance now having about 12 people in it and the expansion of Force powers.
Because The Rise of Skywalker wants to address things that it felt should have been addressed in The Last Jedi, it tries to tell two films worth of stories in one, when even three probably wasn't enough to tell this story in the depth in which it really should have been told. Lucasfilm should just stop confining stories to trilogies. But that's a whole other post, and I think Kathleen Kennedy has gotten that memo.
The Force Awakens was not a perfect film, but it was a solid one that did what it needed to do, which was restore faith in a franchise which was tarnished because of the prequels. The Force Awakens got shat on for basically being a retelling of A New Hope, which was pretty much the whole point of it. It had to be safe and familiar, because it was the first film in a new trilogy which had to please fans of the 1977 original who hated the prequels and wanted to love this shit again. But it also had to introduce Star Wars to those that had no idea what 'a Star War' was and or is. The Rise of Skywalker tried to go for the same thing, but it had absolutely no reason what-so-ever to do what The Force Awakens did, because it didn't need to. Because of this, from the offset this film doesn't feel like it's a conclusion to anything. It feels like the beginning of a different story.
An hour in and I was confused, because the film hadn't reached a point where it was acknowledging that it had shit to wrap up. But the film seemed to be having a fun time revelling in Star Wars nostalgia tho.
As much as everybody hated The Last Jedi, it set Episode IX up to be whatever it wanted to be. Not The Empire Strikes the Attack of the Return of the Jedi. This was largely why Rian Johnson curved with The Last Jedi in the first place. Because if people want to watch The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, they can just watch The Empire Strikes Back or The Return of the Jedi; which quite frankly is what some of y'all need to do instead of insisting these Star Wars films keep retreading the original trio of films and shitting on those which don't.
What J.J Abrams seemed to forget (or not care about) is that whilst many of the OG Star Wars fans will be watching, so will a new wave of fans whose entry point may have been the prequels or The Force Awakens. So there are moments which will make zero sense to anybody who hasn't watched A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. They won't know who Emperor Palpatine is. They might JUST know who Darth Vader is because of the merchandise and maybe Rogue One. But they probably won't know who Lando is (even all 7 of the people who watched Solo, because Lando here is not Donald Glover). Nods to the original films is fine and makes complete sense, because this film is a part of them. Rey watching a dual sunset on Tatooine is a nice Easter egg for A New Hope fans, but is also just a cool shot. Chewbacca being handed a medal from Maz Kanata just seems like he's being handed one of Leia's keepsakes in the wake of her passing, because he was close to her. Or maybe some would read it as Maz giving him a medal because she wants him to know that Wookie willy is award winning. Where-as fans will know that this is the medal that Chewie never got at the end of A New Hope. This is all fine. I guess. Unnecessary. But, fine. Whatever. Whereby Rey visiting Luke's old home on Tatooine and burying his lightsaber there is too specific a reference to A New Hope that not everybody will get, but it's framed as an important moment on the assumption that everybody knows this location. Not to mention that this is the third desert planet we see in the film and they all look the damn same, so some may think that they are. Hanging the significance of scenes on which their weight and context is completely dependant on the audience having watched one of the other films is a huge misstep, and one that The Rise of Skywalker makes often.
Yes, I get that most folk who watch this will be die hard Star Wars fans that will get every reference. But The Rise of Skywalker is far too intent on giving callbacks to the original Star Wars trilogy to the point of robbing itself of the originality of which it's entitled.
And what The Rise of Skywalker also does in its callback moments is raise more questions for those that know them extremely well. Take the aforementioned examples concerning Chewie's medal and Rey's visit to Tatooine. The medal Chewie receives had to have been Han's, but why did Leia have it? Leia's lightsaber being buried on Tatooine makes no sense, because she never lived there. It's a place which has no deep meaning nor relevance to her. Obviously Rey can't bury that shit on Alderaan, because, well...it's an asteroid belt now. I mean, shit. You could even argue that Luke wouldn't have wanted his lightsaber buried on Tatooine, as he seemed to resent his life there.
So you have these deep cut moments which were thrown in as winks to fans, but they don't make sense. It's all for nostalgia's sake, and because J.J has an inability to just not keep throwing shit back to A New Hope.
The Rise of Skywalker essentially wants to be a Greatest hits of Star Wars, but there's nothing connecting any of these 'hits' in a meaningful and cohesive way, so they just end up being misses.
The Rise of Skywalker makes no real attempt to carve out its own definable moments. Even now, I'm struggling to think of a defining scene in this film as memorable as the pod race or the 3-way lightsaber battle in The Phantom Menace. Or the Death Star trench run in A New Hope. The 'I am your father' moment in The Empire Strikes Back. The Luke and Vader battle in Return of the Jedi. Luke's lightsaber Force flying into Rey's hand in The Force Awakens. The aftermath of Admiral Holdo's lightspeed suicide moment in The Last Jedi. Y'all. There isn't even a good lightsaber fight in this thing.
The Rise of Skywalker is full of lots of set pieces, but no standouts, which is remarkable for a film which features so many which coulda been. The Storm Troopers on jet packs scene could have been amazing if Finn grabbed a jet-pack and got caught in an aerial pursuit, because we've never seen a fight take place in the air which didn't involve spacecrafts. But instead we just get pod racing, kinda. Which happens to have Storm Troopers on jet-packs. The lightsaber battle on the wreckage in the sea could have been spectacular if it were choreographed better, shot better and there was some actual tension in the damn thing.
The Rise of Skywalker never leans into its own moments to make them truly special. They're just...there.
Star Wars is such a vast franchise which this film has just confined to the original trilogy. This is one of the reasons why I liked The Last Jedi. It didn't JUST do what other Star Wars films did. Rian Johnson told his own story within the universe and played with the lore. He took a risk and gave us a take on what a different style of Star Wars film could be, and he succeeded in that. The Last Jedi had its flaws, as every Star Wars film does. But it wasn't this terrible blemish on the franchise that so many want to mark it as. It pushed things that we thought we knew all about, such as the Force and the Jedi, in new directions; which actually reflected better on the other films and gave them greater contexts without trivialising them. The Rise of Skywalker doesn't have the audacity or the nerve that The Last Jedi had, and its overwhelmingly safe to a fault. But worse than that, it's regressive.
