Review: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, directed by J.J. Abrams, tells the tale of Rey (Daisy Ridley), a young scavenger girl-turned-jedi who, with the help of her friends Finn (John Boyega), Poe (Oscar Isaacs), BB-8, C3-PO, and Chewbacca among others, must take down the EVIL First Order led by the EVIL Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and prevent the return of the Sith as an old evil emerges from the darkness to take back the Galaxy.
Star Wars is easily one of the largest, most recognizable franchises ever made, and the films in this franchise has certainly been diverse. The franchise had its highs (the Original Trilogy), its lows (the Prequel Trilogy), and everything in between (the Movie Spinoffs).
The New Trilogy that started once Disney bought Lucasfilm from Star Wars creator George Lucas has been an fairly divisive addition to the franchise to say the least. The Force Awakens was a fun return to form from the franchise while The Last Jedi was kinda mediocre. Now comes the end to the Trilogy and subsequently the end to the “Skywalker Saga” started by the original Star Wars back in 1977, and I can confidently say that the long awaited conclusion to this wild adventure was………………incredibly underwhelming. In fact, “incredibly underwhelming” is a bit of an understatement; The Rise of Skywalker, to put it plainly, was sloppy.
Rian Johnson’s Star Wars film was pretty dang controversial among the Star Wars fandom, with critics for the most part enjoying the film while fans and audiences trashed the living heck out of it. J.J. Abrams returns to the franchise after the initial director Colin Trevorrow got booted off the project to do some damage control, and the result is a film that plays things too safe. Everything about this film is familiar; like The Force Awakens (which I thoroughly enjoyed mind you) this film is a collection of Star Wars moments and plot points cobbled together in this mess of a film, and by cobbled I mean literally thrown together.
The editing in this film was god awful. Despite being a two and a half hour movie the film lightspeeds through its run-time like Han Solo making the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs. There’s no time given for us to absorb what’s going on in the story; we’re given a bunch of exposition dumps and then we quickly move on to the next scene. It also doesn’t help that cuts are incredibly frequent, whether it be straight cuts or the iconic scene wipes.
And say you look pass the excessive cuts and stupid fast pacing, you’re left with a story that’s sloppily thought out and incredibly pandering to the rabid fanboys and girls. Abrams is most well known for his infamous “mystery box” method of story-telling, where the story is fueled forward by the intrigue and mystery of what the payoff could be. That’s all fine and dandy, but given the fact that Abrams was the showrunner for the TV series Lost (and we all know how THAT turned out in the end), the director isn’t very good at delivering satisfying payoffs.
The answers to the mysteries this Trilogy raises up is incredibly reaching. Johnson answered a lot of the questions that Abrams raised in the last film seeing them as ultimately irrelevant to the integral story, but since apparently everyone hated The Last Jedi Abrams made a U-turn on those answered questions and revised them to not only be more convoluted than before, but also raises more questions in the process. As with all my reviews nothing will be spoiled, but when you watch the film you’ll see what I mean.
A good majority of the characters previously introduced feel wasted in this film; they’re given nothing to do outside of provide continuity, and in some cases they’re given a complete 180 from how they’re initially developed. The worst instances of this includes Rose from The Last Jedi played once again by Kelly Marie Tran, the EVIL General Hux played by Domhnall Gleeson, and R2-D2, an incredibly iconic character from all the films in this saga that’s sadly tossed to the side in favor for the newer model. There are a lot of new characters introduced in this film, and almost all of them are nothing more than plot devices and character tropes.
There are old characters from previous films that come back for one last ride, and they serve as nothing more than fan service. Billy Dee Williams reprises his role as Lando Calrissian and he’s only there to lazily get our heroes out of some sticky situations. The big bad Emperor Palpatine also returns, played once again by the deliciously over-the-top Ian McDiarmid, and his inclusion to this trilogy feels incredibly last minute. Not only is his return essentially unexplained, he also makes this film a quasi-remake of Return of the Jedi.
And that’s my biggest problem with this film; there’s nothing new being done here. Gone are the world building elements from previous films, and instead we get familiar, pandering fan service. There are many callbacks to the previous films and even the animated TV series that feel more distracting than earned. This has been a common problem with every film Abrams directed; all his films are basically remakes of other films despite being sequels. This was an issue with Abrams’s Star Trek films, and now they’re an issue in Abrams’s Star Wars films.
Overall this film was a sad mess. I’ve said a lot in this review but it’s not because I hated this movie. There are things to appreciate in this film; the performances are still great as always, the action is still very well executed, and John Williams’s score is still the classic Star Wars score. But all the positives feel wasted here in this poorly thought out conclusion to a beloved saga that spanned literal generations.
Die hard fans will probably enjoy this film, but then again who knows; no one hates Star Wars films more than Star Wars fans. But unless you are incredibly susceptible to pandering fan service, I don’t see many people enjoying this film. Maybe Star Wars can one day return to its former glory, but for now we’ll just have to remember this iconic saga for what it was; an endearing story with a little something for everyone. It ain’t perfect, but we’ll always still love Star Wars.
Final Verdict: 3/10