Table of Contents
Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker Review
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Film Review, a movie directed by J.J. Abrams, and starring Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Ian McDiarmid, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Keri Russell, Billie Lourd, Naomi Ackie, Matt Smith, Dominic Monaghan, Ian McDiarmid, and Richard E. Grant.
Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker is the second weakest Skywalker Star Wars film, the first being Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a triage film that tries and fails to suture the plot-holes and bandage shut the canon-defying mistakes of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. In point of fact, The Rise of Skywalker adds to those very mistakes throughout its narrative. The Rise of Skywalker‘s story-line would not exist in its current incarnation if Disney’s Star Wars trilogy had been planned out before production began on Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens.
The sections of this review and analysis:
- Trying To Kill the Past Doesn’t Work
- The Palpatine Problems
- Rey’s Jedi Training
- Rey’s Character-defining Moment Reversed for No Good Reason
- The Failed Temptation of Rey
- Kylo Ren’s Arc
- The Knights of Ren Are Nothing
- What was Finn Going To Say?
- Force Healing and Star Wars Canon Inconsistency
- The Holdo Maneuver Not Utilized
- The Ending
- Final Thoughts
Trying To Kill the Past Doesn’t Work
In the wake of divisive Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the viewer’s expectations are low-to-moderate going into The Rise of Skywalker. Anticipation is weathered and cautious. Some people believe that from The Last Jedi‘s depths, there is only up. Others are more optimistic, thinking that Disney has learned from the mistakes of the former film and will do right by cognitive audiences this time around. Sadly, The Rise of Skywalker hydroplanes at the low level established by The Last Jedi throughout its run-time.
The Rise of Skywalker is a film that plays it safe, too safe, a possible over-reaction to the some of the more extreme plot-points in The Last Jedi, a decision that end up hurting rather than benefiting The Rise of Skywalker. A fine tightrope could have been walked between the conventional and envelope-pushing with The Rise of Skywalker. Abrams opts, instead, for the ordinary, creating a pliant movie with a soft, safe, nostalgia-laced ending.
Director J.J. Abrams does the best he can with The Rise of Skywalker. He is in a terrible situation for any director or screenwriter. The problem with Disney’s Star Wars trilogy is that there never seemed to be an overarching outline for it. Instead, everyone seemed to be making their own film and that crippled this trilogy. The results of that lack of clear vision reverberates down to the marrow of The Rise of Skywalker.
If The Rise of Skywalker didn’t carry the Star Wars brand name, this film would be a big-budget scifi film deemed weak on its most important element, narrative cohesion, and would be forgotten behind far better space fiction like Ad Astra, with people wondering “what if?” when they occasionally thought about this film.
The Palpatine Problems
Because Emperor Sheev Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) was never intended to be in the third Disney Skywalker film, Supreme Leader Snoke was, Palpatine is given very little character building time in this film (he’s the same old Palpy with some added tubes and whatnot). He is all voice and actions, and no substance. Though nagging, these aren’t the only problems with Palpatine in the film. There are others. In fact, the aforementioned problems are minuscule by comparison.
First Problem
The Rise of Skywalker talks down to the audience from the outset, wanting them to believe the inexplicable fact that Sheev Palpatine is still alive. What’s worse is that The Rise of Skywalker‘s writers never explain how Palpatine is still alive, how he survived the Darth Vader throw, being blow apart, and the Death Star II’s explosion. Nothing is said about any of it at all. The viewer is just supposed shut their brain down, wonder, and go with it.
Second Problem
If Palpatine is powerful enough to survive all of that damage (the Vader throw, being blown apart, and Death Star II’s explosion) and live, what creditable threat does Rey pose to him (even with the Mary Sue virus pumping through her veins)? If killed, again, can’t Palpatine simply return again?
Third Problem
Sheev Palpatine asks Rey to kill him in The Rise of Skywalker so he can move into her body and become one with her.
“Kill me and my spirit will pass into you…You will be Empresses, we will be one.”
The screenwriters create a brilliant Catch-22 scenario: kill me and I win (I take your body). Don’t kill me and I win (my fleet launches and I take the galaxy).
And what do the screenwriters do with this cleverly constructed Catch-22 scenario in the film? Nothing. They don’t execute the Catch-22’s effect after its primary stipulation has been completed and hope no one notices – Rey kills Palpatine, like he asked, and nothing happens.
When Rey is revived, Palpatine and Rey aren’t one, and Rey isn’t a Sith.
The screenwriters expect the viewer to forget what Sheev just said four minutes ago and the implications of those words.
This is how badly The Rise of Skywalker is written.
