Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Released 12/19/19
The Rise of Skywalker. The ending of the Skywalker saga. The ending of Disney's sequel trilogy. The ending of dignity. Kidding. Maybe. We have ships, lightsabers, The First Order, The Resistance, the return of Palpatine, Reylo, superpowered Force ghosts, and just about everything else you can think of. I won't go into a story summary in this review. There are so many leaks out there, you probably already know the story before you bother reading this. So, without further ado, let's get to this.
I'm going to go back to 2015 where this new trilogy started after the Disney purchase from George Lucas. I liked The Force Awakens. Initially, at least. I thought that after all the negative issues surrounding the Prequel Trilogy, this homage to A New Hope is what the fandom needed. It was a familiarity with what so many of us fell in love with back in 1977 or whenever you may have watched ANH in your life. Plus, J.J. Abrams added more than enough mystery to at least have your brain thinking about where this story was headed. Yes, TFA had issues. It "borrowed" heavily from ANH. One of the newer characters, Rey, was overpowered to say the least. But, I was fine with that. There had to be some logical explanation for why a complete novice is able to flawlessly perform advanced Jedi techniques, and, not only defeat, but, whip a trained Force user in physical combat. Ooooh, the mind raced in me and many others for two years trying to figure out what was happening. And, it was a lot of fun doing so. Yes, I know there were naysayers, but, this film was generally defended against those "Negative Nellies" and the franchise was in better shape than it had been in years. Then 2016's anthology film, Rogue One, just reinforced that. Star Wars fever was strong going into 2017.
And then, Rian Johnson and The Last Jedi happened. I won't go in heavy on this. Those who know me vividly know what I think of this abomination. You had a director here who is (1) very arrogant and (2) revels in angering people. Where do I get that last point? From the horse's mouth. Johnson is on record saying that when he makes a movie, his preference is if half the audience hates it. Look it up on YouTube if you don't believe me. And, anger people he did. His "subversion of expectations" in this franchise felt about as good as running a cheese grater across your genitals. And, why do I say he's arrogant? Many reasons, but, I'll go with one to make this short and sweet. He had the middle chapter of a trilogy meaning that there should be some logical cohesion with what came before. It's okay to put your personal stamp on something in regard to style. What it is not okay to do is make this a platform for your grand vision of "what Star Wars means to me" and turn the story on its ear when this is supposed to be the steak and potatoes part of the tale in question. Had he started the trilogy this way...it still wouldn't have been good, but, at least he would have been the trendsetter and everyone would have to follow his lead. But, he wasn't first and he effectively helped split the fandom. This gave rise to "The Fandom Menace", a group that started out commiserating about the problems this movie had and developed, with a great deal of provocation (staunch defenders of TLJ are not innocent in this either), into something extremely divisive and ugly that has cast a shadow across all pop culture. And, agree or not, TLJ tanked Solo in 2018. Make no mistake about that. There have been a host of excuses as to why Solo got pummeled at the box office. It was released on Memorial Day. Deadpool 2 came out a week before. If the brand was strong, it wouldn't have mattered. It's Star Wars. The only thing rivaling it would be the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
That brings our twisty little tale to this week's release of The Rise of Skywalker. Episode IX. What on Earth should we be bracing for? After sitting through this, I have to say this is exactly what I thought it would be. It's a movie that's both too much and too little. Narratively and tonally speaking it feels like it connects to Episode VII. And, I would say it might perfectly connect to Episode VII if not for two expectations that were "subverted" by Johnson. The death of Snoke and the death of Luke Skywalker. That's really the only connecting tissue TROS has to TLJ. And there's no way to square that circle for TLJ to connect to the other two chapters. Square peg meet round hole.
One of the most glaring issues with TROS is that J.J. Abrams is clearly and desperately on damage control here. It's a glut of fan service. Now, let me explain something about fan service. There's good and bad to it. The good is when you give a wink and nod to the audience figuratively saying "We got 'ya partner." I always revert to this one example because this is the best type of fan service you can find. The scene in Captain America: Civil War where Cap and Iron Man are locked in combat and they slow the action down for 2-3 seconds featuring Iron Man full blasting Cap's shield. That was a scene lifted straight from the comics. And the fact that the Russos did a slow motion take on it tells you they knew exactly what they were doing and who they were doing it for. That scene still makes me feel a certain way when I see it. J.J. missed this type of moment in TFA. Now, you can't predict what happened to Carrie Fisher was going to happen. But, he did kill Han Solo off. At the very least, there was one time the band should have been put back together. Han, Luke, Leia, Chewie, Artoo, Threepio, and you can even throw Lando in there if you want. They should have had at least one scene together. That's good fan service. That would have hit everyone in the feels.
