A long time ago in a world far far away… everyone used to get giddy about seeing a Star Wars movie. Now, seeing a Star Wars movie is like walking across a rickety bridge – at any moment the bottom could fall out and leave you with a sinking feeling. I had my fair share of problems with Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi and since it now seems abundantly clear that Disney never had a concrete plan before starting to make this sequel trilogy, I have been appropriately apprehensive that they will stick the landing. That being said, I’ve surprised myself by being more optimistic and excited to see this movie than Disney probably deserve – it is an episode of Star Wars after all!
Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker is directed and partly written by J.J. Abrams, and picks up with Rey (Daisy Ridley) completing her training to become a Jedi. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) have received a message from a First Order spy that Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) has made contact with Emperor Palpatine, who is surprisingly still alive and hiding in a secret Sith location. Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) wants Kylo Ren to bring Rey to him, to convert her to the dark side, and the Resistance want to stop the First Order; pretty standard stuff.
Some movies focus on world building and characters – the original trilogy did that in spades. And other movies have a plot that’s all about getting the thing to get the thing. This new Star Wars trilogy has had two movies to make its characters people we care about, and it hasn’t done a good job, and it’s not going to waste time fixing that here. Instead, the first half of this movie would really make a good source to adapt for a video game – our “heroes” must come together to locate a ship on a desert planet, then they must locate Chewbacca and a dagger on a First Order Destroyer, then they must locate a mechanic in a village, then they must locate a Sith Finder on a fallen Death Star, all the while battling First Order Stormtroopers and spies on every level. Some of our characters even act like non-player video characters already, where they aren’t really doing anything substantial, and then suddenly they have done something that’s important to progress the story – I’m talking about when Chewbacca wonders off from where Poe and the rest of the group are ready to fly away and walks right into getting captured by the First Order off-screen, and how Kylo Ren, who has admittedly been trailing Rey, can suddenly appear inside the Death Star at the precise moment Rey is ready for conflict. I get that the force connects everything, but geez, does it lay it out in the most convenient sequence for action as well? It all felt highly fragmented, and I wonder if it’s because I don’t see that these character’s motivations are aligned. Like, why is Chewbacca with these guys? Has anyone ever stopped to ask him? Is it because Han saw something in Rey, so Chewbacca has decided to help Rey too? Is it due to his old connection to Leia? They’re never seen together now. Chewbacca must have his own thoughts but there’s never enough time to explore them. The same goes for C-3PO; why is he (finally) going on adventures? C-3PO has never left Leia’s side for the entire time of the Resistance, so how are he, Finn and Poe all suddenly best friends? C-3PO isn’t integral to the Sith Finder mission until the group discovers the dagger with the Sith language that C-3PO can translate. In fact, he was only slowing them down, as they tried to stay inconspicuous hiding from First Order sympathisers, and running away from them on a sand planet. Not smart, Resistance.
I had two roll-your-eyes moments and one moment of glee – you’d probably hope for more out of the final chapter of the Star Wars saga, but the rest of the movie is pretty blah. I can’t say Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker took many chances, which is underwhelming considering how epic this franchise can be. Perhaps it’s a by-product of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi taking the wrong risks and everyone negging on it. I rolled my eyes when Chewbacca was supposedly dead for five minutes; apparently the First Order switched large ships in mid-air, unbeknownst to Rey, Finn and Poe who were watching the one ship the whole time. And way to make me recall how the franchise offed Admiral Ackbar unceremoniously in the last movie, through the fear that they might be doing it again with Chewbacca; I’d just about forgotten about that. The other time I rolled my eyes is probably better summarised as a general gripe about how Rey is overly powered – ever since the first movie of this sequel trilogy, critics and fans have been calling her out for being a Mary Sue; for being overly capable at everything without having to learn… It seems the writers of this movie heard that criticism and decided to turn it up to eleven. Just from this movie, Rey is a brilliant pilot, an excellent scavenger, a force healer, a snake whisperer, the best Jedi ever and potentially the best Sith ever, if she so choses. Yes, apparently the force can heal wounds now; if only the late great Jedi’s of the Republic had studied the force harder, they might’ve known that too. I bet they would have liked to have known about that ability during the Clone Wars. And, where Luke Skywalker dazzled us, and the Ewoks, by being able to lift C-3PO five metres in the air, Rey can literally pull a thrusting First Order Transporter out of the sky; because why the fuck not! After she does that, Poe is screaming at her, saying “c’mon we’ve got to go” because Tie Fighters are coming, but what’s the rush? Leave it to Rey to simply Jedi-swipe her enemies out of the sky, like she’s just understood the matrix. The disadvantage created by Rey is that the Star Wars universe doesn’t seem as dangerous as it once did – Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell) pulls a blaster on Rey, and Rey isn’t even phased, and why should she be? Rey knows as well as we do that she can’t lose, so cheering for her success becomes redundant. Rey is seen jumping from a First Order Star Destroyer docking bay to the Millennium Falcon too, like the human threat of not being able to breathe in space has disappeared too. The Star Wars universe under Disney just seems like fun; you can hop, skip and jump at will across countless planets, threats are minimal, and stakes are low. Living in the Star Wars universe used to seem like it would be hard work, but Disney have taken the concept of Star Wars being escapist fantasy and ran with it.
