☆☆½
Here it is, then: the end of the "Skywalker saga." As if the first two endings weren't enough. The story of Star Wars ended with 1983's Return of the Jedi, but then came the prequel trilogy to tell us the history behind that first ending, and now comes a new trilogy to create a new story that has been carefully, painstakingly retrofitted to connect with the originals. It does connect, but only because it has to, not because it should.
It's been almost 10 years since J.J. Abrams' TV series "Lost" ended with a convoluted, non-sensical finale that answered the questions it wanted to answer and ignored the rest. Now, a decade hence, Abrams proves he has learned something as the director of The Rise of Skywalker: He tries to answer everything. He also uses one of the tricks he learned on that series, which is that if you don't like what came before, just ignore it and move on. The Rise of Skywalker shows a certain disdain for Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi while trying to be a fan-obsessive's dream. Every major question posed by Abrams' last film, The Force Awakens, is addressed, and every character under the Star Wars sun makes at least a minor appearance, no matter how nonsensically.
The Rise of Skywalker doesn't have time for sense, even in its opening crawl, which makes the rather weird and unexpected claim that SPOILER ALERT, EVEN THOUGH IT'S NOT A SPOILER TO ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN PAYING THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF ATTENTION Emperor Palpatine is alive. No, it makes absolutely no sense. Yes, it comes completely out of the blue. But mostly this development comes because The Rise of Skywalker turns out to be, without much apology, largely a remake of Return of the Jedi.
Is that a surprise? The Force Awakens took its rhythms, cues and story structure from the original Star Wars, and now for the third film in this trilogy, Abrams returns to the originals and revises them even while keeping the structures largely the same. The sin in the director's mind seems to be that Rian Johnson and Lucasfilm's own producers were eager to take the story -- and the mythologies -- in new directions with The Last Jedi, which made both fans and Abrams uncomfortable.
So here is a return to fan-driven form, with many of the stylistic cues from George Lucas's films (bold screen wipes to transition scenes; longer, carefully composed shots) gone even while returning to those films' story beats: It seems Abrams' vision was to essentially remake the Star Wars trilogy for a new generation, and that may well be what many fans wanted, but everything about this new set of films lacks a sense of originality, a vital sense of purpose.
Nothing about The Rise of Skywalker remedies that. While it obliges in a fan-driven desire to trot out old characters (POSSIBLE VERY MINOR SPOILERS HERE!) – Look, there's Lando Calrissian! Oh, it's Wicket the Ewok! Hey, wow, it's ... wait? How is he back? – it also introduces new ones astonishingly late in the game: Plot-wise, they can serve absolutely no purpose, except to provide another level of pop-culture meta-knowingness to the proceedings: Wow, that's Richard E. Grant! Which famous actress is that under that mask? Let's stay for the credits to find out!
Meanwhile, because the Death Star or something like it has now appeared in fully one-third of Star Wars films, there's a new sinister weapon here, also capable of destroying planets, also capable of taking over the entire galaxy, so it's something that our gang of rebels must find a way to destroy MINOR SPOILER ALERT and, guess what? It's got a weakness! While they go about doing that, the nominal main character of these last three movies, Rey (Daisy Ridley, as committed as ever) is off to a showdown with the two main villains, the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). The latter continues to communicate with Rey through a very confusing sort of ESP that apparently none of these latest screenwriters seems to understand makes the on-screen action all but unintelligible.
There's one thing to be said for The Rise of Skywalker, which is that it moves at (force) lightning speed. It never slows down, never worries that maybe it should take some time to help the audience establish where and why we are, just keeps moving, moving, moving like a magician whose distractions and redirections are both the entertainment and the lie -- if The Rise of Skywalker slowed down for even a moment, audiences might start questioning its own answers.
This is especially true for the movie's biggest revelation, which I won't even hint at here, except to say that it's best not to dwell on it, because it is the shaky foundation upon which the entire trilogy is based, and it's both a letdown and a cheat. When this all-important plot point is explained, it is not a shock, nor is it particularly enlightening or informative. Like all of this "final" trilogy, it simply is, and the ramifications of it are given little consequence.
Meanwhile, The Rise of Skywalker gives top billing not to Ridley but to Carrie Fisher who, of course, died in 2016, so is treated with saintly reverence here. All of her scenes are made up of shots filmed for, but not used in, previous films, so her interactions with other cast members make The Rise of Skywalker feel a little like Steve Martin's Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, where he generates laughs by interacting with old movies. The shots of Fisher in The Rise of Skywalker have no humor, but feel just as strange and ill-fitting. All but one or two of Fisher's lines are throwaways, so the film's attempt to make her a leading character seem – sorry for the pun – forced.
To its real credit, The Rise of Skywalker doesn't feel as clumsy or stilted as the first two prequels, but those films had a clear advantage that this film doesn't: They told a cohesive story, one with a clear protagonist and a thematic purpose as Lucas tried, perhaps ineffectively, to chart the rise of evil and the beginnings of a great war.
None of the films of this trilogy had that clear spirit, though in retrospect The Last Jedi tried hard to find that center. But it did not hold. The Rise of Skywalker finishes a story that never really needed to be told, that never figured out its central purpose. As a way to finish a rather meaningless set of films, it does its job. It is never dull, never entirely uninteresting. It is well-produced, mostly well-acted, and will satisfy those fans who have wanted to know the answers to the minor questions these movies have posed.
So, it's the end of this story, at long last. The end of a cycle of films that endlessly coils in on itself, a cinematic Möbius strip that keeps repeating and coming back around to the same place, the same planets of sand and ice and water, the same space battles, the same friendly droids, the same showdowns, the same mystical reverence of the Force, the same John Williams music, the same tunic-clad heroes and hooded villains, the same sense that Star Wars will never, ever end.