The pacing of The Rise of Skywalker is also a mess. The best way I can describe it, is if this trilogy was actually shot as a 10 episode Disney+ series, and a fan made a 'The plot in 30 minutes' super cut for YouTube.
The film moves BRISKLY and gets a lot out of the way, fast. The first 20 minutes is basically a 'Previously on Star Wars' montage. On one hand I appreciate the briskness. But at the same time I would have liked some respite to really settle into what is happening, and the film never gives you that chance. The second act is the only part of the film which feels decently paced, but what we have to muck through is one of the least interesting parts of the movie, because IT'S FETCH QUEST TIME. The gang have to find a ship, which leads them to finding a knife which has an inscription on it, but that they have to travel somewhere else to get translated. A translation of which sends them to another planet, which reveals the map they need in order to get to some other part of space. It's all foolishness. Whilst there is no part of this film which is as categorically bad pacing wise as the Canto Bight section of The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker is a victim of its own pacing as a whole, because the narrative and all of the character development suffers because of it. That Canto Bight section was awful. Many of us all hated it. But it didn't ruin the story and we still got development within it.
The Rise of Skywalker's rushed pacing also robs it of tension and suspense. At one point in the film Chewbacca 'dies' in an explosion caused by Rey. But we find out in the next scene that he's absolutely fine. So before you've even finished mouthing 'Oh my God! Poor Chew-' HE'S STILL ALIVE Y'ALL. Why even bother to start building the sense of loss, just to snatch it back moments later!?
What the rushed pacing also robs us of is emotion. It's hard to really feel the weight of certain moments if we're immediately being Star Wars wiped out of them. And it's also hard to feel any emotional weight as a viewer if we're not seeing the characters feel it too. Everybody should've been a fucking wreck over Chewbacca dying. How were Poe and Finn not more pissed at Rey for killing him? Killing off Chewbacca or at least leading us to believe that he's dead for a chunk of the movie also could have been a great character moment for Rey. Leaving her to deal with the guilt of killing a friend because of her lust for wanting to face Kylo; leading her to believe that maybe she is destined for the Dark side. All the while having Finn and Poe fighting with wanting to believe in Rey, but fearing what they feel she's becoming. Even Kylo should have had some type of reaction. But, nope. It's like 'Oh, shit. WELL. WE BETTER GET MOVING!'.
The third act of this film is another type of mess. It takes a series of events which should be straight forward and just throws shit into the mix, because WE NEED TWISTS. The Resistance find the Sith hideout and all of their Star Destroyers. Star Destroyers which all now have planet destroying cannons, and yet the bitches can't launch into flight without a satellite dish. After all these years the Sith / Empire / First Order engineering is still trash. So the Resistance go to blow up the satellite dish, but it's powered down before they can do so, because the First Order figure out their plan. So the functionality of that satellite dish is transferred to one of the ships, which makes no sense, but okay. Finn senses which ship it is, because it turns out he's Force sensitive. Something which is easy to miss because the cues aren't obvious and the 'AH, HE CAN SENSE THE FORCE' moment, which again, is easy to miss, doesn't come until after. Cool. Then there's Palpatine, who holds a Sith concert to announce that he wants to die and that the wants Rey to kill him because when she strikes him down, his spirit can live on in her. Only to then change his mind and decide that maybe it's better to just kill her instead.
There are so many back and forth moments in this last act which just kill any tension that there could of been, because:
a) You basically know what the fuck is going to happen anyway.
b) It all goes on for far too long.
c) What the film thinks are surprise twists, aren't twists. Just a very visible inability to deliver a strong and cohesive narrative.
b) None of it makes sense. None of it what-so-ever.
The Rise of Skywalker getting in its own way a lot is a re-concurring theme. Despite the fast pace of the film, it displays an inability to cut threads where they hang and insists on introducing more and more new things to the mix which serve no purpose. Right up until the very end.
The new droid is cute, but we didn't need it. It serves no real purpose to the story that couldn't have been handed to an existing droid. Richard E. Grant is a new First Order general that could have just been Hux. Shit. It coulda been Phasma. J.J. Abrams may as well have brought her back, seeing as he disregarded a bunch of other shit from The Last Jedi. New girl Jannah is really cool. I loved seeing a Black woman in a Star Wars film. But her character is introduced so late in the story, and she easily could've been replaced with Rose, who may as well have not been in this film at all. (We'll get to that). Felicity plays Zorii, a new character who looks like a female member of Daft Punk. Another cool character, but did we need her at this point in the story? And again, her role could have been given to an existing character. We just as easily could've had Maz Kanata give them the hook-up to Babu Frik and a First Order key thingamajig. The Knights of Ren? J.J. Sweetie. You shoulda let 'em go. They were useless and served absolutely no purpose in this movie, aside from being a stall tactic for Kylo getting to Rey in the final act. They shoulda just been Sith Troopers.
All of these brand new things and a refusal to let things go contribute to the bloat of this movie, which is why it moves so fast and in the worst possible way. I don't get why J.J. wanted to create extra work for himself with a development and shooting schedule which was already shortened following the firing of the original writer and director.
The Rise of Skywalker feels like a list of things and setups that J.J. wanted to include in the film and refused to cut, because he liked them all and found them cool. So the story had to be retrofitted to include them all, resulting in this mess.
And whilst the film is doing all of this introducing of new shit and new characters, you're never given a moment to breathe. The Rise of Skywalker is just Star Wars wiping you from one moment to the next. And it's fully aware of the fact that nothing can unfold, because nothing has the damn time to unfold, so everything is exposition. J.J. may as well have had the Star Wars crawl run through the entire film and tell us the plot as it was happening.
The amount of fluff in this film doesn't contribute to any world building of the franchise. It's all a distraction from what needed to be focused on, and a refusal for the story to face what it needs to. One thing of which is death. The Rise of Skywalker is really afraid of embracing death. REALLY afraid. It would rather just throw you a new character than kill one off at a point in the story where we need to feel that the odds are truly against everyone and that nobody is safe.