Fourth Problem
A Sith doesn’t share power. They don’t give power away. They betray each other to acquire power. That is why there are only ever two of them (The Rule of Two), a master and an apprentice.
Why is Palpatine saying he is going to give power (the Sith throne) to Rey or Kylo? Is Palpatine dying (a fact never established in the film)? If not, why doesn’t he keep his power for himself? Why doesn’t he launch his fleet and conquer everyone?
Did screenwriters J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio not notice these reasoning, narrative, and canon gaps in their script?
The plot of The Rise of Skywalker‘s primary villain, and his motivation, doesn’t make any sense. The Emperor is not manipulating or twisting either of his would-be allies like he did Darth Vader, even-though he possesses all the tools to do so – time, resources, and knowledge. Instead, Palpatine presents one with a flimsy reward for doing what he says and presents the other with a role in the universe that is abhorrent to her (if Palpatine bothered to read Rey’s thoughts and scan her memories i.e. his due diligence, he would know this).
Rey’s Jedi Training
Since Rey (Daisy Ridley) had no training in The Last Jedi, her Jedi training has been shifted to The Rise of Skywalker. The problem is that the training is pointless because she: a.) is already the best sword fighter in the galaxy (she beat Luke Skywalker), b.) can already lift dozen of objects coterminous with her mind, c.) can already use the Jedi Mind Trick, and d.) can magically heal people, something no Jedi before her could do (The Child from The Mandalorian is not a Jedi…yet). What is Rey training to get or to know that she doesn’t already have or possess? Since she can do all four of the aforementioned, why does she need to train? Yoda in The Last Jedi said she knew everything that she needed to know so, once again, her training in this film serves no purpose. It’s busy-work for the first act of this film.
At worst, Rey’s training in The Rise of Skywalker is window-dressing to appease fans coming out of The Last Jedi who were dubious about a Jedi who doesn’t need any type of training yet can do everything at once that takes a normal Jedi decades to learn.
Rey’s Character-defining Moment Reversed for No Good Reason
Director J.J. Abrams does two things that the viewer applauds in The Rise of Skywalker – he has Rey use Force lightning not because she can e.g. another show of her über powers but by accident and through that accident, Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo)’s death occurs.
Because of that death, Rey begins to question herself, her path, the Force, and all the choices that she has made that lead to that death.
It is this brief, precise moment in the motion picture that The Rise of Skywalker becomes an actual film, a movie where there are recognizable, internal ramifications for actions.
And do you know how Abrams builds upon this key moment, how he takes advantage, for the benefit of the film, Rey’s resultant emotion state? He reverses everything for no reason whatsoever.
Why do all of that, take Rey to that reflective state, to just to reverse it (and in the most worthless way possible)? What is the point? Is such a weak plot twist and the blatant missed opportunity worth it?
The Failed Temptation of Rey
There are two moments where Rey can be tempted by The Dark Side in The Rise of Skywalker – in the wreck of The Emperor’s throne room (a great scene where she sees an evil version of herself – loved it) and the scene that directly follows it where Rey repeatedly tells Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) to give her the Wayfinder (aka the film’s McGuffin). The anger in her repeated requests is palpable (which could have been amplified and given context if this scene followed Rey accidentally killing Chewie – for real and not reversed) yet the script is so rushed and Kylo so blind, he doesn’t see that her emotions at that moment can be used against her to possibly turn her, to make the boiling water of her emotional-state explode. Instead, Kylo provokes Rey into a lame fight that is stake-less (Rey is stronger with The Force than Kylo is, she is a better swordsman, and she already beat him with no sword or Force training in The Force Awakens).
Kylo Ren’s Arc
Rey and Kylo Ren both have character arcs in The Rise of Skywalker but it is Ren’s arc that is engineered, on paper, to be the most profound.
The realization of the latter arc, in-film, is almost entirely problematic. One would think the presence of the Knights of Ren, the memories they provoke, and his responsibility toward them, would bolster Kylo Ren’s resolve, steadying him on the path that he has chosen. Since the Knights are vacant automatons, this does not happen, a major fault in the writing of Ren’s arc, the Knights, and the script for this film.
Killing his father was a profound act of betrayal and evil on Kylo’s part (yet his eyes did not turn yellow) and a profound show of loyalty to the instigator of that act.
It’s not credible that a single act of magnanimity, a few words on Rey’s part, and the death of the distaff part of his family would spark change in Kylo, especially after patricide. This script’s writers would have the viewer believe that Rey’s words, actions, and Leia’s death create a reflective current within Kylo, generating a moment of introspection via the memory of his deceased father.
