[rating=7.00]
The expectations around The Rise of Skywalker were substantial, to say the least. The ninth and final film of the Star Wars ‘Skywalker Saga,’ which focuses on the legacy of Anakin Skywalker and his sprawling family tree, has to put a bow on the trilogy that was started with The Force Awakens and continued with The Last Jedi, but the six films that comprise both the classic and prequel trilogies.
Does it achieve its lofty goal? Well… kind of.
It’s hard to deny that the first part of Rise is a jumbled mess, and with J.J. Abrams back in the director’s chair, it plays out like a condensed version The Force Awakens 2. Rey (Daisy Ridley) is undergoing her Jedi training, courtesy of Leia (Carrie Fisher). Meanwhile, Poe (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega) and Chewbacca are galavanting with the Millennium Falcon around the galaxy blasting TIE Fighters while scraping together enough exposition to reveal the film’s macguffin: a Sith Wayfinder.
As explained in the opening star crawl, Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) has returned from the dead, and is gathering his long-dormant Imperial forces to once again take control of the galaxy. Obviously, our heroes view this as a threat — but so does Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who sees Palpatine’s return as a threat to his power as the newly crowned Supreme Leader of The First Order.
It’s also vaguely similar to 1983’s Return of the Jedi, which wrapped up the classic trilogy by… reintroducing the Death Star. Not the same Death Star at the center of A New Hope, mind you. This one was bigger, more powerful, and only about 2/3 complete, but it signaled that creator George Lucas’ idea well was running dry.
For Rise, we get zombie(?) Palpatine, the character who began as a shifty Senator in the Old Republic, and started manipulating young Anakin Skywalker all the way back in 1999’s The Phantom Menace, guiding his path to becoming Darth Vader. With Vader long dead, he turns his focus to his grandson for the ultimate sense of closure.
It is admittedly a slightly more creative approach than just throwing another Starkiller Base up on screen. Although it’s never really explained how Palpatine came back, or who was behind it. There is a throwaway line about “cloning” and “dark magic” that’s delivered by a random Resistance member (Abrams regular Dominic Monaghan), who, incidentally, gets so much screen time it actually becomes a distraction.
Once the goal is established (find the Wayfinder; stop Palpatine) the core characters team up and begin their galaxy-wide scavenger hunt. This takes them to all sorts of exotic new locations, like Planet Burning Man, where both new and familiar characters are introduced to aid them on their quest.
Though Rise does start to find its footing around this time, it still ends up bogged down by some absolutely baffling sequences that feel unnecessary, disjointed, or completely removed from the story. Even Rey’s backflip over the TIE Fighter, a stunning sequence that opened the film’s very first trailer, came so abruptly it was hard to tell afterward if that actually happened or was just some kind of random Force vision.
Obviously, Rise has its strongest connective tissue to The Force Awakens due to both Abrams returning at the helm, as well as the scores of unused Leia scenes that are repurposed here to give her character an appropriate sendoff following Fisher’s untimely death in 2017. And while it doesn’t outright ignore Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi, it does treat it like the sequel trilogy has treated the prequel trilogy: it doesn’t necessarily revere it, but accepts it as canon, begrudgingly or otherwise.
There are moments where Abrams seems like he’s trying to emulate some of the Johnson’s bolder storytelling choices, but it only seems to happen with things that ultimately don’t matter. Or more often, end up being immediately undone. The outlier here is the decision to alter a key aspect to Rey’s lineage. It’s a divisive choice, but in the context of the sequel trilogy, it doesn’t not make sense, I guess. At least when compared with Return of the Jedi’s big reveal that Leia and Luke (Mark Hamill) were brother and sister.
While some of these storylines and scenes seem to align with that vocal faction of toxic man-babies crying foul over The Last Jedi, (who did so with Russia’s help), it is honestly hard to tell if they’re done out of a need to placate the 4Chan demo or if it’s simply fleshing out the ideas that Abrams and company had sketched from the get-go.
Despite its very messy beginning, and slightly less-messy middle and end, the film has some iconic moments that reflect the absolute best parts of the sprawling space opera. After all, it would be a Star Wars movie if it wasn’t filled with shortcomings, nor would it be true if it wasn’t also filled with scenes that will resonate with fans and moviegoers. In short, The Rise of Skywalker is a perfectly enjoyable, non-threatening blockbuster, making it a fitting conclusion for the Star Wars saga.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now playing in theaters everywhere.