We get a fake out Chewbacca death. A fake out Kylo death. A fake out Rey death. A fake out C-3P0 memory wipe. A fake out Zorii death. The return of a villain who was supposed to be dead. What's more shocking than these deaths, is that despite this film being a throwback, we don't get to see anybody receive the Jedi cremation memorial service.
The Disney really jumped out in every moment where a character should've died, but didn't. A complete shift from The Last Jedi, which opened with basically everybody dying, and then gave us constant reminders that people be dying. Likewise with Rogue One, where the final act was just every single character dying. Even a film as fun, jovial and free spirited as A New Hope killed off Luke's Aunt, Uncle, his mentor and wiped out Leia's home planet.
Star Wars films have always been about loss. Hope is the nucleus of Star Wars, but that's never been at the expense of just keeping everyone alive. There are always casualties in Star Wars. Always. We barely see any of these characters come close to actual death. The only one incident we get is Poe getting shot. But it don't mean shit and has no impact on anything. It's not like he loses an arm. Speaking of losing an arm, Rey might be one of the few Jedi who doesn't end up getting a hand chopped off. Or even taking a hit for that matter. 'Cos we can't have a woman taking a beating in a Disney film.
It's hard to think there's anything truly at stake, when the film keeps going out of its way to not harm these characters, not kill people off, and continually introduce new faces at every turn. And this precedent is set early on, which is why you never feel like anybody is ever in danger. When Kylo comes for Rey during the first act, she doesn't run. Because she knows she can kick his ass. Which means we know that nothing is going to happen to her. Poe and Finn sneak onto a First Order ship and just run through the damn hallway gunning down Storm Troopers without so much as a duck, cover or a roll, so we know shit ain't happening to them. When the film switches to an MTV Cribs episode with Emperor Palpatine showing that he's got hella Star Destroyers, you don't feel like the galaxy is in any danger, because you know an X-Wing is gonna fly in during the last act and hit some weak spot which is gonna bring all that shit down.
One criticism (of many) at The Last Jedi was that it kept the main gang split up. Something that Rian Johnson got blamed for, despite The Force Awakens ending with them split up, but 'tHe fAnS' seem to forget that part.
The Rise of Skywalker brings the crew back together from the offset and they spend much of the film together, or sans Rey. This makes for some great moments. But what you realise after the initial fun factor has worn off, is that neither Rey, Finn or Poe are getting any form of development.
Rey, Finn and Poe are just doing things. But none of what they do is really deepening their character. Rey is at the centre of the story and doing the most, which at least gives the impression (albeit weakly) that her character is being deepened. But there's nothing to mask nor hide that Finn and Poe aren't given their own paths to walk in the midst of this story and that their characters don't under-go any form of change, even when their circumstances and titles do.
Finn's role has regressed more and more with each film. We can shit on how his character was consigned to the worse part of The Last Jedi and spent so much time away from Poe, but at least he did something and contributed in ways which impacted the lives of some of these characters, and also his own. In The Rise of Skywalker, Finn is just...there. He becomes a general...or something.
[Star Wars wipe]
The only positive things I can say about Finn aside from John Boyega being a joy to watch, is that his outfit is basically the same as Han Solo's, which is a really cool touch - but yet another instance of defining a character on the traits of another. There's zero development of Finn in this film. He banters with Poe (we love that) and then screams for Rey every time she runs off (we don't love that). We get a really nice moment when he meets a fellow ex-Storm Trooper (Jannah), and again...as a nod to Han Solo, he admits that after his initial scepticism of The Force, he actually does believe in it. But this moment comes at a point when it feels like too little, too late. Plus, they've gotta keep this shit moving, so-
[Star Wars wipe]
There was so much that could have been done with Finn. Not just because John Boyega is so damn likeable in this role, but because there's so much to play with concerning Finn being an ex-Storm Trooper. He could have had a whole story line which had him trying to free Storm Troopers and recruit them into the Resistance. Or running a secret operation of ex Storm Troopers and helping them live off the radar and out of reach of the First Order, which is how he knows Jannah, who is helping run this operation on the ground. The First Order spy (which was stupidly Hux) could have been a Storm Trooper who heard of Finn's renouncement of the First Order and had been a fan of his ever since, deciding to be a mole of the First Order and feed the Resistance info. This also coulda been how we're introduced to Jannah. A running gag could have had him encounter a TR8R. There's a moment in this film when Finn, Poe and Chewbacca are surrounded by Storm Troopers and detained. This could have been a great moment where the Storm Troopers take of their helmets and reveal themselves to be Storm Trooper rebels and followers of Finn, and help them all escape.
It's also hinted at that Finn is Force sensitive. But this may not be what everybody takes away from the film on a first viewing. It serves no purpose anyway, because nothing is made of it. And the one gag which runs throughout the film of Finn wanting to tell Rey something is so easy to assume as a declaration of love, as opposed to his Force sensitivity. Hence why it took J.J. Abrams to mention post film release that Finn is Force sensitive in the first place. It makes zero sense that Finn wouldn't just come out and tell Rey that he's Force sensitive. Especially after he worked up the nerve to tell her in The Force Awakens that he was a member of the First Order and not the Resistance, as she assumed; a far bigger thing to tell somebody that you like and want to get close to, because you could risk losing them. And given that Rey was so open with Finn about visions she had of sitting on the Sith throne with Kylo, I don't understand why Finn would not feel it appropriate to just tell Rey, and why he was only about to spill the beans because he thought they were going to die. What fucking good would that do!? Finn telling Rey that he's Force sensitive would bring them closer. It could have been an amazing moment for both characters. Finn continually realising that he has a greater purpose. And Rey feeling that she's not alone and has somebody (who isn't on the Force ghost committee) that she can explore the Force with. Both characters don't remember their childhoods and were thrown into dire life situations through no choice nor fault of their own, yet have managed to defeat remarkable odds and be brought together. This could've been some potential Force fated shit which also ties into The Last Jedi and creates a full circle moment to Finn and Rose giving those children in Canto Bight hope. But nope.
