This is the very first time in the years and years I’ve engaged
in this little hobby where saying “It was a good movie” feels like a backhanded
compliment. But that’s about where I’m at. Saw the flick on opening night. A
week has passed and the only thing my mind keeps coming back to is that it was
a movie and it was fine but it was just there.
Speaking of course about The Rise of Skywalker. The end
of the Skywalker Saga which has taken us outwards to a galaxy far, far away and
across forty whole, actual years of meta and merch and iconography which isn’t
even to mention the numerous spin-offs, sequels, prequels, TV shows,
mini-series, and video games. All of that has led to this…which is why just
calling Episode 9 a good movie feels like such a misnomer. Getting ahead of
myself here.
The most notable part of this chapter in the saga as it
starts is that the new trio is finally back together. Notable because they
spent a large portion of Episode 8 in separate worlds entirely. Finn and Poe
have intercepted a message from a spy in the First Order, barely making it back
to base to relay it. Rey, who has been trying to access her Avatar State- I
mean her Jedi predecessors is annoyed with the boys for wrecking her ship while
they are annoyed that the best fighter in the outfit is running obstacle
courses and not, you know, fighting.
A good point to be fair. It helps Rey make her decision to gather
up the Old Jedi Texts and follow Luke Skywalker’s final lead to locate the Lost
Sith World. Her friends insist on going with her, because we’ve done this “Let’s
split up gang!” schtick before with varying (disastrous) results.
JJ Abrams is back at the wheel for this final installment
and if starting the movie mid-chase scene wasn’t a big enough tell then the
Wile E. Coyote perils of the second act certainly will be. Certain parts of the
plotting stuck out to me in this way including a scene where Rey heals a
wounded pit worm creature using the power of the Force.
I would make fun of this more, but I have watched far more
cartoons than is average and it also set up two key events in the narrative so
I’ll leave JJ alone on this one. However…
So much of this movie felt inconsequential. Perhaps because
my prediction from two years ago about this movie retconning The Last Jedi into
the ground turned out to be true in the most predictable ways. So much talk (boring
talk at that) about how JJ was working from behind having to tell his own story
and conclude the saga while cleaning up after TLJ. First of all, it’s his job.
No tears here, muchacho. Secondly, the meta regarding Episode 8 is only a
problem if you treat it that way. Nothing that happened was inherently bad.
Actually, no, that entire code breaker subplot that took up half
of the movie was bad. It was really bad. But everything else was fine! Luke has
moved on, Snoke is dead and Kylo Ren is the Supreme Leader. There are bones of
a solid follow-up to be had, yet Disney’s refusal to carry on even these major developments
has me scratching my head to wonder why they let Rian Johnson finish the movie
anyway. Clearly, they didn’t know what they wanted and never have which points
to the general feeling of dissociation in this final film.
Princess Leia’s story and her time in this film feels the
most coherent of all. It helps that she was past being a major on-screen
character at this point. It’s also worth noting the tactful way her story ended
given the untimely passing of Carrie Fisher earlier in production. They did what
they could with the footage they had left and turned it into one of my high
points of the movie. I give credit where I think it’s due and this was well
done.
The rest was an exercise in lukewarm thrills and squandered
potential. Hux will forever be the Big Bad that never was – a fiery ball of
charisma playing second fiddle to a room of actual NPCs. Rose Tico, after being
heavily involved in the climax of The Last Jedi, is little more than a
support character in The Rise of Skywalker. This annoyed me. Rey
throughout the movie leaves her friends in peril to go on random side quests
and listen to Kylo Ren drone on in painful “cutscene” dialogue. That greatly
annoyed me.
I could even compare this to Venom in that it was a weird
movie with one great performance that really wanted me to hate it and failed in
spectacular fashion. I didn’t hate this movie. I actually liked it by the end.
The last thing I can say before getting into spoilers:
The Rise of Skywalker was easier to sit through; The
Last Jedi was more fun to talk about.
3 Stars Out of 5
Cool. So straight away it should be known that Hux is the
spy. Chewie, Finn and Poe get captured as all guerrilla soldiers in the motion pictures
must and just before they’re executed, Hux nabs a blaster and takes out the
troopers with him. He releases the prisoners while noting that, even at the
expense of his own livelihood, he wants Kylo Ren to fail. Sure, whatever, but
then he is gunned down on the bridge by General NPC whose name I don’t care to
recall at this moment.
When I first heard word of a spy I thought hey this is a
great spot to bring back DJ, the codebreaker played by Benicio Del Toro who was
shrewd in dealing with the Resistance and the First Order. What better way to
nail home his point about war being nasty and grey than using his ill-gotten
gains to help save the galaxy? Instead, it’s Hux. Being hashtag petty before
getting a weak payoff to his rivalry with Kylo via a third party. To call this
underwhelming would be too kind. Wasted potential, the story of Episode 9.
Ben and Rey interacted well as characters. I stress this
part characters because it’s been quite easy for people to forget that these
are real people cosplaying fictional characters which I guess is a credit to
Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver as actors. Both very talented. Although it felt
like the lightsaber duels between them just got in the way. No real thought
went into them outside of one specific moment and “Well we gotta have laser
swords in this damn thing.” I’ll explain.
In the world of simulated violence, there is an art to
making an interaction convincing and enjoyable with a payoff that makes sense.
Generally, this involves a decisive outcome. I could point to the Atomic
Blonde stairwell sequence or John Wick mowing down dozens of goons with
ease while struggling to overcome one expert combatant. I could detail why both
of these examples work in their own unique ways but we’re talking about Star
Wars so I’ll stick here.
