REVIEW-Rise of Skywalker (SPOILERS)

WARNING: LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD

DISCLAIMER: The first thing that I should do is open up with a disclaimer that I am a pretty big Star Wars fan, (with exception to that POS Episode I) so Star Wars (overall) will be spoken of favorably in this review. I encourage anyone who has seen this movie, or any Star Wars movie, to jump in the discussion.

The Dead Speak!

We might as well start with the first three words of the opening text crawl that the entire Star Wars franchise is known for.

These three words, of course, are true in more ways than one as Carrie Fisher (despite actually being dead) makes her return as Princess Leia/General Leia Organa. I do want to keep the spoilers light, so what I will say about this appearance is that it's...unnerving. Perhaps as bad as being unnerving, it's not particularly useful to the plot of the movie. My understanding is that she was edited into the shots via a combination of CGI as well as unused footage from previous Star Wars films...and it's pretty damn obvious.

It's not so obvious from a visual standpoint, aesthetically speaking, her appearance in the film is just fine. It's obvious in the sense that this version of the once borderline prescient Princess Leia speaks only in platitudes, generalities, non-sequiturs, or some combination of the three that does not seem directly related to any particular event unfolding. I can definitely understand the problem. Imagine saddling yourself with the following conundrum: You have to write something, but you are given twenty sentences (of which you must use no fewer than ten) and they have to appear in the written work verbatim. This is the same concept, so instead of just being able to write a scene as one normally would, one must instead put these lines of dialogue in place and then do one's best to write around them.

Granted, I might be biased, as I didn't think having her in the film after her death (other than perhaps in an obvious flashback scene) was in great taste to begin with.

I also understand that, in terms of major characters from the original trilogy, The Force Awakens was kind of centered on Han Solo, The Last Jedi was centered around Luke Skywalker and the intention for the third was that it be centered around Princess Leia. While I acknowledge that her real life death kind of screwed up that plan...I don't know...maybe just write a different script altogether?

As many of you certainly know, there is a little bit of time skipping that takes place between one Star Wars film and another. In addition to the significant time jumps between the three trilogies themselves, we also see over a decade go by between Episode I: The Phantom Menace and Episode II: Attack of the Clones. While the time jumps within other movies of the individual trilogies may not be quite as long a duration as that one, they have certainly happened.

So, what's my point? Can the footage. Can the CGI. Princess Leia dies between movies so explain how and why in the opening crawl. It can still be a movie ABOUT Leia and the relationships that some people may have had with Leia. It can also provide useful lessons about how to maintain calmness and faith in the force and execute things in a thoughtful and systematic way rather than seeking out revenge...granted, lesson learned in previous installments, but it would be far from the only thing repeated.

Ignorance is Bliss?

I don't want to go into too much detail as I can't without revealing too many plot points, but it seems that The Rise of Skywalker not so much ignores the events of The Last Jedi (well, mostly, they kept Kylo Ren's/Rey's psychic link from the previous film as well as reused a couple of sets and things relevant to those) as much as the events of The Last Jedi are basically disregarded. From a dialogue standpoint, it's almost like the events never happened as the character development arcs that were started in that movie are not re-explored to any meaningful degree.

Here's the thing: I understand that the political underto....nah, screw that....political OVERTONES in The Last Jedi kind of played a big part in the movie. I understand that The Last Jedi was, in many ways, a political statement and a societal commentary (VERY opinion based) hiding in the guise of a Star Wars movie. With that said, and regardless of where I stand on the political views espoused, I still thought it was a very good if not great movie (better than this one) that developed the characters a bit and created some new plot lines.

What happened with any of this stuff? Why do we barely see Rose Tico in The Rise of Skywalker? Why did they 86 what appeared to be a budding romance between Rose Tico and Finn entirely? Your guesses are as good as mine as to these points.

The Dead Speak! (Again)

Okay, so if you so much as watched a trailer for this movie, you heard Emperor Palpatine's cackle at the end of it, so I should hope you drew from that the same conclusions as I did prior to seeing this movie. Yes, Emperor Palpatine is back, which is what the first exclamation of the opening crawl refers to.

No, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Granted, I understand completely why Emperor Palpatine is back and the machinations that caused him to be able to essentially return from the dead. Unfortunately, if you're just a fan of the Star Wars main line of movies (as I am) AND have read nothing else of Star Wars, (reading synopses of other Star Wars media is how I know what's going on with Palpatine) they are not really going to explain this whole thing to you in any meaningful way. Emperor Palpatine will play a few force tricks and there will be a few other visual cues that kind of hint at what's going on and how he still lives, but nothing in terms of exposition or any solid explanation.