[Star Wars wipe]
I guess J.J. Abrams was at a loss at what to do with Finn after making him a Storm Trooper, a Tie Fighter gunner and lightsaber wielder in The Force Awakens. It's great seeing him teamed up with Poe throughout The Rise of Skywalker, because John Boyega and Oscar Isaac have great chemistry. But we needed character development and for these characters to be more than just Rey's Uber drivers. But I guess there will be comics, a Disney+ series and shit for Finn to be spun off into. Because, Disney.
Speaking of Poe, he also gets zero development and his character arc here seems to be the reaffirmation of his heterosexuality. He may as well have looked into the camera and said 'I like pussy' and winked before a Star Wars wipe. It had been a debate after The Force Awakens that maybe Finn and Poe could wind up being a galactic swirl, something that Oscar Isaac had admitted to leaning into in his performances. But nope. The Rise of Skywalker shuts that down. It was an odd choice to make, because it feels like it came from a political place as opposed to one which made sense for the character. The confirmation of heterosexuality felt grossly unnecessary. But maybe that's just me. I'm not saying that Disney should have made these characters gay (although that would have been an amazing pay off). But they didn't have to be so 'Let's throw shit in here to show everybody that they're not gay'. If Disney didn't have the balls to explicitly make these characters gay for a Star Wars film, then they should have left us with ambiguity. It's not that deep. There is some queer representation in this film, but if you'll blink you'll miss them both. And dependant on which country you watched this film in, you may not have seen them at all. And tellingly, neither include men. The time wasted on placing this stamp of straightness could have been used to actually deepen both characters, gay shit or not.
C-3P0 and the new lampshade droid get more character development than Finn or Poe do.
Wild.
Now. We have to talk about Rose. Because she got dragged through Bantha doo-doo following the release of The Last Jedi. And Kelly Marie Tran (whose initials being KMT is just beautifully fitting) got bullied off of social media because of how much everybody hated her character. Well, y'all who hated Rose will be glad to know that she is basically an extra in this film. You see a bitch carry a box. Then you see her react to something. I think that's about it.
J.J Abrams threw in that wonky mouthed guy from The Lord of the Rings and Lost into this film and gave him more screen time and dialog which could have been Rose's. Yes. He really went and sidelined an Asian woman's role, yet made space for another White man. Hollywood y'all. Damon Lindelof would never.
[Star Wars wipe]
I'll be honest. I didn't like Rose when I first watched The Last Jedi. But I always adored Kelly Marie Tran. My issue with Rose wasn't so much her character, but the clumsiness with some of her dialogue, her being tied to one of the weakest parts of the film, and this odd unrequited romance with Finn that got thrown in out of nowhere. But I always liked what Rose represented, which was hope and compassion. She was a lot like Leia in this regard. Rose has so much heart which was actually integral to the story and a reminder that there are people in the galaxy whose lives are impacted by all of the First Order's nonsense. Rose's intentions for doing what she did were far broader than that of Finn. Finn was on board to help his friends. Rose was on board to right social wrongs, injustices and sock it to the bad guys; something we see have an impact on Finn to the point of willing to sacrifice himself for the cause.
Rose played such a big part of The Last Jedi in helping the Resistance and building a relationship with Finn and to an extent Poe, that it seemed strange to just sideline her in The Rise of Skywalker. J.J had all the time to introduce brand new characters who eat into the running time, but opted not to weave Rose into any of it. Rose could have been on-board the Millennium Falcon during the opening sequence, pleading Poe not to Lightspeed skip, because it will fuck up the ship and Rey will go ballistic. Then have a 'Gurl, I tried to tell him' moment with Rey when they return to the base and she finds out Poe burnt the shit out of the Falcon doing things she told him not to. Rose could have been a part of the plot line I'd suggested for Finn, to free Storm Troopers. Or she could have had a side mission with Lando to canvass and get folk to fight with the Resistance. This would have helped Lando and the cavalry arriving during the big final battle feel less out of the blue and earned. How powerful could it have been that a Black man and an Asian woman rallied a group of marginalised and oppressed people in the galaxy to fight to save the world?
The film made a decision to ground Rose, literally. There is a moment after the Star Wars World commercial with all the lightspeed skipping, where Finn, Poe and Rey get ready to head out on a mission, and Finn asks Rose if she's coming along with them, to which she says some shit like 'No, Leia wants me to stay here and help her'. So there was never any intention for Rose to be a part of this shit. They chose to tie her to a character who is barely in the film, because the actor is dead.
Subtle.
As with so much of this film, Rose being benched feels like J.J just appeasing the #NotMyStarWars posse, instead of doing what was right for the film, the story and the character, which would have been giving Rose more of a role. But also, fuck The Last Jedi.
Then there's whose story this trilogy is supposed to be telling. First it's Rey's story, but then it ends up being Kylo's too. But it's also a bit of Leia's. Oh, and a bit of Luke's. The story involving all of these characters makes sense. But the focus is kind of lost, because the story seems to want to anchor on the legacy characters to justify the existence of the new ones. This weighting issue isn't exclusive to The Rise of Skywalker, but it hits this film the hardest because we're re-introduced to another old face. Emperor Palpatine.
This trilogy is the closing chapter to the Skywalker saga, so of course it has to feature characters who were a part of the original story. But the new characters still feel like they're being propped up by the legacy characters, and I don't get why three films in that this is still the case. Each of them is likeable enough to stand on their own and carry a film. J.J. Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio either didn't know what to do with them, or they just decided that they don't have the time. So they tethered these characters to ALL the old faces. Han, Leia, Luke, C-3P0, Lando, Palpatine. And then Star Wars wiped that shit. I'm surprised we didn't get Force ghost Anakin too.
Cameos and nods are cute. But there shouldn't be such a reliance on these older characters to the point that you prevent the development the newer ones, and this is what The Rise of Skywalker does. Rather than even try to let these characters loose on their own, this film gives C-3P0 a sizeable role in this movie out of necessity and fear of not having an OG character constantly be with them; because Chewie is just Chewie, Luke's dead, Han's dead, they can't use Leia, and R2-D2 can't speak English and isn't as mobile.
I've never felt any real attachment to Rey or Kylo across these films as I did Luke, Leia, Han and even R2-fucking-D2 in A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. And the craziest thing here is that The Rise of Skywalker does far more for Kylo's character than it does Rey's. I didn't care about Rey at ALL, because her character makes dumb, reckless decisions at every opportunity in this film, and she's so overpowered to the point of never feeling like she's in peril. But Kylo was actually a bit compelling, even if his redemption arc was wonky as all hell, predictable and probably never shoulda happened in the first place.
