Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019) - Film Review

Starring: Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega & Oscar Isaac

Screenplay: Chris Terrio & J.J. Abrams

Directed By: J.J. Abrams

Certificate: 12

*Sigh* - do I have to? Yeah I have to don't I. It speaks volumes about how toxic and depressing a fandom has become, at least the bulk of it online, that I don't really want to talk about 'Star Wars'. I should be hyped - there's a new 'Star Wars' film out that's following up one of my favourite entries to the franchise in years... and yet, anywhere I look I just see people who express enjoyment of the films being sent hate or whole essays about who wrong they are for liking it. In an atmosphere that perpetuates hate online, the 'Star Wars' fandom has sunk to the same kind of depths as the 'Doctor Who' fandom, only turned up to eleven due to the greater size of it. It doesn't help that the constant nitpicking and negativity has finally seeped into the films themselves too, 'cause as it turns out 'The Rise Of Skywalker' really is... not very good. So let's get into this... 

After being brought to the point of near-destruction in 'The Last Jedi', the Resistance have regrouped and continued in their struggle against the First Order. As Rey continues her Jedi training at the Resistance base, Finn and Poe Dameron have learnt from a spy that a familiar evil has returned... Emperor Palpatine is back and in the midst of assembling a fleet of star destroyers to restore the ways of the Sith to the galaxy. Seeking to stop Palpatine before he has consolidated his forces, Rey, Finn, Poe, Chewbacca, BB-8 and C-3PO embark on an interplanetary quest to find him. 

This review will contain many major spoilers for the film!

Where do we start then? Well let's backtrack for a moment and talk about J.J. Abrams and the backlash to 'The Last Jedi'. I'm pretty much incapable of talking about this film without prefacing the fact that I loved 'The Last Jedi' - two years on and I stand by my personal view that it's the best 'Star Wars' film I've seen since 'Empire Strikes Back'. It's for that reason that much of this review might read as the whinings of a butt-hurt 'Last Jedi' fanboy, and there's a grain of truth in there sure, but I hope I've done my best to be fair. I was admittedly apprehensive knowing that Abrams would be returning to direct Episode IX, not because I thought he was incapable or anything of the sort, but because his track record shows that his strength is setting up a story. Even though I was perhaps a bit too glowing in my praise of it in my initial review, I still really enjoy 'The Force Awakens' - it's a good time and hugely enjoyable. The film obviously set up a lot of new plot threads but left a lot open to interpretation, which as we know goes some way in explaining the backlash to 'The Last Jedi'. It's also clear from 'The Force Awakens' that Abrams is fairly reliant on re-tooling and working in other people's frameworks. This isn't a bad thing either - the pieces were in the right place and gave us a really good film with 'The Force Awakens'. But then we have 'The Rise Of Skywalker' and... oh boy. 

There's a lot to talk about with this film, and I suppose the first big hurdle we face is the return of Palpatine. Now this return isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it has to be said that him becoming the main antagonist in the final film of the trilogy feels like something that comes out of nowhere and too late in the day. We've gone two films where we've barely, if at all even mentioned Palpatine and there was hardly much of a precedent for him coming back. When the memes started emerging of Poe's "Somehow, Palpatine returned!" line and people took the piss out of it, I can hardly blame them. Not only is there a lack of precedent, but the film barely offers an explanation for how he's back after seemingly being killed at the end of 'Return Of The Jedi'. Any explanation offered in expanded universe material only seems to get more convoluted and messy the further you look into it. The mission to find Palpatine also turns out to be arguably even more convoluted. Characters like Lando Calrissian are able to conveniently point the Falcon crew in the direction of the wayfinder to Palpatine; we have to make a stop off to another planet to bypass some rule that prevents C-3PO from translating Sith text, and then it turns out the wayfinder is in the wreckage of the second Death Star from 'Return Of The Jedi'. We only find out where in that wreckage it's located because the outline of it happens to line up with the shape of a dagger they retrieved, which the characters are conveniently at just the right angle and distance from for the two to line up. Now I don't like pointing out plot flaws or calling things convenient, because there's a wealth of people online that will point at something and go "Plot hole! Ding!", but in this case it's kind of unavoidable. The map to Luke in 'The Force Awakens' was a contrivance sure, but it didn't bother me because there was plenty more going on in that film and it wasn't so integral to the plot as these wayfinders are. Is there anything here that benefits from Palpatine's return? Well to its credit, I don't mind the idea that Snoke was a genetic creation used by Palpatine as a glove puppet to influence the First Order in secret - that's a decent idea. But even that is undercut when you remember that rather than working in the shadows, Palpatine has amassed an armada of ships with which to take over, and even has an entire f*cking audience in his throne room! How has he built and staffed all these ships while staying so secluded all this time? These two things just don't line up.