It all just rings hollow in The Rise of Skywalker, like the need for redemption in Kylo’s story-line somehow overrides the reality of such a feat happening, even with the “pull back to the light” Kylo felt in The Force Awakens. The spark initiated in The Rise of Skywalker is not profound enough and too much blood-strewn water has flowed under the bridge. Where did all of Kylo’s rage go? What chasm did it empty into? If General Leia’s death is the x-factor element in the equation, why didn’t her brief death in The Last Jedi, which he must have felt, create a smaller, subtler, yet similar reaction in him? He had to be stabbed, healed, and sweet-talked for his mother’s death to really effect him? Vader’s change of heart was initiated by the agonized plies from his son, complimenting his already present conflicted emotions.
With Kylo, it seems that compassion and sorrow were the keys to his change of heart, complimenting his already present conflicted emotions. With Kylo, however, I just don’t buy it. His resolve, his actions, his lack of positive emotions, they all screamed ‘Sith’, not ‘Save Me.’
The Knights of Ren Are Nothing
One of the biggest disappointments of The Rise of Skywalker (and this trilogy) are The Knights of Ren. When first glimpsed in a flashback in The Force Awakens, they were intriguing. Fans hoped to see them in The Last Jedi but didn’t, with director Rian Johnson saying there was no way to fit them in (yet he fit in Rose Tico and a completely pointless casino world sequence). In The Rise of Skywalker, the promise of The Knights of Ren was revived – in one of the film’s promos, the viewer could clearly see them striding down a hallway behind Kylo Ren.
In the actual film, The Knights of Ren are nothing. They are completely vapid in The Rise of Skywalker and are involved in some of the worst moments in the film’s narrative. They never speak, they never use the Force (they are standing around the corner from Finn John Boyega on Pasaana, don’t sense he’s there, or that other people are in the immediate area), and they never use lightsabers. They are given absolutely no development at all in the film and are merely background props, Stormtroopers in outfit upgrades.
Where were The Knights of Ren all this time (from the Jedi Temple’s destruction in The Force Awakens to their first appearance in The Rise of Skywalker)? What were they doing? These questions are never broached nor answered in the film.
The Knights of Ren can’t even be called a poorly written plot element because they exist in a poorly-written film. As a plot point, The Knights of Ren don’t stand out as bad. They remind the viewer that this type of writing is par-for-the-course in this trilogy i.e. an underdeveloped plot-string that goes nowhere.
Example 1: The Knights of Ren are searching for Rey and company after a Stormtrooper chase on Pasaana. There is desert all around except for a lone, derelict spaceship on a giant stone pedestal above the desert floor. It doesn’t occur to The Knights of Ren, the Stormtroopers, or Kylo Ren to search that ship for the rebels they’ve been chasing?
Example 2: At the end of the film, The Knights of Ren, Kylo’s men and women, his followers, his acolytes, show up on Exegol, and Kylo just kills them.
There is no emotional moment when he, the new do-gooder Kylo Ren, tries of reason with them, his own men.
He just kills them.
He doesn’t try to turn them back to the light as he has turned or tell them that he’d been wrong.
He just kills them.
This is a pivotal moment in Kylo’s life where his past actions are confronted by his present self and it is reduced to a re-run of the throne room battle in The Last Jedi.
It’s like the writers of this scene don’t know or are too unqualified to recognize the type of moment that they potentially have on their hands i.e. Kylo pleading with the Knights because he doesn’t want to fight them, the closest things to friends that he has.
Example 3: Why is Kylo Ren a better swordsman than every single Knight of Ren? This created an insipid, boring, and one sided fight sequence in the third act of The Rise of Skywalker. Just because Kylo is the evilest Jedi trainee in his class doesn’t mean he is the best swordsmen. Wickedness and swordsmanship are not synonymous with each other.
Example 4: The very existence of The Knights of Ren, Sith users of the Force, violates the Sith Rule of Two established in Revenge of the Sith. Did the writers of The Force Awakens not realize this? Did anyone research the Sith before writing this plot-point in The Rise of Skywalker?
What was Finn Going To Say?
Like The Knights of Ren, The Rise of Skywalker has other plot strings that go nowhere. What Finn (John Boyega) is about to say to Rey while they are sinking in the sands of Pasaana is one of them. After being questioned twice about his possible statement, the plot string is dropped and never brought up again in the film.
What was Finn going to say to Rey? Was he going to tell Rey that he loved her?
We will never know but I believe the reason for this plot string being dropped is easy to discern. The strange Rey / Kylo ‘relationship’ (can it even be called that?) supplants the resolution of the lingering Finn statement.
J.J. Abrams, for some incomprehensible reason, did not want a love triangle in The Rise of Skywalker, so he drops the conclusion of the Finn and Rey story-line.
