“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” review- 42 years in the making, and for what… a lackadaisical attempt at concluding the beloved series
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” is a failure of a movie, that puts even the worst Star Wars film: “Solo: A Star Wars Story” to shame. Looking back at the entire Star Wars saga, it now seems the best course of action would have been to have left the Star Wars films alone after “Return of the Jedi.”
Warning: major spoilers ahead
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” follows Rey (Daisy Ridley) as she tries to get ahold of a sith wayfinder device before Kylo Renn (Adam Driver) joins forces with Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) who has returned from the dead and has promised the first order a quick and easy victory to the rebellion. Quite frankly, this seems like a poor attempt at resurrecting the villain from past films and throwing him into the new trilogy, all while trying to build the stakes up to allow for a climactic showdown.
The first issue with the film is that it felt like it was just one fast and instantaneous adventure where the characters went from one planet to the next in quick succession. First, we have Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac) trying to get a message from someone on one planet, next they get back to the rebel base. After that we have them go to a desert planet, and then another planet to decrypt a message, until we go to another few planets to further the story. It seemed like the writers were cramming every possible Star Wars planet and idea they could into the movie, and it felt like one colossal mess.
Along with the story, the twists in the film don’t garnish enough of shock and awe moments, as they did in the famed scene in “The Empire Strikes Back” when Luke learns Darth Vader is his father. This time, the first reveal is that General Hux is the spy and this was somewhat easy to detect and seemed like an unnecessary story beat. Unfortunately, the biggest reveal is that Emperor Palpatine is Rey’s grandfather; it doesn’t have any emotional impact and doesn’t seem reasonable at all.
A few other issues with “The Rise of Skywalker” is how it fails to meet any expectations that are set forth for it– there are two good prequels. However, both have surmountable flaws, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” come nowhere close to this conundrum of a cinematic muck. See, with the other films gardening great renown, we have a final movie that advertises itself as the defining chapter, being an end to the Skywalker Saga- a story an astounding 42 years in the making. To end such a film is a difficult task, no one is ever going to be happy–you need balance–not too much fan focus devotion and not too much new stuff. Though it tries to do everything and cramming in so much stuff in 2 hours and 22 minutes, which is still long, but the number of story beats that had to be undertaken was a lot and it comes at such a damaging cost; so much so, that I had to leave the theater the second time I saw the movie.
On a more positive note, the film’s ending is much better, while not surprising, or spectacular, it rises to the occasion of not ruining the entire film. I thought that it was an exciting choice for Princess Leia to die the way she did, becoming one with the force after using what power she had left to communicate with her son, was well thought out.
Fans were left to ponder how the final installment of the series would deal with Princess Leia’s character, after the tragic death of actress Carrie Fisher in 2016, just before the release of “The Last Jedi.” The task of trying to round her story arc out, while paying tribute to the character, was a difficult task: One to which “The Rise of Skywalker,” carefully understood and executed in great succession. As it managed to take unused footage from previous films and weave them into the latest installment to round out the character, allowing for an emotional and triumphant ending to her story, that was all the much needed.
Undoubtedly, the best part of the entire film is when Rey goes up against Emperor Palpatine and hears the voices of almost every single Star Wars character. Rey almost defeated, hears the voices of Hayden Christensen, Liam Nesson, Ewan McGregor, Alec Guinness, Samuel L. Jackson, Frank Oz and a few more. The scene is a fantastic example of adequately maintaining a strategic balance between fan focus devotion and new story beats.
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” ends the saga, it’s just too confused on how to get there, it takes too many different routes, fumbles with too many different ideas and only comes together in the very last moments of the film. It is a galactic mishmash that a lot of people didn’t see coming, a screenplay that is as it tries to do too much in the 2 hours and 22 minutes, and it’s a long movie, so it just feels like its overbearing. As well, the surprises the film has in store for audience members lack any jarring twist; almost everything is foreseeable and unoriginal. A stormtrooper could easily hit a target better than J.J Abrams’s conclusion to the Skywalker saga because the movie misses the mark by a considerable distance.