Bringing back Palpatine also has some inescapable effects on Rey. After 'The Last Jedi' seemingly answered questions Rey's lineage, 'The Rise Of Skywalker' does what I'd dreaded deep down and goes "Sike!". So Rey is not descended from unremarkable parents: she too is a Palpatine. Now I've already gone on record as saying that I loved the reveal in 'The Last Jedi', so I have to ask: why do this? I'm tempted to call it a retcon, even if it technically isn't - but seriously why did we have to go down the route of making Rey a descendant of some other significant character? It doesn't make sense to me why they'd decide to make her Palpatine's granddaughter of all people, because we've already done the main hero being related to the big bad guy with Luke and Vader. In 'The Last Jedi', Rey learning that her parents were nobody worked because: A. It's not rehashing that familiar ground, and B. That was the most painful thing she could've heard in that moment. Some have defended this new information by saying that Rey now has to reject this heritage she doesn't want and fight the dark side she was born from. Sure, but again we've done this already with Luke and Vader. One of the best things the sequel trilogy had going for it was that its main hero was someone new to the franchise. Rey rejecting the Palpatine name by the end of the film and calling herself a Skywalker isn't so much rejecting her origins as just choosing the "good" name. I'm reminded of something I once heard said that "Rey raised Rey and that's what matters", and label me a salty 'Last Jedi' fan all you want, but Rey being her own person is infinitely more interesting to me at least, than her being a Skywalker, Solo or Palpatine. 

Even without all the Palpatine stuff, 'The Rise Of Skywalker' is chock with any other old characters, props or nostalgia that it can muster. Yet again this isn't necessarily bad, but it's noticeably greater than it was in either 'The Force Awakens' or 'The Last Jedi'. These constant throwbacks go hand in hand with several moments that reek of apologism for 'The Last Jedi'. Much of this is on a micro level, such as Kylo Ren piecing his broken helmet back together, or Luke stopping Rey from throwing his lightsaber into a fire saying that it should be treated with more respect (probably the most overt bit of unnecessary pandering to fans angry at the start of the last film). But it's also there on a more unavoidable macro level, and it's not just in backtracking from what we learned about Rey. Something 'The Last Jedi' tapped into was the idea that anyone has the potential to be a Force user, with the last shot of the film of a random boy using it seeming to confirm that. I loved that stuff, but 'The Rise Of Skywalker' seems to prefer the idea that the Force is stored in the balls. We get occasional hints that Finn might be unlocking certain Force abilities, but these moments are few and far between and don't really go anywhere. Things like Kylo wearing a broken helmet stitched together, or him and Rey fighting it out in the wreckage of the second Death Star no less, unintentionally become a metaphor for the state of the rest of the film. It's devoid of its own path and having to resort to the scraps of things that came before it. 

So many of the creative decisions in 'The Rise Of Skywalker' aren't just disappointing, but frankly baffling as well. The film introduces a bunch of new supporting characters, despite any function or contribution they make being served by characters who are already present. For instance there's Jannah - a deserted First Order stormtrooper that the group meet. That she was once a stormtrooper is pretty much the only thing we know about her, and she joins the climactic fight at the end but that's about it. You've already got Finn who's a deserted stormtrooper, and with Jannah being such a forgettable addition to the film, I can't help but ask why bother? On the antagonists' end, the film introduces General Pryde almost out of nowhere and who performs literally the same function as Hux after he's executed. Pryde is played by Richard E. Grant who's reliably good in this type of role, but again why bother having Hux betray the First Order if you're only going to replace him with a virtually identical character? Heck, not even BB-8's safe as they decide to introduce another cute droid, D-O, who's here for... reasons?