The problem is that if Abrams was going to drop the Finn statement plot string (and the resultant story arc that it will generate) in lieu of Rey / Kylo, why have its precursor in the film in the first place? Why have Finn say anything to Rey while sinking in the sands of Pasaana?
It makes no sense. It’s like the first draft of The Rise of Skywalker‘s script is on-screen during these parts of the film instead of the fourteenth draft.
Force Healing and Star Wars Canon Inconsistency
For all the retreading of trodden ground, The Rise of Skywalker does introduce new elements into Star Wars-lore. The most notable is Force Healing, a concept that the viewer is warmed up to by The Child in The Mandalorian. The problem with this new concept is the past. If a Force user can heal with the Force or bring back the dead through life energy transfer,
Why didn’t Obi-Wan Kenobi use the Force to heal Qui-Gon Jinn’s single lightsaber wound in The Phantom Menace?
Why didn’t Luke Skywalker use the Force to save Darth Vader from dying at the end of Return of the Jedi?
Why didn’t Luke Skywalker use the Force to save Yoda from his sickness and keep him alive in Return of the Jedi?
Why didn’t Palpatine use the Force to heal Darth Vader’s cut-off limbs and burnt body at the end of Revenge of the Sith?
Why didn’t these powerful Jedi and Sith use the Force to heal themselves when they were injured, mortally wound, and/or dying?
By introducing Force Healing in The Mandalorian and in The Rise of Skywalker, a portion of the Star Wars canon is broken. Some will cite The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis from Revenge of the Sith as an example of this ability being possible but the rejoinder to that is that Palpatine was manipulating Anakin Skywalker at the time, telling him exactly what he wanted to hear (i.e. that it was possible to conjure death with the Force) to subconsciously groom and eventually bend Anakin to his will. I have no doubt that Palpatine actually killed Plagueis but as to Plagueis’ touted death-cheating Force ability, that is dubious. Sith lie, especially to those they seek leverage over.
The Holdo Maneuver Not Utilized
Many fans wondered after The Last Jedi how The Holdo Maneuver (or Lightspeed Ramming) would be handled in the immediate and subsequent films in the franchise since it introduced a major plot hole in all the films that came before it i.e. why has no one ever tried lightspeed ramming before? The answer given in The Rise of Skywalker is so simplistic and idiotic that it is laughable – because it’s a one in a million shot. Meaning that if you tried it a million times, it might only work once.
What are the chances an old space ship with engine issues can hold together and not catch fire after attempting lightspeed skipping to escape an enemy while carrying vital intelligence back to the Resistance? One in one hundred million?
Yet this is what the Rebels try and not The Holdo Maneuver.
What are the chances that The Final Order would not have significant ground forces, troops, and anti-craft guns to protect their single yet vital antenna array and that the rebels could successfully attack that antenna with the largest space fleet in the galaxy hovering over it? One in three hundred million?
Yet this is what the Rebels try and not The Holdo Maneuver.
What are the chances that a small group of rebels in ragtag ships could fight and survive combat with a hundred star destroyers and thousands of TIE fighters, all manned by a crew of 4,678,500* men and women loyal to the Palpatine? One in nine hundred million?
Yet this is what the Rebels try and not The Holdo Maneuver.
When Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) makes his one-in-a-million Holdo Maneuver comment in The Rise of Skywalker, it falls flat and contradicts his future actions. What he has already done in the film (lightspeed skipping) was far less likely to succeed than The Holdo Maneuver, as is what he is going to attempt to do on Exegol (the antenna and Final Order attacks).
* – 46,785 is the total crew and passengers of a Imperial I-class Star Destroyer. 4,678,500 was arrived at by multiplying 46,785 by 100.
The Ending
The ending to The Rise of Skywalker is a summation of the entire film in one nostaglia-ladden scene: absurd, weak, and like the inclusion of Palpatine in this film, insulting.
Appropriating someone else’s last name as your own, in this instance, the most famous last name in the galaxy, is poppycock. Rey has no right to that last name. Killing a regurgitated, non-threat enemy doesn’t get her that trophy for her fireplace.
With all that she has been through, “Rey” should be good enough. She has made a name for herself in the last two Star Wars films, irrespective of the Skywalkers and the Palpatines. “Rey” is good enough for the Rebels. It is good enough for her enemies. Why isn’t it good enough for Rey?
The last shot in the film with the twin suns is supposed to be iconic, bringing the franchise full circle. It isn’t iconic. It shows a direct lack of imagination by this film’s writers.
Final Thoughts
I am glad it is over. I never thought I would say that after a film franchise of this magnitude came to a close, especially one with such auspicious beginnings, but I am relieved.
Rating: 3/10
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