Luke Skywalker, as he grew in his training and experience,
went on a steady incline of eventually facing his destiny. In the first movie,
he didn’t approach Darth Vader at all. Ben Kenobi bought his crew enough time
to escape in the Millennium Falcon and destroy the Death Star. Second movie, he
still isn’t ready and Old Man Yoda tells him this. But he still goes, fights
valiantly and gets absolutely destroyed by Vader. He survives though, and gains
even more experience as a Jedi Knight. When the two meet again, Luke beats
Vader handily. There is a natural progression of who gets the upper hand in the
battle of wills.
We don’t get to see much of this between Rey and Ben. She’s
the protagonist and has gotten stronger on top of the absurd amount of power
she already has due to her bloodline (more on that later). Conceivably, she
should be able to outmatch Kylo (who’s rebuilt his helmet yay?) and defeat him
like Luke did Vader in his third movie. Well, she does, but not by
herself. As Alfred so famously said, what’s the point of all those pushups if
you can’t move a log? Yes, Kylo is the log here. We’re way past the point Rey
should be intimidated by any bad guy. If she’s gonna beat him, just beat him. Obi-Wan’s
battle against Darth Maul, who slayed his master in front of him, felt like a
desperate struggle where each swing of a saber felt like it could be the last.
Kylo and Rey were just swinging props.
JJ owes some royalties to Genndy Tartakovsky, because before
the final blow was struck Leia used the last of her life force to reach out to
her only child and give him pause, which allowed Rey to inflict a mortal wound.
But she’s Force Sensitive and felt her mentor leave the mortal coil. Realizing
what she’s done, she heals Ben’s wound like she healed the worm earlier. She
then tells Ben in not so many words, hey I wanted to join forces with you but
you still wanted to kill my friends, you dick! And Ben is left alone to
contemplate this with the ghost of Han Solo.
There is a lot I did and did not like about this. The method
in which Rey was victorious made sense in relation to her bond with Leia and
Luke and nicely set up the penultimate moment of the film. The path we took to
get there was convoluted and involved Rey yet again going off on her own with
no regard for her friends and allies and leading her nemesis directly to the
thing he was looking for. This reeks of Second Draft chicanery. But! I thought
is was a nice way to end Leia’s story and Rey’s decision to save Ben Solo (not
Kylo Ren) informed a lot about her character and the decision rightfully came
back to aid her in the end.
Speaking of the End: Rey is a Palpatine! Ay, bet you didn’t
see that coming. Or maybe you were like myself and my friend Scott who called
it from the moment the landed on the sand dune planet. I don’t pretend to be
some Great Prognosticator but I knew knew knew that the chance to make Rey the recipient
of Assassin’s Creed Bloodline Powers would be too much for the Mouse to pass
up. And no, not even the great Adam Driver with his many skills could save the
scene where, through his mask no less, he must monologue about who she is, where
she came from, what happened to her parents. This was brutal.
You don’t want Kylo Ren to be the Final Boss he’s been built
up to be. Fine. He doesn’t have to be and Rey doesn’t have to end him. Have Ben
Solo defect and now his rival Hux is Supreme Leader. He doesn’t necessarily
hate the Resistance but his hate for Ben burns with the heat of 1,000 suns and
that would be enough for him to borrow the fire power of a long-dead Sith Lord
or whatever nonsense you want to write but walking out of the theater I can’t
wrap my head around how the one First Order officer with any sort of character
was just written off in a cutscene that barely went a minute. What’s the point?
Getting back on track. Palpatine’s whole plan is for Rey to
kill him and inherit his power so he can live on forever. Sound familiar? He
must have known Luke trained her. Surely one would assume he’s warned her about
this ruse at some point. Anyway, she refuses. Palpatine gets fried for real
this time and Rey drops dead for…reasons, I guess. It sets up the big moment I
discussed earlier where Ben climbs out of the Mortal Kombat pit and resuscitates
her. A life for a life. It’s a decent payoff, an appropriate end to the
Skywalker line and naturally Adam Driver puts his all into what is for all
purposes the final sequence in Star Wars history. As far as direct parallels to
Vader go, you could have done worse. When you do as many awful things as they
did there really is only one way to redeem yourself.
Later, we see Rey and BB-8 (Does she own the droid now or did
it just start following her? Fair play either way.) on Luke’s homeworld of
Tatooine. She finds his family’s hut and gently buries his and Leia’s
lightsabers in the sand dunes there for the next big adventurer to find them, as
someone always does. An old woman walks by and asks Rey who she is. “Rey
Skywalker,” is her answer. Alright.
First thing: you’re a Palpatine, miss. We just had a whole
to-do over it. The fact of which almost ended the galaxy. Second thing: I know
Leia basically adopted her and Luke trained her for five seconds but the Skywalkers
are gone. Unless Anakin had a sibling we aren’t aware of we have reached the
end of the rope. It’s a nice gesture and she got to pose with her round buddy
under the two red suns but, factually, this is untrue. As my friend Lunchbox pointed out, it's like someone just did the Aristocrats bit, only the payoff is saying "We're the Skywalkers!" Which if you'll recall is exactly how Episode 9 ended. You cannot make this up.
There are a dozen little things that will needle you as a
fan watching this. Finn never got to tell Rey his secret. Rose is a non-factor
after being clearly established as a major character. The new characters introduced
are largely support class characters with dialogue to match. Conflict is set up
not by necessity but largely by our heroes being impotent. All of this stuff
adds up but not enough to make it a horrible movie. Just a toothless one. Very
well made and pretty to look at. There is much doubt you will remember you saw
it in a month or so.