The fan service we get in TROS is J.J. trying to undo as much of what Johnson did as he can. I don't believe for one single solitary second that the original plan was to bring Palpatine back. But, what else is he going to do? Snoke is gone. So either go full tilt boogie on making Kylo Ren a bad guy or bring back the old familiar villain and hope for the best. Palpatine's not in the film very much. He pretty much looks like a zombie. There's no real explanation as to how he survived and what his overarching machinations were supposed to accomplish. Snoke was apparently a creation or pawn or something of Palpatine. The Emperor's connection to one major character is rushed and not very well thought out in my opinion.
Let's talk about that concept of rush. That's how the whole movie felt. Let's hurry up and get to the end. Throw as much minutiae at the audience as possible without allowing anything to breathe. Undo as much of Johnson's work as possible which isn't a bad thing, but, felt forced nonetheless. I'm not one to say this about movies very often, but, if Disney wasn't inclined to make an Episode X to finish this out which would have made the most logical sense with as much as what J.J. tried to cram into TROS, the film should have been longer than two hours and 13 minutes. At least the narrative could have been fleshed out a little more this way.
J.J. tries to give you everything. Finn is a little less of a sidekick clown. He and Poe bromance all over the screen. Kylo remains fully clothed throughout and even gets a new helmet. Rey goes through some training, but, she's still OP as all get out. BB-8 continues to supplant R2-D2 as the resident "cute" droid. Rey's lineage is addressed. Billy Dee Williams is back as Lando Calrissian. Reylo is here and in full effect. Force ghosts having power is still a thing. Let's see, did I leave anything out? Probably, but, my main point here is that J.J. tried to address every mystery he created in TFA and solve every problematic instance he could correct from TLJ. But, alas, he couldn't adequately do everything he wanted. Giving as much fan service as he did didn't allow the story itself to take off. It's thin to say the least.
Speaking of thin, one of my biggest issues with the new Disney Star Wars are the new characters themselves. You know who I'm talking about. I was intrigued during TFA. I became less so in TLJ. TROS did nothing to renew my interest. This is no reflection on the actors themselves. Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, and Adam Driver all give it everything they have. I commend them. The characters just don't resonate with me. And, I believe the key to that is there was no smooth transition in this sequel trilogy between the old guard and new blood. There was no passing of the torch. The torch was snatched without giving us a chance to form an emotional attachment to the newbies. I don't want to say they're soulless. That's not the right word. But, they don't have an "it" factor that sells you on their story or their actions. They're bland pieces of clay. And bland characters in conjunction with a thin storyline to begin with makes for mediocrity.
With my final point, let me address J.J. Abrams himself. He had an impossible task. How do you reunite a broken fandom? Well, you can do what J.J. did here. Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. Not much of it did. But, let's talk about that impossible task. You, J.J., are partly responsible for having to come in and try to save the day. I don't know all of the machinations behind why you just left Kathleen Kennedy with an outline and didn't take the reigns of the whole trilogy yourself, especially since you ended up directing two of the three episodes anyway. But, let this be a cautionary tale. Finish what you start. We'll never know if there was an actual good story to be told, but, whatever you had planned, had to be better than the disjointed mess we got onscreen.
The best way I can describe TROS is it's a definite sequel to TFA and an apology for TLJ. J.J. is not shy about taking shots at Johnson and just about everything he did in Episode VIII. Sometimes it's not subtle. But, it might be all for naught. TROS is not a good enough movie in and of itself to bring everyone back into the fold. Some in The Fandom Menace have found profit in permanently trashing Star Wars, so, they and those who follow them are not reachable and may never be. But, someone like me who wasn't a fan (as mildly as I can say it) of TLJ, but, hadn't completely written the franchise off, the best I can offer is a shoulder shrug. I didn't hate TROS. It was a factor of at least 10 better than TLJ. But that's so damning it with faint praise. It might get decent word of mouth. If it does, it will perform well. I just don't see mad love for it in the future.
I'm going to rate TROS the same as I did TLJ initially with a couple of caveats. First, I was trying to be as kind as I could to Episode VIII in the review. But, it was one of those things where the more I thought about it, the more it irritated me. It did not deserve a rating as high as what I gave it. TROS is a better movie overall, but, the rating on my scale fits it to a T. It's decidedly mediocre.
The Dark Lord of the Sith says:
**3/4 stars
0*= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Worth a look. Better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. I'm doing my happy dance!
5 *= Pure eye candy. I have seen the top of the mountain, and it is good
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