As for the supporting character who don't get issued a replacement, their roles are still rife with questionable decision-making. At one point it looks as if Chewbacca might've been killed off, only for it to be a fake-out and he survives. There's not enough time given to make us seriously question whether he's gone for good, as he appears again way too soon for any kind of tension to develop. C-3PO has a similar scene where it looks like they're about to wipe his memory and essentially kill the character as we know him, but after a while he gets his memory restored fine. This is especially strange to me because Abrams had the guts to kill off Han Solo in 'The Force Awakens', so why so skittish now? This isn't me saying I wanted these characters to die, but why go hinting at it if you're not even going to allow any sort of tension to develop about whether they're really gone? It's also worth mentioning a more serious issue of two characters who are horribly sidelined. I don't think Rose gets more than about two minutes of screentime here, which would be fair enough if the film hadn't got anything it wanted to develop with her character. But it is considerably bad optics when you remember the harassment that bigots sent Kelly Marie Tran after her more prominent role in the last film. I obviously can't say for certain whether 'The Rise Of Skywalker' is pandering to this crowd, but leaving yourself open for that to even be a possibility is not a good look. Finn gets similar treatment and is dreadfully underserved here. I really can't blame John Boyega for his digs against Disney given how badly he's let down. To my despair, 'The Rise Of Skywalker' seems to want to continue the grand tradition of films under the Disney banner engaging in performative wokeness. A great example of this is in interviews ahead of the film's release, where Abrams promised that the film would feature LGBT+ representation. In the final product however, it's an incredibly brief same-sex kiss lasting about two seconds. I'm rather fond of the idea that if your representation can be easily edited out, then it doesn't count. So I have to ask rather than trying to market yourself as progressive but also limiting any LGBT+ content so as to sell the film in countries with strict anti-LGBT+ laws, please just either commit properly or don't bother. 

Now in the interest of balance and fairness, I'm not about to pretend there's nothing about the film I thought worked. As we might've come to expect, the film still looks fantastic and I can barely fault anything on a production level. One especially good little action sequence that takes place right near the start is the lightspeed skipping in the Millennium Falcon - it's a pretty innovative set piece and showcases the diversity of locations 'Star Wars' can offer. For all the characters that the film does a disservice, the one that not even 'The Rise Of Skywalker' can fail is Kylo Ren. Kylo remains the best new character to come out of this trilogy for me, and Adam Driver doesn't disappoint. I have my problems with the ending, what with Palpatine encouraging Rey to kill him so the Sith can live on in her, which she does but it doesn't happen anyway. However I still feel that the ending does Kylo justice at least, and the resolution to his inner conflict and final turn away from the dark side is appropriate. One of the things the film doesn't discard from 'The Last Jedi' are the Force-talk sequences between Kylo and Rey, and thank god 'cause they're still just as great as they were last time around. Kylo's last conversation with his father is similarly great, and Han's cameo actually feels earned and necessary to redeem Kylo for good. Now throughout this review I've avoided talking about how Leia is used in the film, and that's mostly because the filmmakers were dealing with circumstances beyond their control following the tragic passing of Carrie Fisher. There isn't really a write-around which would be able to factor that neatly in so I can't exactly criticize them for that. They do what they can with clips and deleted footage of Fisher from the last couple of films but it can be noticeably clunky. Leia's dialogue is odd in places, and her eventual death scene kind of comes out of nowhere and might've worked better had it taken place off-screen. I'm not saying they did the best with what they had, but what they did was passable. 

So with this trilogy now concluded, I feel... tired, which is odd considering that I really like two of the three films. I'm mostly tired from petty fandom bullsh*t of the last couple of years and 'The Rise Of Skywalker' did nothing to re-ignite my appreciation for the series. I'd argue that this film is a great case study for when bad-faith critics and entitled fans actively harm a series. Not that I'm blaming bad-faith fans entirely for what we ended up with - it's very clear watching this trilogy back to back that the filmmakers did not have a coherent road map for where they were going, which is a very questionable approach to storytelling. I further dislike the argument that's sprung up recently that 'The Last Jedi' puts this film in a corner and that's what's really to blame, which couldn't be more untrue in my opinion. 'The Last Jedi' opened up all sorts of possibilities, but 'The Rise Of Skywalker' at every turn takes the least interesting route possible. Honest Trailers joked in a video that this film successfully united fans who loved 'The Last Jedi' and fans who hated it it by pleasing none of them, and while they were obviously joking I think there's a lot of truth in that. This isn't a 100% trashfire by any means but there's no disguising it's a dud.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

4/10