Update: December 20, 2019
Dragonlord’s Review of STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (Spoilers)
Bottom Line: A disappointing conclusion to an unsatisfying trilogy that wasted a once-promising legacy.
[Warning: Major spoilers starting at the second paragraph. So read at your own risk.]
J.J. Abrams started the new trilogy with
The Force Awakens, a rehashed version of A
New Hope. Despite the flaws,
Episode VII was at least entertaining and showed some promise. Rian Johnson took over the reins with
The Last Jedi and incredulously managed to not only destroy almost everything
The Force Awakens built but also introduced characters and storylines that were just annoying and finally he just took a big pile of shit on one of the most iconic cinematic hero ever.
Abrams is back with
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker but the filmmaker and the writers seem to be empty creatively as they bafflingly just recreated parts of
Return of the Jedi with the out-of-nowhere introduction of the return of Emperor Palpatine. What’s worse is the asinine retroactive plotline on his resurrection and preposterous grand plans. There was no build-up or foreshadowing for Darth Sidious’ return in the previous two movies, so the whole revelation feels forced, stilted and something they just pulled out of their asses for the third act of the trilogy.
The film starts off a year after
The Last Jedi with the Emperor announcing his return via space Twitter. Supreme Leader Kylo Ren searches and finds Palpatine in the planet Exegol hoping to eliminate him in order to maintain his power. Palpatine reveals that he is behind the creation of Snoke and the First Order and that he has a secret armada of Star Destroyers each equipped with their own planet killer superlaser cannons. Palpatine offers Kylo the Sith fleet, The Final Order, but in return Kylo has to find Rey and kill her. I just find it incredibly stupid if Palpatine already has this secret fleet of “Death Stars,” why not just go out and rule over the galaxy. Why wait for Kylo to kill Rey?
It’s painful to see how disorganized Disney and Lucasfilm handled the new trilogy with each movie helmed by different filmmakers and writers with no clear outline how to get to the finish line. So you get Rian Johnson undoing what Abrams did and now it’s Abrams’ turn to undo what Rian did with the obvious symbolic gesture of fixing Kylo Ren’s helmet. Personally, Kylo looks much better without the generic-looking helmet.
The first 10 minutes was pretty entertaining with Kylo’s search for Palpatine, the Millennium Falcon’s chase scene and Rey’s training. But when the plot switches to Rey and the gang trying to find Palpatine’s location, then it became a drag despite Abrams’ signature fast and frenetic pacing. It’s obvious that the new trio of heroes Rey, Finn and Poe are not on the same level of likability or as strong as the original trio of Luke, Han and Leia. Whether it’s her acting, voice or natural charm, Daisy Ridley is just adorable as Rey and instantly likable for me. On the other hand, Finn and Poe are just poorly-written bland characters.
Rey, Poe, Finn, Chewbacca, BB-8, and C-3PO arrive in Passanna and meet Lando Calrissian who tells them the location of a Sith artifact that will reveal Palpatine’s hideout. Seeing First Order ships and troops in the vicinity, Captain Obvious Lando comments “I have a bad feeling about this.” I know it’s fan service and all but it’s just a stupid application of the famous line.
To transcribe the Sith text they obtained from the artifact, the heroes went to Kijimi. There they meet Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell), a criminal and an old friend of Poe’s. First she tries to arrest/kill the heroes but after an unconvincing plea from Rey, Zorii suddenly does a 180 and helps them (WTF!). The heroes get on board Kylo’s Star Destroyer where they attempt to rescue a captured Chewbacca. It’s laughable how the Storm Troopers aim is so lousy but I guess that’s already a Star Wars inside joke.
Rey finally finds out from Kylo about her parents and her lineage. She is the granddaughter of Palpatine! It’s an interesting twist and gives Rey some much-needed layer to her story. The heroes also find out that their secret mole in the First Order is General Hux. Thanks to Rian’s rendition of Hux, he has become a joke of a character that not even Abrams can undo or salvage. So Hux unceremoniously gets shot dead by General Pryde (Richard E. Grant) for being a traitor.
