Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
dir. J.J. Abrams
Rated: PG-13
image: ©2019 Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Do not believe director J.J. Abrams when he tells you that his movie, Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, isn’t a rebuke of the hard left turn that Rian Johnson took with his installment, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. This last trilogy in The Skywalker Saga – which includes Episodes I-IX – gives the world what I think is the first ever rap-style beef between film directors, at least in blockbuster filmmaking.
Abrams was in charge of 2015’s The Force Awakens, the first chapter in the latest Star Wars trilogy – and the first Star Wars movie since 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. By the end of Force Awakens, Abrams set up some very specific expectations for where the story would go, albeit in his signature “mystery box” style where many questions are asked, but no answers are provided. Is main character Rey possibly the next in the line of Skywalker, which is inexplicably strong in the Force? Will the long-missing Luke Skywalker train her in the ways of the Jedi – as the last shot in The Force Awakens suggests – as Rey extends Luke’s light saber to him after finally finding the old hermit?
The answer to those questions turned out to be “no,” because director Rian Johnson – who incidentally released his entertaining film Knives Out alongside Rise of Skywalker this year – made sure to snip every plot thread that Abrams set up with Force Awakens. The Last Jedi turned Luke Skywalker into a disillusioned recluse, unwilling to train Rey as a Jedi. He even flippantly tosses his light saber over his shoulder when Rey hands it to him near the beginning of Last Jedi. We also got a scene of villain Kylo Ren telling Rey that she is a nobody. She has no Skywalker blood; nor is she related to anyone of any consequence, for that matter.
After watching Rise of Skywalker, it seems obvious that J.J. Abrams was royally pissed at Johnson’s movie. So, in the last Star Wars movie that will feature the ongoing space adventures of the Skywalkers, Abrams reversed – I think the kids call it retconning – just about everything Johnson established in Last Jedi. At one point in Rise of Skywalker, Luke laments his behavior in Last Jedi. He literally says, “I was wrong.” We also find out Rey is, in fact, related to a character of major consequence from the earlier films in the series.
I’m in a unique position here. Unlike most Star Wars fans – of which I am one – I was somewhat underwhelmed with both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. The majority of fans either loved Episode VII and loathed Episode VIII, or vice versa.
I thought Abrams’s Force Awakens was entertaining enough, but was basically a retread of the plot of the very first Star Wars release, A New Hope.
The Last Jedi introduced some fresh new concepts – the egalitarian idea that anyone can be a hero, no matter their lineage – and characters like Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico, the first woman of color to have a significant role in a Star Wars film. At the same time, Last Jedi is plodding (I felt every bit of its 152-minute runtime), and takes pointless subplot detours. Don’t even get me started on Leia’s ability to overcome being blasted into the vacuum of space.
The Rise of Skywalker falls just below Force Awakens and Last Jedi. With the return of Abrams, there is also a return to slavish fan service (Ewoks inexplicably make a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance, for God’s sake), and what amounts to another rehash of plot from the original trilogy. This time it’s Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
Abrams goes even further with his retread of the original trilogy than he did with Force Awakens. Instead of having new characters reinvent the storytelling wheel, he brings an old character back to life to run through the original story. In what is the first extended example of the Star Wars franchise dipping its toe into a horror movie aesthetic, we learn that Emperor Palpatine is alive. He wants Rey to give in to her hate in order to strike him down, so she can rule the galaxy with the power of the dark side of the Force (sound familiar at all?).
Don’t worry, I didn’t really spoil anything. We learn that Palpatine is alive in the opening text crawl of the movie. The first line of that crawl – “The dead speak!” – is a nice homage to the quaint dramatics of the 1930s Flash Gordon serials, which George Lucas took as inspiration for the entire Star Wars franchise.
In between that opening crawl and the climactic showdown between Rey and Palpatine are a series of chases and battles that, while nominally entertaining, don’t amount to much. In the mother of all MacGuffins, Rey, Chewbacca, Fin, Poe Dameron, and droids C-3PO and BB-8 go in search of a Sith Wayfinder. This Wayfinder will help them discover the location of Palpatine. Here’s the thing with MacGuffins: the adventures that the characters get into should be interesting or entertaining enough to forgive the fact that an essentially nonsensical object or event gets the ball rolling in the first place. That’s never quite the case in Rise of Skywalker.
Along the way, our heroes hook up with Lando Calrissian. That’s more shameless fan service, but I have to admit it was fun to see Billy Dee Williams’s Lando (and Williams himself) back in action.
Composer John Williams does a lot of Abrams’s fan service heavy lifting with his orchestral score for the film. Williams goes back again and again to the iconic Star Wars themes and cues from the original trilogy, just in case we ever forget this is the last film in the Skywalker Saga. Williams also makes his first, and likely only, onscreen appearance in a Star Wars film. That’s fitting, since Rise of Skywalker will likely be the last Star Wars installment for which the iconic composer provides the score.
But wait, there’s more! There’s so much more I could cover about the 142-minute long Rise of Skywalker.
Abrams gets another poke in at Johnson’s expense when Kylo Ren repairs the helmet that Abrams introduced in Force Awakens, and which Johnson had Ren angrily destroy in Last Jedi.
People were up in arms earlier this year when it was announced that filmmakers would be digitally resurrecting James Dean for a part in a new movie. Well, Abrams beat them to it, using CGI to force the late Carrie Fisher to help him tell his story. The technology is damn-near flawless at this point. If I didn’t know Fisher had died in 2016, I never would have suspected a thing. But I do know she died, and watching her face digitally painted onto what I’m assuming is another actor’s body was creepy and disturbing.
There’s still more – light-speed skipping, the new Jedi ability to transport objects from one location to another with astral projection, and J.J. Abrams’s inclusion of a romantic kiss for no other reason than that’s what happens in movies, I guess – but as I write this, I’m feeling like I did when I walked out of the theater. Mostly, I’m just ready to be done with the Skywalkers.
I didn’t hate The Rise of Skywalker – parts were actually quite entertaining – but I didn’t hate it only because the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. I was mostly worn out by the contradictions produced when two filmmakers telling an overarching story go in opposite directions. The Skywalker Saga desperately needed a Kevin Feige to ensure a consistent vision for it. By the end of the movie, I just didn’t give a damn about almost any of it.
Why it got 2.5 stars:
- The Rise of Skywalker was kind of a slog to get through. By the end, I just didn’t really care anymore. Weird tonal shifts (any scene with Palpatine feels like a horror movie inside of a Star Wars movie) and pointless adventures sapped my energy as the film wore on. For now, at least, I don’t feel the need to ever return to this chapter of Star Wars, which isn’t the case with any of the others (yes, including the prequels).
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- A major chunk of the movie depends on the fact that C-3PO’s programming forbids him from translating the Sith language. This feels like lazy screenwriting at best.
- The object with that Sith inscription that C-3PO can’t translate is on a dagger that Rey & Co. find during their search for the Wayfinder. Their discovery of the dagger feels like something right out of The Goonies.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- Rach and I went to an early afternoon screening on Christmas Eve. It wasn’t packed, but there were a good number of people there. I didn’t get an overwhelming sense that the crowd was in love with the movie, but they seemed to have enjoyed it.