And if you're a certain kind of fan, or a certain kind of executive at The Walt Disney Company, that's exactly how you like it.
Viewed December 19, 2019 -- ArcLight Hollywood
2000
It's been almost 10 years since J.J. Abrams' TV series "Lost" ended with a convoluted, non-sensical finale that answered the questions it wanted to answer and ignored the rest. Now, a decade hence, Abrams proves he has learned something as the director of The Rise of Skywalker: He tries to answer everything. He also uses one of the tricks he learned on that series, which is that if you don't like what came before, just ignore it and move on. The Rise of Skywalker shows a certain disdain for Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi while trying to be a fan-obsessive's dream. Every major question posed by Abrams' last film, The Force Awakens, is addressed, and every character under the Star Wars sun makes at least a minor appearance, no matter how nonsensically.
The Rise of Skywalker doesn't have time for sense, even in its opening crawl, which makes the rather weird and unexpected claim that SPOILER ALERT, EVEN THOUGH IT'S NOT A SPOILER TO ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN PAYING THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF ATTENTION Emperor Palpatine is alive. No, it makes absolutely no sense. Yes, it comes completely out of the blue. But mostly this development comes because The Rise of Skywalker turns out to be, without much apology, largely a remake of Return of the Jedi.
Is that a surprise? The Force Awakens took its rhythms, cues and story structure from the original Star Wars, and now for the third film in this trilogy, Abrams returns to the originals and revises them even while keeping the structures largely the same. The sin in the director's mind seems to be that Rian Johnson and Lucasfilm's own producers were eager to take the story -- and the mythologies -- in new directions with The Last Jedi, which made both fans and Abrams uncomfortable.
So here is a return to fan-driven form, with many of the stylistic cues from George Lucas's films (bold screen wipes to transition scenes; longer, carefully composed shots) gone even while returning to those films' story beats: It seems Abrams' vision was to essentially remake the Star Wars trilogy for a new generation, and that may well be what many fans wanted, but everything about this new set of films lacks a sense of originality, a vital sense of purpose.
Nothing about The Rise of Skywalker remedies that. While it obliges in a fan-driven desire to trot out old characters (POSSIBLE VERY MINOR SPOILERS HERE!) – Look, there's Lando Calrissian! Oh, it's Wicket the Ewok! Hey, wow, it's ... wait? How is he back? – it also introduces new ones astonishingly late in the game: Plot-wise, they can serve absolutely no purpose, except to provide another level of pop-culture meta-knowingness to the proceedings: Wow, that's Richard E. Grant! Which famous actress is that under that mask? Let's stay for the credits to find out!
Meanwhile, because the Death Star or something like it has now appeared in fully one-third of Star Wars films, there's a new sinister weapon here, also capable of destroying planets, also capable of taking over the entire galaxy, so it's something that our gang of rebels must find a way to destroy MINOR SPOILER ALERT and, guess what? It's got a weakness! While they go about doing that, the nominal main character of these last three movies, Rey (Daisy Ridley, as committed as ever) is off to a showdown with the two main villains, the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). The latter continues to communicate with Rey through a very confusing sort of ESP that apparently none of these latest screenwriters seems to understand makes the on-screen action all but unintelligible.
There's one thing to be said for The Rise of Skywalker, which is that it moves at (force) lightning speed. It never slows down, never worries that maybe it should take some time to help the audience establish where and why we are, just keeps moving, moving, moving like a magician whose distractions and redirections are both the entertainment and the lie -- if The Rise of Skywalker slowed down for even a moment, audiences might start questioning its own answers.
This is especially true for the movie's biggest revelation, which I won't even hint at here, except to say that it's best not to dwell on it, because it is the shaky foundation upon which the entire trilogy is based, and it's both a letdown and a cheat. When this all-important plot point is explained, it is not a shock, nor is it particularly enlightening or informative. Like all of this "final" trilogy, it simply is, and the ramifications of it are given little consequence.
Meanwhile, The Rise of Skywalker gives top billing not to Ridley but to Carrie Fisher who, of course, died in 2016, so is treated with saintly reverence here. All of her scenes are made up of shots filmed for, but not used in, previous films, so her interactions with other cast members make The Rise of Skywalker feel a little like Steve Martin's Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, where he generates laughs by interacting with old movies. The shots of Fisher in The Rise of Skywalker have no humor, but feel just as strange and ill-fitting. All but one or two of Fisher's lines are throwaways, so the film's attempt to make her a leading character seem – sorry for the pun – forced.
To its real credit, The Rise of Skywalker doesn't feel as clumsy or stilted as the first two prequels, but those films had a clear advantage that this film doesn't: They told a cohesive story, one with a clear protagonist and a thematic purpose as Lucas tried, perhaps ineffectively, to chart the rise of evil and the beginnings of a great war.
None of the films of this trilogy had that clear spirit, though in retrospect The Last Jedi tried hard to find that center. But it did not hold. The Rise of Skywalker finishes a story that never really needed to be told, that never figured out its central purpose. As a way to finish a rather meaningless set of films, it does its job. It is never dull, never entirely uninteresting. It is well-produced, mostly well-acted, and will satisfy those fans who have wanted to know the answers to the minor questions these movies have posed.
So, it's the end of this story, at long last. The end of a cycle of films that endlessly coils in on itself, a cinematic Möbius strip that keeps repeating and coming back around to the same place, the same planets of sand and ice and water, the same space battles, the same friendly droids, the same showdowns, the same mystical reverence of the Force, the same John Williams music, the same tunic-clad heroes and hooded villains, the same sense that Star Wars will never, ever end.
And if you're a certain kind of fan, or a certain kind of executive at The Walt Disney Company, that's exactly how you like it.
Viewed December 19, 2019 -- ArcLight Hollywood
2000
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