Posted by My expectations for the final movie in the Skywalker Saga were mixed. I had heard a lot of good things about the movie, but I had also heard a lot of bad things (I mean just look at the Rotten Tomatoes critic score). So I entered the theater with a sort of mixed anticipation. A part of me expected the movie to be bad, while another part of me was hopeful that it wouldn’t be a total flop. And let me just say, that latter part of me was right.
Now before I delve into the movie and what I did and didn’t like, I would first like to formerly urge everyone who cares about Star Wars to go watch this movie. This review will be filled to the brim with spoilers, and trust me when I say you don’t want this movie spoiled.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
I am incredibly happy that The Rise of Skywalker actually answered many of the questions first posed in The Force Awakens, and even some of the questions that arose during The Last Jedi. For example, I thoroughly appreciate the fact that a short flashback revealed that Leia had received some Jedi training from Luke after the events of the original trilogy, which helps to explain her strange and sudden use of the force in The Last Jedi. However, my favorite explanation was the one concerning Rey’s background.
One of the biggest flaws of the new sequel trilogy was that Rey was just incredibly skilled in the Force with no prior training whatsoever. While not fully remedied, the grand reveal that she was Emperor Palpatine’s granddaughter does remedy the fact somewhat. Palpatine was an insanely powerful force user, and his return in The Rise of Skywalker only reiterates this point. For example, one of my favorite scenes involves a newly reinvigorated Palpatine firing a beam of force lightning into the sky, completely disabling (for the duration of the lightning attack) the Resistance fleet. Therefore, it is somewhat understandable that Rey would be an incredibly powerful force user due to her ancestry. And truth be told, I feel that this is a solid reveal that doesn’t just randomly appear. While this bombshell is sudden and unexpected, I never thought that it felt forced or like a poorly written excuse. Actually, the more that I think about, the more I see it as a decent homage to the iconic “Luke I am your father” of The Empire Strikes Back.
Overall, I didn’t have an issue with the plot. The movie follows Rey, Poe, Finn, Chewie, BB-8, and C-3PO as they try to find a map to Exegol–a hidden Sith world and the current base of operations of Emperor Palpatine and his fleet of planet-killing Star Destroyers. I suppose if I were to nitpick the plot as a whole, two things come to mind. My first issue is the time frame. It is established at the beginning of the movie that Palpatine plans to sic his fleet of Star Destroyers on the galaxy in 16 hours. I have no idea if the final battle takes place within those time constraints, or if the 16 hours was an arbitrary set of time thrown in with little effect other than to add urgency to the heroes’ mission. My other issue relates to my favorite character of the sequel trilogy–Kylo Ren.
Throughout the movie, Kylo is hunting Rey down with the use of the Force, and they often have encounters similar to those seen in The Last Jedi. This still isn’t further explained, especially the aspect involving objects literally teleporting from one place to another. I suppose I shouldn’t question the Force, but it still would have been nice to get an explanation, though for all I know this is explained somewhere and I just don’t know it.
I will say that the movie is filled with fantastic moments. From the battle between Rey and Kylo on the remnants of the Death Star II to the final showdown between Rey and Palpatine, I didn’t know where the movie was going next and what was going to happen. Visually the movie was incredible and included countless fantastic shots, many of which originally appeared in the trailer.
However, my favorite element of the movie was all of the little details and explanations. For example, it is revealed incredibly early on that Snoke was a synthetic puppet created by Palpatine. In my opinion, that was the single best way to wrap up Snoke after his awful handling in The Last Jedi. Another detail was that the Knights of Ren finally appeared again after their minuscule introduction in The Force Awakens. Something else I thoroughly appreciated was how Palpatine absorbed the energy of both Rey and Kylo in order to reinvigorate himself. I saw this as a sort of twisted new take on the Rule of Two (there can only ever be two Sith Lords at a time) in the sense that these two potential Sith Lords were almost destroyed in order to fully revive the one true Sith Lord. Of course I could just be reading into things, but if my interpretation is correct, I have a lot more respect for this movie.
But no movie is without flaws, and this movie is no exception. Truth be told, I thought that the end could have been better if it had gone somewhat differently. In the finale, Rey faces off against Palpatine and kills him by using both Luke’s lightsaber and Leia’s lightsaber to deflect Palpatine’s force lightning back at him, thus killing him and all of his Sith followers. Afterwards, Ben Solo, who has now fully turned towards the light side, finds Rey’s lifeless body. I would have preferred Ben to just mourn Rey’s death. I believe that this would have been a fitting ending because Rey and Palpatine would have destroyed each other. It would have been far more fitting thematically for the two avatars of the dark side and the light side to end up dead with Ben–who was torn between both sides–as the sole survivor of that conflict. It would have also served as a perfect illustration of the duality of the Force with Rey and Emperor Palpatine being two sides of the same (Palpatine) coin, much like how the Force consists of the light and the dark. But instead of this happening, Ben sacrifices his life energy to bring Rey back from the dead, and he does get a kiss before fading away. I appreciate the fact that at least someone was a sacrifice, because otherwise I feel that victory would have been won almost too easily. Though I suppose that Ben’s sacrifice does accomplish two things. One: his sacrifice wraps up his redemption arc. Two: in a way, he does become a pseudo-Vader and saves someone that he loves. Though truth be told, a part of me would have liked to see a movie where Kylo Ren doesn’t get redeemed, but hey, at least his redemption does feel earned considering his constant inner grappling over what side of the Force he belonged to.
Finally, I would like to give JJ Abrams credit for tying together a story that The Last Jedi almost destroyed. The Last Jedi, in my opinion, felt more like a pointless side adventure that accomplished virtually nothing and left virtually nowhere to go, but The Rise of Skywalker did in fact wrap everything up relatively nicely. And in order to further reiterate my point, the only plot points of The Last Jedi that had an effect on The Rise of Skywalker were that Luke was dead, Snoke was dead and Kylo had usurped his position, and the Resistance was incredibly short on manpower. Oh and Rey actually got some training so her strength now has a source. But overall, that’s about it; The Last Jedi can basically be removed from the entire trilogy, which in my opinion is the greatest flaw of the sequel trilogy. I thoroughly believe that if JJ Abrams had had control of the entire trilogy, it would have been spectacular. Or if Rian Johnson had been given control of the entire trilogy, it would have been a lot better. Point is, the fact that the trilogy had two directors ultimately holds it back as a whole, but at least it had a strong ending.
SPOILERS END
So those are my thoughts on The Rise of Skywalker. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I firmly believe that The Rise of Skywalker was the best movie of the sequel trilogy. I would highly recommend this movie because it is a solid conclusion to a decades long saga. And in the end, I’d rate The Rise of Skywalker at a solid 8/10.
Broad Scope Entertainment 