Kylo hears from somebody who's in the First Order group chat that Palpatine is back. So he tracks him down with the intent to kill him, because 'I'M THE SUPREME LEADER DAMMIT'. But just as Snoke manipulated Kylo, Palpatine does the same. 'BRING ME THA GWORL'. So Kylo's back on his Rey bullshit and spends the whole film chasing her like 'Come to the Dark side and rule with me', only for her to end up killing him. And at the exact moment when Rey skewers Kylo like a Porg kebab, she receives a Force notification that Leia is dead and that she died reaching Kylo's mind in order to help him return to the Light. Rey then has the epiphany that THAT is why Kylo didn't kill her when he had several chances to do so, and that he's good now. But Rey has Jesus powers just like Leia, which can now heal wounds and bring people back to life, so Kylo lives. Han then appears as a memory, because...obviously. And just like that, BEN'S BACK BITCH. And to show us he's a changed man, he starts wearing an oversized wide neck sweater from Zara.
So, the artist formerly known as Kylo goes to save Rey once he finds out she's going for Palpatine's neck. And as a nice nod to daddy, he's runnin' 'n' gunnin' with a blaster, because he threw that raggedy lightsaber away. But Rey is a strong independent woman who don't need no man, and she's also possessed by the spirit of Jedi Jesus and all of his old white disciples (and Samuel L. Jackson muthafucka). So she draws Luke and Leia's lightsabers, and fries what's left of Palpatine's wig clean off, sacrificing herself in the process. But we know she won't be dead for long, because Kylo remembers what Rey did to him. Jedi Jesus powers innit. So he brings Rey back to life, which kills him. But not before they kiss. The kiss makes total sense, because Rey wasn't at all upset when she watched Kylo kill Han Solo, who she warmed to like the father she never had, and put Finn in hospital. And because this is still Disney, Rey still needs to be the princess archetype and be saved by a man and then kiss him, just because.
Mess.
Kylo's redemption feels unearned, and highlights the ever standing issue of white men and their ability to be forgiven despite committing atrocity. There is also no act that Kylo does in order to actually redeem himself. Han, Leia and Rey are all who pull Kylo back to the Light. But Kylo himself doesn't actually DO anything. There is no atonement. Comparatively, Darth Vader sacrificed himself in order to save his son's life and killed the Emperor in the process. We also saw that when Luke first approached him to try and convince him to quit the Dark side, that Darth Vader was fully aware of the fact that he'd gone too far to be saved, which showed that maybe at one point he wanted to be. But here, Kylo's redemption comes about because of a three way ForceTime between him, Leia and Rey. We have watched two whole films where Kylo killed his father, was ready to kill his Uncle, and was hellbent on erasing everything his Mother fought for. Yet in this one, he's redeemed. Just like that. Giving his own life for Rey was not enough. And if anything THAT should have been the moment when Ben returned if we were gonna go this route.
It's garbage.
But shout outs to Adam Driver. He's consistently done a great job with Kylo. Although he doesn't get to do much acting in this particular film. For one, he's wearing his mask for most of it (could nobody in the workshop have gone over those red cracks?) and because everything is exposition or an action scene, there's nothing for Adam to really act through. A real shame off the back of The Last Jedi, where Adam's performance actually made me like the character of Kylo.
Both Rey and Kylo are just avatars who're pushed from one legacy character to another. But Kylo turned out to be compelling, and it's been interesting seeing his arc across these films; from an unhinged Darth Vader stan, to a tortured emo Sith, to somebody who is just completely lost. There has been far more consistency with Kylo's character than any of the other newcomers. And he's been the only new character to get any form of development. Kylo has been a bit of a wild card, who has given us humour, unpredictability, and a lack of real discipline and control, which is uncharacteristic for a Star Wars villain. A sign that we was never the true villain.
Rey on the other hand feels like Lucasfilm trying to show how progressive they are by not confining a female character to being a 'typical' princess (which they kinda end up doing anyway), and giving fans the female Jedi that they wish they'd seen Leia become. But yet again, The Rise of Skywalker said 'Fuck yo' couch' to The Last Jedi. And instead of allowing its reveal of her parents to be THE reveal and give Rey somewhat of a clean slate on which to have her own story be forged, The Rise of Skywalker chooses to spend its time unravelling the whole 'Who are her parents' shit yet again. Even the original trilogy put the whole 'Who is Luke's father' to rest by the end of the second film. And we got the lid blown off of who Kylo's parents are an hour into The Force Awakens.
Rey as a character just feels hollow. She's completely defined by her lineage, overpowered Force abilities and her connection with Kylo. She deserved better than the story The Rise of Skywalker gave her. The film spent so much time unnecessarily course correcting The Last Jedi did wrong, that it never took the time to correct something that'd been a problem from the start. Rey's lack of actual character. And just chalking up her ability to tap into so many facets of the Force in crazy, almost story breaking ways because 'lineage'.
Now. Let us talk about Rey's lineage.
I'm one of those people who liked that The Last Jedi revealed Rey's parents to be nobodies. Not only did it dash all of the theories that Rey was a Skywalker, but it made it all the more cutting when Kylo told her that her parents were literally nothing, as some form of elitist with a legendary bloodline whose parents were somebody's. Somebody's that Rey knew and respected. Of course, that's not what J.J. Abrams intended. But at the very least Rian left it open enough for J.J. to walk it back. Not intentionally. But, still.
It turns out Rey is a Palpatine. Something we get a hint of early in the film before we get the official reveal. Whilst I like that she didn't turn out to be a Skywalker, and her being a Palpatine was fine for all of 5 seconds, I far preferred the notion that being a Jedi isn't tied to lineage, because it expands the Star Wars universe outside of just the original trilogy. Rey having the Palpatine bloodline but not pledging her allegiance to the Dark side and becoming a Sith is cool, in that it shows that your bloodline isn't a pre-requisite for your allegiance. But making Rey a Palpatine was also lazy, because it became what defined her. Everything she'd experienced, her attunement to the Force, her draw to Kylo - all because she's a Palpatine. That's it.