(You might be better off. The solid explanations given in these other Star Wars mediums are fairly stupid...not to put too fine a point on it, but The Force can essentially give you near God-like power in every respect.)

General Negatives

1.) The plot of this movie, to the limited extent that there can be said to be one, often gets lost behind all of the action. It's not that the action is not eye-catching or exciting, but that none of the hubbub throughout the first 75% of the movie meaningfully furthers anything, see #2.

2.) I don't know if anyone here has played games in the Final Fantasy series or perhaps the Legend of Zelda series...but that's basically what the first 75%, or so, of the movie amounts to. Essentially, the cast finds themselves going somewhere to get a thing, which they need to then take somewhere else to get a different thing that they may be able to use with another different thing at a third place to discover a new place entirely.

Really.

I think The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past is the closest in terms of plot. In that SNES game, Link had to locate a dungeon in which he would find a flute that would transport him to and from The Dark World where he would then eventually reach Ganondorf's castle and slay him. Yup. Pretty much the same exact thing, but with more characters.

3.) New characters are always good, except for when you don't meaningfully learn anything about them. I think a few of these characters might be a marketability thing, or maybe see who strikes a chord with audiences with an eye towards spinoffs...who the hell knows?

4.) Let's do the whole, 'Bad guy fails to do something that he should very obviously do that would absolutely assure his victory,' thing. That's always fun.

5.) Aside from the whole dynamic with Rey, Kylo Ren is basically reminiscent of a professional wrestler.

6.) Okay, so we're going to learn something about Rey which is probably too big of a spoiler (I guess) to put in this review. Let's just say it has to do with Rey's past and her parents who we learned from The Last Jedi were, 'Nobodies,' turn out to not exactly be nobodies. Personally, I'm not a fan of the development whatsoever. My take on it before was just, 'We have a new hero who has appeared and comes from ignoble upbringings, and I'm totally cool with that."

As we will see in this movie, EVERYTHING has to come full circle...which is honestly kind of dumb. It must be an extremely small galaxy, we'll just say that.

7.) Finally, Star Wars movies have always had their fair share of action, but for better or worse, have really been driven heavily by dialogue. It is the dialogue that tells the story from one movie to another, in fact, the action in previous Star Wars films often finds itself interrupted by dialogue. Again, to the small extent that this film even has a meaningful story...it is mostly the action telling it. That would be fine if the movie was Die Hard 17: A SchoolBus Full of Children, or whatever, but this is Star Wars.

General Positives

1.) The action is pretty good, but that's to be expected.

2.) Visually stunning.

3.) The link between Rey and Kylo Ren is explored pretty well.

Overall Take

The whole thing with Leia kind of screwed this up for me from the beginning. She was only, 'Acting,' (if such a term can be used) in what was a loosely-related movie. It. Was. Just. So. Painfully. Obvious.

Here's the thing: I wanted to like this movie. I wanted to love it. I think it's fair to say that I have loved every Star Wars movie except The Phantom Menace was a complete pile of dog manure and Attack of the Clones was just pretty okay. I think that George Lucas more than made up for it with Revenge of the Sith. The Star Wars purists will probably hate me for this, but if I could only watch one hour of Star Wars ever again as long as I live, start me right before Darth Vader yells, "Noooooooooooo," in Revenge of the Sith and go back an hour. That movie ruled. The fight between Anakin and Obi Wan remains (imo) the best fight scene in all of Star Wars. It's not even my favorite Star Wars movie (The Empire Strikes Back), but definitely my favorite hour of the saga.

Anyway, I only barely liked this movie. Even though the stakes have supposedly never been higher for a galaxy far, far away and this is the ultimate conclusion to the greatest movie saga of all-time spanning close to half of a century...it just didn't feel like any of that was true. Honestly, I would put it in a tie with Attack of the Clones for my second-least favorite Star Wars film. It wasn't amazing, epic, incredible...or any of that. It didn't even really feel like an end.

As mentioned before with Rey, I was cool with the idea of her not coming from anywhere of note. I was also fine with the idea that Kylo Ren is now the ultimate bad guy in the movies and figured (before the trailers came out) that the final film would be a chance to learn more about who Snoke was and Kylo's relationship with him.

I've read a few critical reviews of people who get paid to discuss movies and one takeaway that I have seen from many of them is that J.J. Abrams basically played it safe with this one because he didn't want to tick anyone off.

