Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (SPOILERS) - Review Thread

I agree that's likely what happened, but again these are major things to just gloss over and furthers my point that Palpatine was thrown together as a last-ditch effort for this trilogy. It's been pretty clear that Disney has not had the concrete plan for this whole operation that we thought they did after Force Awakens, and Palpatine's inclusion in all of this doesn't make a lick of sense. At least not in human form anyways. Even adding him into the mix with the opening title crawl was pretty ridiculous. That "radio signal" we never hear should've been at the end of Last Jedi... had it been part of the plan all along, which it clearly wasn't. 

I’m sure there will be a Disney+ series that will explain it all.

This... is also likely very true.

I'm something like 75% sure that the Keri Russell character was in the movie to be a backdoor pilot for a Disney+ series down the road.

Everybody be so upset over the killing of some dude we only knew by name (Snoke).

Johnson did what he did precisely because of reactions like yours. It was a glorious moment.

All that matters is Rey and Ren. Deal with it.

Working on my review. There is a lot to unpack here.

Rian Johnson killed Snoke so Kylo Ren could be the villain the third movie. JJ robbed Kylo of that. The way they “redeemed” Kylo made absolutely no sense whatsoever. So... Leia died... and now he’s good??? And... Han Solo showed up?! .... what?

All this movie needed to be was the conflict between Rey and Kylo. You didn’t need Palpy. You didn’t need “the final order.” Just Rey & Kylo having their back & forth and Hux (who went out like a bitch) giving the other characters something to do. And of course, actually do something with the Knights of Ren.

JJ retconned the ending to Last Jedi. That movie ended with Luke bringing hope back to the Resistance. They should have killed off Leia in the opening crawl and made Billie Lourd (her daughter) the new leader. They could have said she was biologically related to Jimmy Smits. Made her an actual Organa. And also given Rose more to do. She could have been Lourd’s second in command. And whatever they had planned on doing with Carrie Fisher, give that to Mark Hamill. The plot of the movie should have been Kylo using the Knights of Ren as a last ditch to defeat the re-strengthened Resistance.

Even more worthless were Palpatine’s Followers. Who the fuck were those bozos? And I don’t mean the Final Order. I mean the hooded people in the arena.

An Eyes Wide Shut-inspired mini-series is coming to Disney Plus.

"Master Sidious, shall I lick your balls?"

This has been one of the most difficult times I've ever had writing a review of a film. I've never had so many conflicting thoughts going through my head, never had to read so many opinions before finally settling on my own. There is no bigger film franchise than Star Wars and very likely never will be, and as a result it's also drastically divided its fans, detractors, and cinephiles alike over the years. While everyone is in agreement that the first two films that started it all, Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, are masterpieces and justifiably the iconic blockbusters we all know and love them to be, everything after that is going to garner fervent debate. In preparation for The Rise of Skywalker, I revisited all of the "Episode" films and found myself with the consensus that Return of the Jedi is likable and well intentioned but a major step down from the first two, the prequels are every bit as disastrous as their reputation dictates, and this latest trilogy from the braintrusts at Disney and Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy are extremely well made, exciting pieces of entertainment but also ones that don't seem to trust their new storylines and characters enough to forge anything memorable and instead are just coasting off the nostalgia of George Lucas's original vision.

I enjoyed The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, though I also had major problems with both. On the one hand, The Force Awakens offered the highly familiar but did so with director J.J. Abrams' signature breakneck pacing, wonderful visuals, and such a polished aesthetic overall that was a thrill to see Star Wars in, especially coming after the ugly, CGI-laden look and feel of the dismal prequels. On the other hand, The Last Jedi's director, Rian Johnson, said enough of the skips down memory lane and made what was easily the boldest Star Wars film yet, an adjective hardly synonymous with the franchise. But while I appreciated Johnson's brash bravura approach to the material, I also took a lot of issue with how it was handled and it seemed like all of the intrigue that The Force Awakens had established was instantly obliterated by The Last Jedi. My enthusiasm for the trilogy had waned, and I had the same question a lot of us did going into the finale of what it would exactly be about. As expected following the largely negative reaction of The Last Jedi, Abrams was brought back in to finish the job and steer the franchise back into the goodwill that he and Disney had enjoyed with The Force Awakens. Well, that resulted in what we also expected in that while The Rise of Skywalker (man am I already sick of that title, it's just awful) brought back the fun, it also doubled down on playing itself safe and attempting to throw in as many convenient plot lines and obvious narrative pushes as they can in order to appease everyone. While I didn't dislike the film while watching it, the more I've thought about it the more I've come to realize that these decisions are frustrating because it not only shows that Disney, Abrams, and Kennedy had no real plan for the trilogy, but that as a result the trilogy is about nothing at all. It might be unfair of me to take these frustrations out on this movie and not backtrack on The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and spread the blame out, but The Rise of Skywalker is the finale and fair or not is going to bear the brunt of the criticisms as a result. Star Wars has never done well in sticking the landing of the trilogies, with Return of the Jedi being a ho-hum closure despite the fun you have watching it unfold and Revenge of the Sith being arguably the best of the prequels but that's a very low bar to be stepping over. The Rise of Skywalker is in about the same league as those two and also has a larger weight of responsibility, ostensibly being the closer for all three trilogies in a sense. What could have and should have been a spectacular spectacle is only an okay one, and that's just not good enough.