Making Rey a Palpatine was a cop out and a cheap way to define Rey's character instead of actually developing something new for her, which The Last Jedi setup by not giving her parents any form of known or powerful lineage. Making the main hero of the story related to the main villain is yet another decision to do what Star Wars has done before, instead of something new. It just felt gross to watch something like this be walked back from The Last Jedi. It felt wrong.
There is also no real element of surprise concerning the reveal of Rey's lineage. What J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio failed to grasp, is that the reveal of Darth Vader being Luke's father in The Empire Strikes Back was monumental because we never saw it coming. Nothing in A New Hope had alluded to it. Comparatively, the moment that Maz told Rey 'Gurl, that lightsaber called to you' in The Force Awakens, we knew Rey's lineage was going to be unveiled at some point, so there was absolutely no surprise. And we always expected the answer was going to be a name that we knew. The Last Jedi turning around and saying 'PSYCHE. REY'S PARENTS ARE NOBODY! LOL!' was the biggest surprise we could have gotten, because that's not what we were expecting, and it forced the story of Rey to move away from who the hell her parents are. So walking that back was the laziest, most basic, regressive thing that J.J Abrams could have done for Rey's character and the entire film. Abrams played himself out of having at least one movie to give Rey depth, but instead he chose to drag out the 'Who are Rey's parents' mystery for one more film and have her be defined by being Palpatine's grandaughter. And at absolutely no point was there any allusion to Rey being drawn to the Dark side. Not for a damn second. A bitch was never going to turn.
The Rise of Skywalker walking back Rey's lineage is yet another massive doo-doo dump on The Last Jedi, which was trying to convey something that I really liked; which is the Force being a part of all living things, giving way to it being able to be tapped into by other people.
The Last Jedi as a whole was about normal people with no lineage and no social privilege being able to do extraordinary things and be heroes. This was evident from the start of the film when we saw Rose's sister sacrifice herself to save the Resistance. It's the point that the film tried to make during that raggedy Canto Bight section. It's why we saw Admiral Holdo go down with the ship and lightspeed her purple wig through the First Order and right into Jesus. It's why we saw Finn willing to do a suicide run on Crait. It's why we got the scene of the kid Force pulling a broom, looking up to the sky and holding his broom light a lightsaber. The sentiment that everybody has the power to make a difference and right the wrongs in the world and contribute to maintaining the balance was such a cool message. The Rise of Skywalker not wanting to carry this baton is weird, because whilst this 'Everybody can be a hero' concept may seem new for Star Wars, it's also SO Star Wars. But, The Rise of Skywalker hates The Last Jedi. So, that's that.
And for the film to end with Rey saying that she's Rey Skywalker?
Gurl, bye.
I had the same reaction to Rey declaring that she's a Skywalker that I had when I saw that scene of all of the women coming together during the final battle in Avengers: Endgame. It felt forced, unnecessary and unearned. Was she even that close to Luke that she'd take on his name!? And even if she was as close to Leia as we're led to believe, Leia has never gone by the name Skywalker. It would have been far better if the film ended right before Rey says her surname or if she said nothing at all. I even would have taken her embracing being a Palpatine, because she now knows who her parents are and wants to unsully the Palpatine name. It would have been better to have drawn a line under the Skywalker lineage, because I thought that was the whole point of this film. And it just makes sense now that they are all dead. This whole journey was supposed to be about Rey finding herself and forging her own path. Not following somebody else's. Her taking up the Skywalker name just negates all of that. But, fuck The Last Jedi, right?
The Rise of Skywalker playing the 'fuck anybody can be a Jedi' card with this 'Fuck The Last Jedi collectors edition' Uno deck placates another thing the film doesn't feature enough of. Heart.
The best moments in this film are those which touch on the hearts of the characters. Rey intently conversing with a little girl at an Afrobeats festival. Leia being a mother figure to Rey. Luke being a Father figure to Rey. Ben speaking to the memory of his father. Ben seeing Rey dead. We needed more of these moments to not only raise the stakes but to REALLY fucking care for these characters. Leia's passing also was not as emotional as I felt it could have been. It may have been trivial given Carrie's actual passing and that we saw her die in The Last Jedi and then end up in intensive care. But Leia dying should have had far more weight than it did here. Especially given how much we knew she meant to Rey and Poe. They just throw a blanket over a bitch and leave her. Chewbacca was the only character who seemed to have an appropriate reaction to her passing. Everybody else was like 'Oh'.
Speaking of Leia, she doesn't really...do much. Which is understandable. But the task of trying to keep her as a presence in this film without pulling a Rogue One and completely digitising her was a tall order, and I think J.J did a great job with what he had; fully respecting Carrie and the character of Leia. She even gets given a cool backstory which involves her actually training to be a Jedi with Luke, a scene of which we see. And a reveal that she too had a blue lightsaber. Leia was off-putting in some scenes though, because you could tell that some of the shots and cuts were out of necessity, not choice. And there were also instances where Carrie Fisher looked like she was actually CGI. I'm almost adamant in some instances that she was, at least partly.
J.J Abrams made many questionable calls with this film. But in regards to Leia, he made the right ones.
The Rise of Skywalker has a steadfast unwillingness to do anything bold with its story. The film seems so afraid of allowing some of these characters to make decisions which will have severe repercussions. Star Wars has never been a story about characters always doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, but often out of necessity or because it's right for them. Qui-Gon was told not to train Anakin, but did so anyway and then we ended up with Darth Vader, as well as Qui-Gon himself dying. Darth Vader 'killed' Palpatine and himself to save his son's life. Anakin turned to the Dark side because he was told it was the only way to save the love of his life. Han chose to distance himself from his son, which led to his son resenting him and eventually killing him. Luke training Ben led to him killing Jedi, which forced Luke into exile. Luke ForceSkyped himself to Kylo on Crait to buy the Resistance time to leave, knowing that he'd die.
You get the picture.
The Rise of Skywalker? Nothing. I'm not counting Kylo's sacrifice, because that's what he deserved after the amount of people he killed and the shit he pulled.
