If you are fan of fantasy or science fiction, then there is a good chance that you may be aware that the latest Star Wars film was released this week – The Rise of Skywalker (just TRoS from here on). If you are part of the very vocal minority that went mad on the internet after Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi (TLJ from here on), then perhaps you were hoping that J.J. Abrams will set things right. Don’t know how much that very public online outrage impacted the decisions made in the latest film, but I think this film is possibly the ultimate expression of identity crisis. I have always enjoyed Star Trek more than Star Wars, but until TRoS I never could pinpoint why that was the case. Now I know – Star Wars has no identity, and Disney has no plan. TRoS has also underlined for me, the achievement in modern cinema that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe and what can be achieved by having a plan. If you have heard Martin Scorsese criticize the MCU for it’s shallowness, I would love to hear what he has to say about the new Star Wars trilogy. It’s remarkable to me, how differently the two Disney franchises have developed.
Where I live, TRoS opened on Thursday evening, and I was there to see it first day first show. My initial reaction, as I left the theater, was that I didn’t love it, but liked it in parts enough to be satisfied. Since then I’ve gotten to see the film couple more times and have gotten some time to think about my feelings. People have called Rey’s character a Mary Sue character, but I never cared for it – despite her powers, she felt very vulnerable and relatable to me – at the end of this movie I still feel satisfied with her character. The problem is that she is the only character I feel satisfied with, not because I disagree with the direction any of the other characters have taken, but feel that there’s not been enough development of any of the others. I still don’t know much about Poe, and don’t know enough to care for Finn. The very celebrated Rose Tico is a waste of screen time, due to absolutely no fault of hers. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo was developing very well until now, but in this movie he takes turns faster than a dogfighting fighter jet, without any recognizable reason. This series should have been about the new characters, but the perceived need to have Luke, Leia and Han in prominent roles for fan service has ruined the development of the new characters. I have to blame the fans as much as the film makers for this situation. At not point in time has this been more clear than with TRoS. J.J. Abrams is still trying to re-imagine every memorable setup from the original trilogy – from the roundtable meeting of generals with Vader and Tarkin, to Palpatine using dying resistance fighters as reason to goad our hero into killing him. Oh right, if you haven’t heard still, Palpatine is back, not only back, but is responsible for everything. He even made Snooke, like literally made him, thus totally wasting a very creative and intriguing new character. This is Star Wars stuck in the past, so much so that I’m fairly certain Abrams wished Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher (rest her blessed soul) were 30 years old, they wouldn’t have bothered introducing new characters – they even blatantly do a terrible CGI rendition of young Leia.
TRoS was meant to fill in the plot holes of the earlier movies, but I think this movie alone takes a drill to the Star Wars’ swiss cheese plotlines. This isn’t about the movie having plot holes, but rather a giant hole having some smattering of story, but only if it does fan service. If you have read some of the comics then you would know that Poe has a force connection, but none of that has gotten touched on in the movies. Finn is shown to be force sensitive but no explanation is given, instead his turn in The Force Awakens (TFA) is actually cheapened in TRoS by revealing that many more went through the same change. TRoS includes a bait and switch situation with Chewie, where you are made to believe that he’s dead but actually is not, to cheaply tug on your heartstrings, it felt so cheap that it wouldn’t look out of place in a C-class movie. Forget about tying up story threads, this movie created a thread that the directors kept bringing up for comedy, but then quickly forgot about by the end. The efforts for comedy is so shallow that I actually think Abrams and Colin Trevorrow don’t know what makes comedy. I was disappointed with Gwendoline Christie’s Phasma, but I absolutely detest what they did with Domhnall Gleeson’s Hux. It is also unfortunate that the Force decides who dies and disappears and who dies and just waits around to be brought back from the dead.
George Lucas has previously said Star Wars is essentially a family drama set against a SciFi background, and the original trilogy is perfectly true to that. There wasn’t a lot of exposition to who Yoda was, or why Vader turned to the dark side, or what in the world the mysterious force was – it’s focus was entirely on the interplay between Han, Leia, Luke, Vader and Palpatine. The prequel trilogy tried to add a lot of exposition to everything, but it still came down to the character drama between Anakin, Palpatine, Obi-Wan, Padme and George Lucas even tried to add some world building. My problem with the new trilogy is that it doesn’t know what it wants to be – a character drama, world building SciFi or action movie. It does none of it very well – TRoS is action from start to finish without any pause for the action to feel warranted, it tries to introduce new locations, but I would willingly go back to Canto Bight than spend another moment in Kijimi. The character drama between Rey and Kylo had been a saving grace until now, but now it suddenly take turns that makes no sense.
So is there anything I liked in TRoS? Some beautiful visually stunning worlds, I guess more material for comics and novels, and most relevant, I like Rey’s final actions, even though not enough time is spent to arrive at the decisions. Most important though, TRoS completely ruins the new trilogy for me. Let me say this – Solo is a far better movie than TRoS. My only comfort is that I’m still really enjoying ‘The Mandalorian’ on Disney Plus, so maybe I can still keep my hope for a better Star Wars – which is the real magic of the Force (and not the Midichlorians).
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