#9 Rise of Skywalker Review (Spoilers)
This is a special edition of the newsletter. I’m going to talk about the new Star Wars movie and my reaction to it.
The first Star Wars movie came out when I was three years old, but I was eight when Return of the Jedi came out. At eight, I was exactly the right age to fall in love with Star Wars and I did. I watched the movies countless times. I had endless adventures with my Star Wars action figures. I got ridiculously excited for the two admittedly terrible Ewok TV movies. I watched the Droids and Ewoks cartoons. I read the Marvel comic books. In 1995 when Timothy Zahn came out with Heir To The Empire, the first story ever written that took place after Return of the Jedi, I got it the day it was published. I was excited when Dark Horse got their hands on the Star Wars comic book license and made Dark Empire, a comic where Emperor Palpatine returned. When I was seventeen years old and suicidal one of the reasons I did not kill myself was a genuine desire to see all nine Star Wars movies even though at that time the concept of nine Star Wars movies was little more than a rumor.
I was one of those people who stood in line for hours outside the movie theater waiting for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. When Disney bought Lucasfilm and got rid of all the expanded universe stuff so that the Emperor never came back and all those Zahn stories were ‘legends’, I was fine with it because it meant more and new stories. About five years ago when Marvel started publishing Star Wars comics again, I bought most of them and read all of them. In the lead up to seeing the last movie in the Skywalker saga this week, I spent the previous eight days watching Episodes I-VIII and rereading dozens of Star Wars comics. I have experienced the best and worst of Star Wars.
With this latest trilogy, I enjoyed The Force Awakens. And I LOVED The Last Jedi for taking Star Wars to a new and different place. It is not an exaggeration to say that I’ve wanted to see Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker for most of my life and walking into the theater I wanted to love this movie more than anything.
And I don’t. Now before I go on, I should say that if you saw Rise of Skywalker and do love it, I am jealous of you and in no way want to take that love away from you. You may want to just skip this newsletter if that’s the case.
There is no way to talk about my problems with Rise of Skywalker without talking about spoilers, so if you’d prefer to avoid those, you should stop reading now.
I’ll start with what I liked. Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, and everyone else do a solid job acting. I genuinely enjoy most of the scenes with Adam Driver. I LOVED the wreckage of the Death Star set piece. I thought the Han cameo was almost perfect. The special effects are as good as they’ve ever been.
But tell me if you’ve heard this one before. A character dies. But then it turns out they didn’t. If you’ve seen The Rise of Skywalker, you’ve already seen this trope a half dozen times. Emperor Palpatine died in 1983’s Return of the Jedi. Now he’s back (through cloning or something). Chewbacca dies when Rey accidentally destroys the transport, only he was apparently in a different transport. Poe’s ex Zorri dies when her planet is destroyed by the Final Order, only she didn’t because she apparently got off the planet. Kylo Ren dies when he’s distracted by his mother and Rey kills him, only she brings him back. Kylo Ren dies when he gets blasted by the Emperor into a chasm, only he climbs out. Kylo Ren dies when his life force is sucked out of him by the Emperor, only apparently it’s not all of his life force. Rey dies when she too gets her life force sucked out of her, only Kylo brings her back. And hell, I forgot to bring up the part where C-3PO basically dies by having his memory erased only R2 has backups of 3PO’s memories.
The death of a character that turns out to not be the death of a character is a tired trope that should be used sparingly if at all. JJ Abrams uses it like a storyteller afraid to kill off potentially profitable intellectual property. He likely wouldn’t have killed off Leia if Carrie Fisher hadn’t died before filming. Hell, he even brought back Han for a scene even if it was only in Kylo’s mind.
Yes, there are people who would have freaked the hell out if Chewbacca, the copilot of the Millennium Falcon, and lovable sidekick to the best space smuggler in cinema history died when the ship he was in as a prisoner exploded. But at least they’d be freaking out about a bold choice and not one that smacks of cowardice. What better way to show just how dangerous Rey is than to have her accidentally kill a major and beloved character in such a reckless way? What better way to make the audience think that just maybe she may very well turn to the Dark Side after doing so? It’s the sort of unexpected and brave choice one might expect from Rian Johnson. But JJ Abrams has shown that he’s too sentimental and has no interest in making brave or challenging films. He makes popcorn.
Luckily for him, there are lots of people who love popcorn. They love it so much that when Rian Johnson decided to give them something of substance they didn’t know what to do with it. Abrams spends much of his time in Rise of Skywalker ignoring or retconning the events of The Last Jedi. He’s like an improv guy who never learned the concept of ‘Yes, and…’ Instead of building on what the last guy did, he takes apart. Abrams asked ‘Who is Rey?’ in The Force Awakens. Johnson responded in The Last Jedi with ‘Rey isn’t anyone special but that doesn’t mean she can’t become someone special. Abrams now contradicts Johnson in The Rise of Skywalker by saying, “No, she IS someone special because of who her male grandfather is.” This not only contradicts the previous movie, but comes off as sexist and somewhat petulant. It’s cheap in the same way that bringing characters back from the dead is cheap.
Similarly, the relationship between Poe and Finn has been frequently referred to as a ‘bro-mance’, meaning a platonic close male friendship, but there is enough there that it could easy become a romance. Except this is Disney and Abrams, so they play it safe. They have one lesbian kiss during the celebration at the end and easily edit it out in places like Singapore. Again, it’s cheap.
Speaking of kisses, the kiss between Kylo and Rey not only makes little sense but is disturbing given that one of the first interactions between these two characters was Kylo violating her mind against her will. Kylo being redeemed as Ben Solo doesn’t make that less creepy.
Like Abrams himself, I almost forgot to bring up Rose Tico. Rose was a great character in The Last Jedi and gave Finn a love interest since they weren’t going to hook him up with Poe. She was a pivotal part of The Last Jedi. And sure, I can imagine that Rose was no part of Abrams’s original outline, but that simply means he should have updated his outline. Instead, rather than continuing the story of Rose and Finn, Abrams gives Finn another potential love interest in Jannah, an ex-Stormtrooper like him and a person with brown skin like him. Rose meanwhile doesn’t even get to be part of the major battle. She has to stay at the Rebel base which is the first Rebel base in the history of Star Wars apparently in zero danger of being attacked.
While Rose sits back at the Rebel base doing nothing, Lando has gone to get all those allies who didn’t want to help in The Last Jedi to show up for a last minute save against the inexplicable secret Star Destroyer fleet. Nevermind that The Last Jedi established they weren’t answering. Nevermind that we’ve seen this sort of thing before in everything from Serenity to Power Rangers. And nevermind any suspense on whether or not they’ll show up since their arrival was in the f*cking trailer.
I could go on and talk about the various problems I have with lightspeed skipping, Kylo apparently having (at least) two custom TIE Fighters, Star Destroyers with Death Star tech, the ineffective and inconsequential Knights of Ren, and a room full of hooded figures who apparently have no problem living on a desolate world with no food or shelter, but I don’t know what the point of that would be.
The Rise of Skywalker is a safe, sloppy, petulant, disappointing end to one of my favorite film franchises. It made me lose interest in Star Wars in general and in anything Abrams does in particular. It’s disappointing and disheartening. And I hate to say that. I’ve spent most of my life loving Star Wars and defending it against the haters. I’m glad that my seventeen-year-old self didn’t know how I’d feel after seeing this movie.
- Jack