My gleeful moment in Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker was short-lived, but I actually liked that General Hux was the First Order spy – I’ve always liked Hux where others don’t; I always saw it as a strength of this sequel trilogy that the First Order was in its infancy, and that General Hux and Kylo Ren were like competitive children fighting for Snoke’s attention. It was a different circumstance than what we’d had before, with the Empire and the Senate being so measured. So, when Kylo Ren offed Snoke and demanded loyalty in the last movie, no doubt Hux would retaliate and I liked that this movie included that, even if Hux was quickly killed and superseded by General Pryde (Richard E. Grant) thereafter.
It was actually enjoyable seeing Ian McDiarmid back as Palpatine. Would I have preferred Snoke to have been in the role of final big-boss baddy though? Hell yes, but we got what we got. I can buy the idea that Palpatine built a private Sith-inspired army while the First Order was running its course – I’m sure Palpatine felt so unstoppable during the twenty or so years that he was Emperor that he might have made plans to spread his Sith-ness through the organisation anyway… Although, considering that one of the biggest upgrades to this Final Order navy is that the “Death Star” trooper uniforms now have red helmets, it’s probably not all that special. Since the ‘Sith’ are not mentioned at all in the original trilogy, and times change so quickly in the Star Wars galaxy, it boggles belief that anyone outside the Skywalkers and the people they have spoken to, would know anything about the Sith; this secret order that were always shrouded. I think Zorii Bliss takes it on the chin when Poe tells her he needs to access the Sith language in 3PO’s memory; she asks “why have you been reading Sith?” or something like that, when you’d think she’d be saying “huh?”. I’m sceptical anyone would know what a Sith is, since the Imperial Admirals who knew of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars thought of the force as an old hokey religion.
I guess I should mention the revelation that Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter… okay. There was speculation every which way after Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens on who Rey could be related to, and I’m certain Rey being a Palpatine was covered. I don’t think it matters – I mean, Luke wasn’t a Palpatine and Palpatine was still excited for him to become a Sith Lord. The inference that Rey would make the best Sith because she has Palpatine-blood is nothing substantial when Rey is already the greatest at everything else. I was one of those people who was fine with her being an unrelated nobody; the Star Wars universe is supposed to be so big that other families could exist. As a nobody, we could still have the exact same story that we have here, force-lightning and all. I always wanted Rey to be a Dooku actually, even if it meant repositioning some of Episode II & III, to suggest that Count Dooku sensed the turn of the Republic and realised the Jedi were blinded to it, so he aimed to combine the light side of the force with elements of the dark side, to give the Jedi Order a fighting chance, but ended up falling to Palpatine’s deception, like everyone else. I’ve never seen any of the Clone Wars cartoon, all I know is that Count Dooku looks genuinely shocked when Chancellor Palpatine encourages Anakin to behead him in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, like it’s only in that moment that he realises that Darth Sidious is also the Chancellor. So, I would have reframed Count Dooku as an anti-hero, to have his granddaughter Rey, and Anakin’s grandson Ben, unite the powers of the force and forge a new path together, to live happily ever after, but perhaps I was asking too much… (I’ve never seen any of the cartoon series’, but when talking about the saga movies, I think the extra material doesn’t need to matter). Back to Palpatine though, talk about having the most disappointing son of all time; the saga rolls right over him to focus on Palpatine’s granddaughter. I guess force-sensitivity and political leadership skips a generation like baldness 😊
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