Release Year: 2019
Director: JJ Abrams
Runtime: 142 minutes
Sequels gain most of their hate on the grounds that they are unnecessary: a perfectly functional standalone film can be so satisfactory that adding to it even with a companion film would take that satisfaction away. Sagas require multiple entries, however, and each entry’s job is as interdependent with the others as it is individually entertaining. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the staggering ninth installment in a franchise that is in many ways unmatched in its iconic and influential status, but just because sagas require entries does not mean that audiences require the saga. Just as with the overly busy prequels, this sequel leg of the Star Wars story is just too heavy to be carried on, and Rise of Skywalker, while entertaining, fails its impossible task of pumping Disney life into the franchise.
Moderate spoilers follow.
The movie has plenty of redeeming qualities. Seriously. There are some genuinely funny moments throughout the decent runtime, some worthwhile acting performances shine through, and tributes to the original trilogy were well placed. The movie is a great time. It is the more abstract elements, the thoughts that come after, and the subtler details that make it a sadder revelation than it needs to be. On the surface, it seems like a job well done: Rey’s journey from an identity-less scavenger to some kind of Jedi warrior queen was a thrill to watch, Finn’s journey from an unbelieving coward to a sympathetic rebel was inspiring, and Poe’s arc from overzealous soldier to… a better soldier was entertaining with Oscar Isaac’s performance at its core. The movie is filled with resolutions as much as it is with revolutions. The satisfaction it sought is certainly achieved in these and more character arcs.
Where satisfaction is absent is in elements like plot and setting. I attribute most of these problems with the movie and the sequels as a whole trilogy to the alternating directors. Things like Palpatine’s return, Rey’s lineage, and revisiting Tatooine were not only never foreshadowed in the previous movies, they were even discarded as possibilities. I may be in the minority on this, but I thoroughly enjoyed Episode VIII. I thought the concept of campaigning a Star Wars iconoclasm that did away with the old and brought in the new was not only solid, challenging filmmaking, but the entire POINT of making sequels. The Force Awakens was a brilliant movie, but filled with nostalgic fan service. If I wanted to see more fan service, I’d just rewatch it, not see a new movie with even more. The Last Jedi removed itself from this possibility under Rian Johnson’s brilliant direction, which would have worked if the saga had stayed on this course.
When Johnson told us Rey was a nobody, and her strength was from her character rather than lineage, it felt extremely cheap to learn she was Palpatine’s granddaughter (even if it was revealed in a striking way). When Snoke was offed in Episode VIII, it felt extremely cheap for Palpatine to return and take that position back for himself. When the characters split up on their own journeys just an episode ago, it became all too easy to see through Abrams’ teamwork moments that permeated this movie long before the properly positioned climax. The whole movie gave me plot-whiplash,* which would be Johnson’s fault if his vision weren’t way more creative and less formulaic than that of JJ Abrams. Many people hated that Johnson threw the formula away and instead of proving this could work, Disney forced the viewer to return to it. Rise of Skywalker offers nothing new to the franchise, seemingly released just to cancel out the most adventurous installment since Return of the Jedi.
The old, un-fixed elements it offers are nice elements indeed, however. The wit and adventure present since the beginning are in full form, regardless of how familiar that form is. Rey’s character is probably the most original, and the most interesting, component of the narrative. Her struggle begins commonly and ends in a surprisingly intriguing look at identity, one that values integrity more than any potentially self-centered route. In following Rey, the sequels do a solid job, but in accomplishing any other worthwhile purposes, they do not do as much, and this especially goes for Episode IX. The sequels felt like a journey with a course that was mapped as it was travelled, making for an entertaining trilogy that is not much beyond that. As this journey’s conclusion, The Rise of Skywalker is probably the most quality it could have been: not a 10/10, but certainly not a 4/10, just simply an unfortunate but somewhat worthwhile space in between.
*My heavy-handed invention of a term, meaning the plot goes one way and snaps to another in an unforeseen, unnatural, and/or unrealistic fashion.
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