“Always two there are; a master and an apprentice.” This established rule of the Sith order powered the dark side Force users for millennia until they destroyed both the Jedi order and the New Republic, taking over the galaxy of under the guise of the Galactic Empire. In its creation of the sequel trilogy to the Star Wars franchise, Disney and Lucasfilm has seemingly had no such organized idea of just who was in charge of mapping out the storyline for the set of three films and this decidedly un-Sithlike delegation of responsibility and order has created confusion on just what the Skywalker Saga timeline of Star Wars is and where it is headed. The final movie in this trilogy after 2015’s The Force Awakens and 2017’s The Last Jedi sees the return of the former’s director JJ Abrams, but The Rise of Skywalker does little to stabilize the franchise.
The Rise of Skywalker picks up after the events of The Last Jedi with startling news, the infamous former Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) has seemingly rose from the dead and is threatening the galaxy once more. Both Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Rey (Daisy Ridley) are determined to find him and the end the threat he poses to both of their respective sides, the First Order and the Resistance. As Rey leaves her Jedi training with General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and embarks to find the Emperor’s hidden Sith planet in the Unknown Regions along with Finn (John Boyega), Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac), and Chewbacca, she’ll be forced to finally confront the mysterious of her past and the demons inside her it may awaken.
Judged purely on its own merits, The Rise of Skywalker is an adequately entertaining episode in the Star Wars saga. It starts off at a frenetic pace which continues throughout its first act, immediately thrusting the audience into the characters’ journey searching for the Sith Wayfinder that will lead to the reanimated Emperor’s location. The film cuts from locale to locale, introducing and reintroducing character after character with plenty of action scenes interspersed. It is not until the last half of the film where things slow down and the film settles into itself when we spend more intimate time with the characters, exploring their stories. In its first six films, the Star Wars universe came to be known for its expansive world building, always introducing viewers to new worlds and characters and thankfully, that returns in this film. While there are some callbacks to the worlds of previous journeys, most of the time spent is in newly introduced ones with new creatures that signal some attempts at creativity. One visual sequence that stands out was the introduction of hyperspace skipping which resulted in some fantastic shots of the Millennium Falcon quickly jumping in and out of different locales with varying terrains.
In terms of The Rise of Skywalker‘s handling of its characters, the results are a mixed bag. Rey’s journey toward finding herself resumes after we learn that the answers she received during The Last Jedi are incorrect (more on that below), but when we learn the truth about her lineage the reveal feels anticlimactic and somewhat predictable (it had been, in fact, predicted on the internet years ago). Rey also continues a mastery of force powers that defies established Star Wars mythos and has been a point of contention among fans. She displays new Force powers we’ve never seen before which the films have failed to properly set up and assist in making feel believable. The accusations of Rey being a Mary Sue are uncomfortable because so many of them have a tinge of sexism, but when a character is imbued with such fantastical abilities with no explanation and no defined struggle or obstacles in obtaining them complaints about them being overpowered to the point of no longer being compelling are inevitable and fair. Her force connection to Kylo Ren continues here and while the end of their arc together is somewhat sweet, that also comes off as fan service in the end. Kylo Ren’s continued internal conflict over his fall to the dark side and death of his father is well-handled, culminating in a greatly executed scene following his battle with Rey on Endor. Finn and Poe are great in the film, returning to the adventure portion of Star Wars after The Last Jedi focused more on their character growth and development. While the two are given plenty of action scenes, they are still given plenty of growing to do as characters as both continue to bloom as leaders in the Resistance, with their story arcs perfectly handled and depicted onscreen. The return of the Emperor falls flat and feels more like pandering and desperate course correcting than anything compelling. His survival and place within the pre-established story are never explained and simply accepted, with the hope that the simple satisfaction of seeing him again will distract from it.
But in the era of shared universes and ever-increasing film franchises, it is impossible to separate this film from its predecessors as the end of the current Star Wars sequel trilogy and assess the film in isolation, isn’t it? And on that front, watching the first half of The Rise of Skywalker is like watching a franchise at war with itself. Coming off the heels of the controversy surrounding The Last Jedi, this film completely reverses that film’s subversion of expectations and message about carving new legacies by building on the ones of old and leans fully into callbacks and nostalgia of the beloved films that preceded it in order to evoke emotion and feeling from its audience. The decision to paper over The Last Jedi contributes heavily to how overstuffed and disjointed the beginning of the film feels until it hits its stride deeper into the story. The decision to turn away from the themes of the second film of this current trilogy is already the source of great consternation between those who feel The Rise of Skywalker would have been better off continuing on the path set by The Last Jedi and those that feel the latter film upended well established Star Wars lore and mythos. I am a fan of the The Last Jedi’s themes surrounding sacrifice, redemption, legacy vs. progression, how to be a leader, and its commentary on the military industrial complex, but also recognize how it turned away from the threads established in The Force Awakens and how The Rise of Skywalker has now rendered almost completely irrelevant. As the saying goes, one cannot serve two masters and with the disjointed trilogy arc that has now been set by the back and forth between director JJ Abrams’ stories in films one and three in this trilogy with a much different story from director Rian Johnson sandwiched in-between, this generation of Star Wars films has suffered as a result.
My view of how great cinema is made leans toward auteurs; unique visionaries in the director’s chair creating films that are of their own eyes and creativity. However, when attempting to make a successful franchise or series of movies, it is important that lines are drawn and plans are made to ensure cohesion, even if individual filmmakers are allowed to color within those lines to their hearts content. In having no general outline for the overarching story and being forced to course correct and drench the film in nostalgia in an effort to quell a fan uprising, the end result is a massive disservice against both Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams. It is now clear that the decision made by Disney and Lucasfilm to allow each director in this sequel trilogy to write their own film with no regard for what came before or would come after has made it less than the sum of its parts. The Rise of Skywalker on its own is a pleasant Star Wars film with some satisfying conclusions for characters we’ve come to know and love; feeling much like Return of the Jedi for this particular era. Still, its flaws draw attention to how mismanaged Disney Star Wars has been on the whole, unable to effectively use nostalgia to Jedi mind trick it away.
Image: The Walt Disney Company