We're annoyingly told in the opening title crawl that Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) has somehow resurfaced through an intercepted radio transmission, and that he has been the one pulling the strings this whole time. If this feels like it's come out of left field, that's because it has and is only the first egregious convenience that the audience is subjected to here. Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) finds him on the mysterious Sith planet Exegol and is informed that he must bring Rey (Daisy Ridley) to Palpatine to end the conflict. Rey is busy with her training, working with Leia (Carrie Fisher) as she attempts to complete the teachings from Luke (Mark Hamill) and become a Jedi Master. While this is going on, Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) are duking it out with the First Order attempting to discover the location of Palpatine and his fleet. If this sounds like there's a lot immediately going on, that's because there is. To be fair though, it's handled pretty well and doesn't overwhelm as much as it feels like while writing all of the events down. Abrams, for all of his deserved flack of directing like a studio boss' yes-man, knows how to handle epic scale productions like this and keeps the action moving and the information spewing. Star Wars films have a knack for overcomplicating and convoluting even the simplest of plot devices, but they're also not movies littered with much complexity either. The plot from here on feels almost like an extension of the later Harry Potter films, where instead of locating horcruxes the heroes must located a lost way finder that will lead them to Palpatine. This is again where the strains of attempting to undo The Last Jedi are deeply felt, as it seems a bit late in the game to be subject to a fetch quest movie. There's so much planet hopping and rushing from one thing to the next, perhaps intentionally so to distract from the banal plotting happening and not let the viewer dwell on it all too much. The problem with this is new characters are introduced that I never even bothered to remember the names of, and old characters and their arcs are largely swept aside because deeper exploration of them would result in slowing the film down, and Abrams is having none of that.

The Last Jedi attempted to take all of the mysterious threads of The Force Awakens and shred them all to bits, and now we have The Rise of Skywalker taking those ripped pieces and attempting to stitch together a pretty picture all the same. While we do receive the answer to the biggest question of the trilogy regarding who Rey is, it doesn't make any comprehensible sense and is also frustratingly pandering. What it does so effectively however is merge the arcs of Rey and Kylo being on similar trajectories coming from somewhat similar pasts that they're trying to outrun. Fate is that which you cannot change. Destiny is that which you're meant to do. Kylo (calling him Ben Solo is just too stupid to do with serious intent) has grappled with this internal battle of fate vs. destiny throughout the trilogy, dipping back and forth between the legacy of being the offspring of Darth Vader and also of Leia and Han. He's been betrayed in a sense by both sides, and while I don't think his character has been handled well throughout the trilogy, there is something very Shakespearean about his struggle. Rey on the other hand, despite the new revelations that come forward, has never been in question as to being anyone or anything but good, so this doesn't entirely work either. She has constant premonitions throughout the trilogy (which I also didn't like and generally find to be among the more annoyingly ineffective cinematic tropes deployed by Hollywood), some of which show her possibly turning to the dark side, but this never feels like an actuality.

All of this leads up to an ending that's as pandering and predictable as they come, a far cry from the hope of being punched in the gut with a profound twist or overwhelmed emotionally by reaching the end of our journey. It's the realization that despite how fun this ride was, what did any of it amount to? Did this trilogy really delineate itself in any way from George Lucas' originals? No, no I don't think that it did. I think that it was far too occupied with the optics of lulling viewers into nostalgia and pleasing as much of the general public as it could to really have a voice of its own. The Last Jedi tried to do that, didn't handle things well and was largely decried from most fans. This film has gone back to the blueprint of The Force Awakens, and fans have embraced it. Sort of. I'm not vitriolic towards this trilogy, nor am I enamored with it. These are exceptionally well constructed films that have captured the aesthetic of Star Wars while doing so with clever winks and self-knowing humor, dazzling dogfights in space, highly enjoyable lightsaber duels, and of course the euphoria of seeing screen legends like Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher back in a Star Wars film. But there's also an assembly line proceedings to this trilogy that reeks of Disney's reliance on basking in nostalgia being good enough to get the job done that I can't get on board with either. I've watched a whole lot of Star Wars in these past couple of weeks, and I'm admittedly more than a bit burnt out on it all and perhaps my opinions will change with time, reflection, and watching movies that aren't Star Wars for awhile. This trilogy was a success and a definite step up from the dull and dreary tone of the prequels, but in my heart and mind I know that this was far from being the best product that Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams could put out there either. But there aren't redos, not of Star Wars anyways, and these are the movies we've been given and have to deal with. The summation of the trilogy is perhaps that they were good enough; could've been better, certainly could've been worse, and just be happy that you've been given more entries into the biggest franchise in cinema.

6/10