Star Wars has always been a tale of tough decisions which have irreversible and irreparable consequences. Even if there is an attempt at some form of redemption, a cost has already been paid. But The Rise of Skywalker seems to give many of these characters reset buttons to undo things. Big things. So once again, you feel like nothing is at stake, because somebody can whip out a reverse card.
The Rise of Skywalker needed to have greater conviction. This is the one thing The Last Jedi had. Luke is just gonna be a miserable old man when we first meet him. Rey's parents are gonna be nobody. Snoke is just gonna fucking die. The Resistance is gonna be decimated. The Force ain't just gonna be what y'all thought it was. Yoda gon' burn the Jesus tree. Poe will not be spending the film flying an X-Wing. Rey is going to be drawn to Kylo. Phasma gon' die. Other people in the galaxy are gonna be able to tap into The Force. The Last Jedi was wonky in places, but it made strong calls at every turn which punctuated these characters, the story and most importantly, the world of Star Wars. The Rise of Skywalker feels too afraid to do any of these things out of fear for being too divisive, which it has ended up being anyway.
The only conviction The Rise of Skywalker showed was in its love of nostalgia and its disregard of The Last Jedi. But The Rise of Skywalker felt no way about using The Last Jedi as a scapegoat to broaden the Force abilities. We were previously made to think that the extent of Force powers was telepathy, telekinesis, an insane ability to jump high and far and be virtuostic with a lightsaber. But The last Jedi opened that up, and The Rise of Skywalker takes that and says 'LET'S PUSH PHYSICAL TRANSFERENCE IN FORCETIME AND ADD HEALING TO THE LIST'. But of course, the #FuckRianJohnson brigade isn't going to shit on The Rise of Skywalker for it, because it's The Last Jedi's fault. Also, there's some book and some game which has Jedi Force healing, SO THERE.
I have no problem with Force powers being expanded upon. It makes sense. But I do feel that The Rise of Skywalker used these Force power expansions for narrative convenience, as opposed to meaningful devices which are part of a story, as was the case in The Last Jedi. It makes for some cool scenes and moments, such as Rey Force-Mailing Kylo with a lightsaber attachment, and Rey 'n' Kylo fighting whilst they're in two different completely places. Although I feel the later could have been done in a more interesting way visually and stylistically.
The Rise of Skywalker is a mess, but it's a really nice looking mess. It doesn't have as many standout visual moments as The Last Jedi, which features some of the best cinematography of all the Star Wars films. And there are very few action moments in this film that I could say are exciting. Not just because you don't have time to really digest what's happening, but because we're not given anything new. The lightsaber battles are boring. The chases are boring. The space battles are all boring. As aforementioned, there is so much potential for amazing moments, but the film just doesn't take the time to get into them and make them special. It's just more of the same.
But. (Of course there's a but).
The sense of locale in this film feels very lacking and I think it's because there are so many different locations that we're zipped to. But also because so few of the locations are visually distinct. I can still remember Hoth and Cloud city from The Empire Strikes Back. Endor from Return of the Jedi. The Jedi island and the planet of Crait from The Last Jedi. In The Rise of Skywalker we get yet another desert planet which isn't Tatooine nor Jakku, but looks exactly like the both of them. We do get a gorgeous looking glacial planet, but we only see it in a long shot for as long as we see it in the trailer. There's Kijimi which is just a bunch of non-distinct low lit alleyways that could be that run down place from Rogue One, Solo or Alita: Battle Angel. There's also that planet that the fallen Death Star is on. They don't look bad. They all look absolutely fine. But not striking, nor particularly memorable. Emperor Palpatine's hideout is the only location that really made me go 'Oooo', because the scenes that took place there were shot so distinctly different from everything else and visually it tells a story. We also see it more than once, unlike many of the other locations in the film, aside from whatever the name of that big First Order ship is, which has never had any distinctness unto itself visually, because we've seen it for three films now, and it's interior looks exactly like the Death Stars and Starkiller base.
I had zero expectation of this film being perfect, because I know Star Wars. Not every Star Wars film is great. Some aren't even good. The Rise of Skywalker didn't have to do much to stick this landing well, and it still manages to. But it's a raggedy landing. So many of the core elements that make a good Star Wars story just aren't here, despite it trying its damndest to be. If J.J Abrams and Chris Terrio had just focused on what would make a good story to bow this trilogy out, this would have been a better film. But instead they chose to focus on undoing The Last Jedi and throwing in fan service, which was the wrong place to start from. Because then the story has to be bent, twisted and broken in places to fit within this. And I will say it again, The Last Jedi left things so open that J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio could have done any story that they wanted. The only thing they lost was Snoke. And they could have done many other things to counter that aside from bringing back Emperor Palpatine, whose string pulling should have been teased way back in The Force Awakens, if indeed this was always a return that Abrams saw in his vision of this story. Palpatine's resurrection made little sense, even when you factor in cloning and Darth Plagueis (Palpatine's Sith master during his days as Darth Sidious, who had discovered how to create and pro-long life). But his appearance in the story isn't even the issue. It's the way he comes into it with such terrible exposition. 'I KEPT MYSELF ALIVE, BUT I WANNA DIE THO. KILL ME. NO, ACTUALLY. LEMME KILL YOU!'.
Okay babes.
There is also a lot in this film which doesn't make any damn sense.