The heroes end up on the remains of the second Death Star near Endor where Rey and Kylo duel. Finn is extremely annoying in here shouting at Rey multiple times while she was in the middle of a duel. General Leia passes away at the rebels camp. Kylo hears his mother’s voice and gets distracted long enough for Rey to stab Kylo fatally. Sensing Leia’s death, Rey heals Kylo’s wounds. She runs away on Kylo’s ship and exiles herself to Ahch-To.
Kylo converses with a vision of his father. Han forgives him. Kylo throws away his lightsaber to the sea and becomes Ben Solo again. It was a nice moment seeing Harrison Ford as Han Solo again and managing to turn Kylo away from the Dark Side.
Rey gets a similar visit from Force Ghost Luke Skywalker in Ahch-To. Luke gives Rey a pep talk and Leia’s lightsaber. We then see a brief flashback where a young Luke and Leia sparring with lightsabers. It’s another great moment and a painful reminder how Disney/Lucasfilm screwed up by not making the new trilogy revolving around young Luke, Han and Leia. Force Ghost Luke gives Rey his old X-Wing starfighter and off she goes to confront Palpatine at Exegol.
Rey arrives at Exegol and transmits her location to the rebel camp. The rebels send their entire fleet to Exegol to stop the armada of super Star Destroyers. Palpatine’s master plan is unveiled as he encourages Rey to strike him down so he can transfer his spirit to Rey. This is another stupid, contradictory revelation since he ordered Kylo to kill Rey at the beginning of the movie. Kylo arrives to help Rey but both are easily subdued with Palpatine’s Force telekinesis. Palpatine drains both their life essences which rejuvenates him.
The rebels are almost annihilated but Lando brings in the cavalry with thousands of spaceships arriving to the join the fight. Though not as epic as the final battle in
Avengers: Endgame, it’s still a pretty hell-yeah cool moment. Fighter pilot Wedge Antiless even makes a cameo.
Palpatine uses Force Lightning on the rebels ship making them lose power. Rey hears the voices of past Jedis encouraging her to fight. I found out later that the voices were Jedis from the live-action movies as well as the two animated series (
Clone Wars and
Rebels) which was pretty cool. Palpatine stupidly uses Force Lightning on Rey instead of the Force Hold he successfully used a few moments ago. Hasn't he learned his mistakes with Mace Windu? Rey does a Wonder Woman-esque maneuver and uses both her lightsabers to form an X and repels the lightning back to Palpatine, obliterating him in the process. Oh yeah, the thousands of hooded Sith worshippers present also got wiped out conveniently.
Rey dies but Kylo gives her his life force and resurrects her. Kylo dies and becomes one with the Force. Rey goes to Tatooine to bury Luke and Leia’s lightsaber in the Lars homestead. A passerby asks who Rey is and what’s her last name. Rey sees the Force Ghost of Luke and Leia and answers, “Rey… Skywalker.” The End.
Here are a few random things I want to comment on.
Visually, this film is gorgeous. From the numerous alien landscapes to the camera shots and angles, the movie looked stunning. Some of the acting here are also very well done.
Despite the hype, the Knights of Ren were a massive failure. They didn’t do anything worthwhile. When the Knights of Ren apprehend Chewbacca, it was kinda dumb that they didn’t even try to arrest or kill the other rebels who were in the vicinity.
Rey and Kylo’s Force Bond now allows them to teleport object from across galaxies as Kylo. Though this was hinted in The Last Jedi with the splashes of water, I just feel weird about the science of it all.
There were some lame humor here and there. The one that irritated me the most was the scene between Temmin "Snap" Wexley (Greg Grunberg) and Leia.
They introduced other First Order stormtrooper deserters like Finn. One of them is the new character Jannah (Naomi Ackie) who is just forgettable. They also emphasized that there are female stormtroopers as you can hear a female voice screaming as they die.
There are so many aspects of the movie I wish to mention but I’ll just come back to it in the near future.
The Last Jedi sucked more but
The Rise of Skywalker overall is an uninspiring, convoluted disappointment with many holes to the story and character actions.
Preliminary Rating: 4.5/10