Emperor Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious is the phantom menace referenced in the first Star Wars title who has finally been deposed and disposed of...and yet it feels like less of an end than either of the other two trilogies in this saga did. It was decisive, but felt like nothing. It was the expected result without the expected feeling.

It was a serviceable movie. 5/10

Haven’t read your whole review (yet), just want to chime in about the Leia stuff.

I completely agree. Extremely obvious they wrote her scenes around a few deleted scraps they had of her left over from Episode 7.

Painfully awkward when Rey tells her she’s going to go to pick up where Luke left off searching on Pasana and Leia’s response is a simple: “No!”

That’s it? That’s all she had to say? And then Rey just keeps on talking.

I love that I am not the only one who thought of Link to the Past.

But, sadly the is the end of my agreement. I thought the movie was the best of this trilogy, a pleasant surprise as I went in today with very low expectations.

It was very clear that they were trying to backpedal much of the last movie with some of their story and character choices.

Quote: ams288

Haven’t read your whole review (yet), just want to chime in about the Leia stuff.

I completely agree. Extremely obvious they wrote her scenes around a few deleted scraps they had of her left over from Episode 7.

Painfully awkward when Rey tells her she’s going to go to pick up where Luke left off searching on Pasana and Leia’s response is a simple: “No!”

That’s it? That’s all she had to say? And then Rey just keeps on talking.

Thanks! That was definitely one of the scenes I had in mind where any realistic response would be more specific.

Quote: Gandler

I love that I am not the only one who thought of Link to the Past.

But, sadly the is the end of my agreement. I thought the movie was the best of this trilogy, a pleasant surprise as I went in today with very low expectations.

It was very clear that they were trying to backpedal much of the last movie with some of their story and character choices.

I love that I am not the only one who thought of Link to the Past! Hell, maybe J.J. Abrams did, as well.

I think maybe that is the main difference between the two of us: The expectations we had for this movie going in. Perhaps you were expecting a strike out and instead got a walk or a single whereas I was expecting a walk-off grand slam and got an RBI single. I also must say (and should have included) that I didn't expect such a huge number of callbacks to the original trilogy in this one because I figured he'd have all that out of his system after The Force Awakens.

I also agree that they were trying to backpedal on a great deal of it, but I think Abrams might have went a little too far in that regard.

Quote: Mission146

WARNING: LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD

Some of the kinder reviews from IMDB


A total butchering of Star Wars

How to Ruin a Franchise in 5 Easy Steps!

This Movie Is A Tragedy

What a disgrace

Garbage end to a garbage trilogy

I expected nothing and got nothing

Absolute colossal failure

Gets a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes

Quote: Evenbob

Quote: Mission146

WARNING: LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD

Some of the kinder reviews from IMDB


A total butchering of Star Wars

How to Ruin a Franchise in 5 Easy Steps!

This Movie Is A Tragedy

What a disgrace

Garbage end to a garbage trilogy

I expected nothing and got nothing

Absolute colossal failure

Gets a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes

I don't know if those are the kinder ones. It appears that the average viewer gives it a 6.9 on IMDB as of right now, which is higher than I scored it, and I wouldn't use any of those words to describe it. The 54% on Rotten Tomatoes (critic score, viewer score is substantially higher) is about where I would put it. I didn't think it was a bad movie, by any stretch, I just didn't think it was what it really needed to be. In terms of quality and impact, it would have been a good movie to transition into a finale.

Quote: Mission146

[(critic score, viewer score is substantially higher) .

Of course. Who but a dyed in the
wool fan would sit thru a 3 hour
torture fest if they didn't already
love it going in.

Quote: Evenbob

Quote: Mission146

[(critic score, viewer score is substantially higher) .

Of course. Who but a dyed in the
wool fan would sit thru a 3 hour
torture fest if they didn't already
love it going in.

Didn't help audience Rotten Tomatoes scores for The Last Jedi, which the critics mostly liked. I'd have given The Last Jedi something like a 7/10 because I separated the political crap and ill-disguised social commentary from the actual movie and the result was pretty good. As far as IMDB goes, they basically agreed as the user score there also seems to be 7/10.

I agree with you, though. You could probably slap a Star Wars logo on a jar of mayonnaise sitting on a kitchen counter for a three-hour long uninterrupted frame from a still camera and the average viewer score would probably at least be a 3/10. Hell, I'm probably also biased just because it's a Star Wars movie. If I asked myself whether or not I'd rate (implied by 5/10) The Rise of Skywalker as an average movie if it was anything but Star Wars...the answer is probably no.