Rey can sense when people are alive or dead, but she didn't sense that Chewbacca was still alive after the ship went down. Yet could sense he was still alive when she was on Kijimi. Okay then. Some of the things characters say just don't feel natural. Rey being told the name of a little girl and responding with 'That's an excellent name' as though she just suggested a title for a book she's writing. Who says shit like that!? Lando telling Rey 'Give Leia my love' and Rey responding 'Give it to her yourself' making it sound like dick. One of the new characters seems to be incredibly knowledgeable of the Sith and yet nobody questions why. Fair enough. When the gang land on the planet where the Death Star wreckage is in the middle of an ocean, Rey says that she needs to get to it, but Jannah says they should wait until morning when the tides are calmer. Rey goes out in that shit anyway. Jannah and Finn follow her. So if ya'll could sailed out anyway, why tell Rey to wait until morning knowing how urgent her mission is? Hmmm. And let's talk about that Sith knife that points to the location of the Sith way-finder. That knife just happens to be the exact outline of a wreckage which is being ravaged by the ocean? Okay then. When Leia made a call for help in The Last Jedi, nobody came. But Lando makes a call, and everybody comes. Why tho? Emperor Palpatine wants Kylo to kill Rey. Then he wants Rey to kill him. Then he actually wants to kill Rey. Emperor Palpatine had decades to concoct a plan, just to not be able to make up his damn mind when the moment his whole plan has been building to has finally arrived? Sweet. Y'all mean to tell me that a whole fleet of Star Destroyers can't launch unless a satellite dish is operational? Okay then. So, we're just supposed to know what a Force Dyad is and why it's of relevance? Bitch. Do I like like Wookieepedia? How come Star Destroyers which blew up on Exogol can be seen from across the galaxy? And how did one of them end up crashing on Jakku? Okay then. Speaking of Exogol. The fleet for all of those Star Destroyers and all of those Sith at Palpatine's concert. Where from, when and how?
These aren't huge things, but things that took me out of the movie momentarily because they were so stupid. And there were too many of these moments littered throughout the entire film.
It's a real shame, because there are small details in this film which are genuinely great and show that J.J, even just for a minute, did care about trying to tie SOME things in this trilogy together. When Rey heals Kylo after skewering him, his face scar also disappears - which is of course a visual thing to show that Ben is now good, but Rey is the one who gave him that scar in the first place. After Han has his pep talk with Ben, Ben says 'I know what I have to do, but I don't know if I have the strength to do it', which is the exact same thing he said to Han in The Force Awakens before he killed him. When Rey questions if she has it in her to do what she needs to do, Luke says 'You have everything you need', which is the final line of The Last Jedi spoken by Leia after Rey asks how they can build back the Resistance ('We have everything we need'). When all of the Star Destroyers go down on Exogol, we see one crash on Jakku next to one of the Star Destroyers that we saw in The Force Awakens. Even though how this second Star Destroyer even managed to fall on Jakku is a whole other question. When Rey visits Luke's old home on Tatooine, it mirrors Rey's introductory scene in The Force Awakens, where we see her using scrap metal like a toboggan to slide down dunes and it's scored with her theme. There are probably others which I'm forgetting. But these little nuggets of detail make it so much more of a shame that greater care wasn't taken across every aspect of the storytelling in this film.
This trilogy of films is a clear example of the risk you run when you don't have a story mapped out from the beginning and have it followed through and steered by one person or a team of people. J.J. Abrams had an idea of a story that he wanted to tell, and he set it up with The Force Awakens. Just for Rian Johnson to pick it up and take it in a different direction. Only for J.J to be brought back, grab the wheel and steer it back to his original story. The Rise of Skywalker does the most damage out of all three of the films because J.J Abrams seemed more concerned with placating the irrational #NotMyStarWars fans who cried over how bad they thought The Last Jedi was by tossing them fan service. But it also reveals that he probably didn't like The Last Jedi himself. It seems none of the cast did either, as the whole press and PR for The Rise of Skywalker has just been them dragging The Last Jedi. The smartest thing J.J could have done was just taken a deep breath, swallowed his pride and done his best to create something new from where Rian left off and see what of his original story he can still work with, without pigheadedly shitting on The Last Jedi. Because whilst he may have felt personally fulfilled, the story suffered as a result, and whatever there was of a bigger picture was just lost.
The Rise of Skywalker is unfocused and seems unsure of what it wants to ultimately be. So it ends up trying to be everything, which amounts to it being...nothing.
I've read so many accounts of people blaming The Last Jedi for how this film turned out, which I don't think is fair. Everybody is acting like The Last Jedi left the story in a state. It didn't. The Rise of Skywalker could have brought back Palpatine, brought in the Final Order, brought in a lot of the shit that it does without spending the time it didn't have wiping everything that happened in The Last Jedi. A good writer and director would have made it work. Chris Terrio and J.J. Abrams didn't. That's not on Rian Johnson.
Lawrence Kasdan is sat somewhere choking and Leigh Brackett is turning like a rotisserie chicken in her grave.
Interesting tid-bit. The co-writer of The Rise of Skywalker was also the writer of Batman v Superman and Justice League. Make of that what you will.
I don't hate The Rise of Skywalker. I'm not even disappointed with it. I didn't walk out of the screening thinking that this film was the best way for this trilogy to end, but I also didn't think it was the worst. This film has some good moments. But it was difficult to really trust the integrity of its story telling when it seemed to walk back so many things from previous films so casually. Not just The Last Jedi, but even The Force Awakens. Because of this, I kinda just switched off from trying to even make sense of the story, and just let myself be taken on whatever this ride was. If you do that, you might like it more. But it's a weird thing to have to do to enjoy a film which is the final chapter in...a story.
I did wonder if the film having an extended run-time would have helped it. But the issues with The Rise of Skywalker are far more than just there not being enough time. The story itself just wasn't great. There was a lack of acceptance to work with what was there instead of trying to course correct, knowing that you only have one film to do two to three films' worth of work. The priority should always had been how to make the story work with what's there. Not turning this shit into The Last Skywalker.
I honestly wouldn't have been mad if Disney turned around at the last minute and said there would be an Episode X and that it'd be releasing in either May or December 2020 if it meant that the story and the conclusion of the saga would get done a better justice than what we ended up with.
The Rise of Skywalker makes me wonder why the Skywalker saga needed to continue in the first place, and why we couldn't have had a new story which doesn't hinge on the Skywalker's at all. I went along with it with The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi because they were good films and I liked where they seemed to be going. But The Rise of Skywalker is a different beast altogether. It desperately swings itself into pockets of the original trilogy because it feels it's the only way to tie itself to it. Even down to the name of the film itself.
I can't see The Rise of Skywalker being a film which ages well, because structurally it's just not great and that's not something time can fix. But the silver lining for Disney is that The Rise of Skywalker affords them the chance to sell yellow lightsabers, a new droid that doubles as a desk lamp and release all manner of books and Disney+ series' to fill in the many gaps that this film left.
It's just a shame that all of the great talent in this movie amounted to a whimper instead of a celebratory bang.
Verdict: I can't even.