The Rise of Skywalker

Title: The Rise of Skywalker

Directed by: J.J. Abrams

Story by: Derek Connolly, Colin Trevorrow, J.J. Abrams, Chris Terrio

Nine movies and 40 years later, does it stick the landing? Well, I watched this movie less than 24 hours ago, and let me be honest, I’m struggling to remember a single thing about it. I came home and promptly watched a couple episodes of The Witcher series on Netflix (review coming soon). Stick the landing? Buddy, it barely registered before it skipped off into nothing. This movie is its own Force ghost.

The most fun I had with this movie is probably watching people online use it as an excuse to re-litigate The People vs. Rian Johnson for the billionth time in two years. And yeah, in many ways The Rise of Skywalker feels like it’s trying to escape The Last Jedi’s shadow, to the movie’s great discredit and detriment.

With one director helming parts 1 and 3 and another steering part 2, now more than ever the trilogy is a bit of a meandering mess. Online commenters either take this as vindication or insult to whatever stance they had regarding The Last Jedi, but honestly to me looks more like a multimillion dollar version of the joke writing assignment where one wants to write about a woman drinking tea and the other about a space invasion.

New elements from The Last Jedi that promised a different course for the series (anyone can be a hero), are either quietly dropped or waffled. Rey’s parents were nobodies so anybody can be a hero but wait, she’s the Emperor’s grand-daughter so no it’s all about ancestry BUT WAIT AGAIN maybe Finn (John Boyega) can use the Force so let’s just hint at that and never do anything with it. I don’t know if the series needed a single director or writer, but at the very, very least, the absolute barest minimum, it needed some kind of agreement about what Star Wars actually is.

Admittedly, the plot of the original Star Wars trilogy is not without its obvious cracks and flaws as writers constructed the story while it was being built—Darth Vader being Luke’s father still feels like an ass-pull, as does Luke miraculously being Leia’s brother. But if nothing else, the series at least felt tonally and thematically consistent. Take what you want--youthful aspiration, the lure of adventure, the redemptive power of friendship and love--the core was always there.

Well, the sequel trilogy is hollow to its core. While The Last Jedi certainly had something to say (perhaps too much), all The Rise of Skywalker wants to say is “Wheee!” and occasionally “Remember this?”

The plot is a bit like listening to a breathless five-year-old playing with his action figures: This happens and then this happens and then THIS happens and BAM! BOOM! but then THIS happens and then... Everything is bigger! Louder! Better! What if Force lightning, but more?! Cuts between scenes come at you at lightspeed, with barely a chance to register before we go hurtling off to the next scene. Nothing has any consequence. People appear to die but don’t three or four times, then one major one does actually bite the Force irretrievably, but nobody refers to this moment ever again. New characters are introduced then promptly disappear, there are a series of magic things that are needed to find other magic things which are lost but then immediately retrieved.

It’s not a movie capable of withstanding a single “Why?”

It’s all of the narrative incoherence of Abrams with very little of the visual verve. Abrams used to be good, at the very least, at imparting his goofy space adventures with some spectacle, but this time even shots that should make you go “Wow!”—skipping among planets at lightspeed, an underground ice cavern chase, a massive fleet waiting in shadowy fog, the arrival of the cavalry—don’t because they’re barely there on the screen for three seconds. The final climactic showdown takes place on the Death Star and space battle er, on an evil planet that is eternally night with bursts of lightning, and sadly pitch blackness isn’t really conducive to delivering impressive visuals.

There is an effort to impart the action with a sense of weight and finality, but as with much of this movie it is all text, zero texture. The reborn Emperor declares “I am ALL of the Sith!” and Rey counters with “And I am ALL of the Jedi!” and I don’t believe either of them because there’s no reason for me to. I don’t know what those words even mean. People agonize about killing this one mass murderer, but then happily mow down armored Stormtroopers we’ve established are actually brain-washed slave-soldiers. 

The one stab at a theme appears to be that all it takes is a courageous few to stand up to evil, that even just one voice of dissent can rally millions, but we’re just told that. Repeatedly. The actual rallying appears completely off-screen. In a straining effort to tie the nine movies all back together, it ends with a shot of one character on a planet she’s never been to, with talismans from one character who always wanted to leave it and another who was a prisoner there.

But for all that, I didn’t hate The Rise of Skywalker. It’s unoriginal, brainless, ephemeral, far too overstuffed to properly show off its own spectacle, but I didn’t hate it.

Maybe all that Star Wars movies can be anymore is vehicles for nostalgia, and maybe I can live with that. It was kind of nice to see Mark Hamill again, however briefly, and Carrie Fisher, however awkwardly, and even Harrison Ford, however gnostically.

As Ben Solo/Kylo Ren, Adam Driver remains one of the best things in the new series, imparting a bit of the Han Solo cockiness into his character. The new trio of Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac have glimpses of energy and chemistry, despite their scenes being kind of Death Star cannoned by the runaway plot. I just wished they had been better served by the story and edit. Boyega in particular I could have watched an entire movie about—he’s got the only interesting backstory, and the actor oozes fun, charm and charisma. I would love a story about ordinary people in the Star Wars universe rising to the moment to become heroes.

But if I never get it, that’s okay. I didn’t think I was getting any more Star Wars after Return of the Jedi, but then the prequels happened. I didn’t think we were getting more after that, but then Rogue One, Solo and this trilogy. I’m okay if we don’t get any more. I’m okay if we do.

The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t especially feel like the end of anything. That’s okay, too.

“Remember this?” I sure do, movie. I sure do. I probably won’t remember you, movie, but the feeling of Star Wars? I’m never going to forget.