I’ve never liked reviewing a film right when it comes out. You get caught up in the hype whether you like it or not, swallowed into the propellers of either the always positive marketing machine or the always negative social media rage engine, both of which are revving at full speed. So your review suffers because you can’t stay impartial in that sort of environment. It’s like trying to judge the power of a hurricane while standing in the eye of the storm. I saw this movie a few years ago. I won’t say that I “watched” it because that wouldn’t be accurate.
I played it on a streaming service and then sort of half glanced at the screen. Now, in the interest of science, I’m going to watch it again because I feel it’s a good example of what I like to call “advertiser friendly corporate content.” This is the sort of movie that has an insultingly low opinion of its audience. It’s cynical, insincere, soulless, lazy, and ultimately empty. It’s to cinema what school cafeteria food is to cuisine.
Before I begin my review of this particularly nutty turd I’d like to mention a few of the many thoughts I have about the Star Wars franchise itself because I think people reading this should know where I’m coming from.
First, and most importantly. I’m not a huge fan of Star Wars. I can appreciate the movies for what they are, but that’s about it. It always just seemed to me like the entire series was intended as a bunch of toy commercials, and nothing George Lucas or Disney has done in the last forty-six years has changed my mind. The first one, New Hope, was a decent homage to Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. The second one, Empire Strikes Back, was surprisingly well thought out for what it was. After that, it kind of went downhill. Return of the Jedi is an openly and shamelessly crass crowd pleaser that is more interested in giving the fans what they want rather than telling a story, or did you really think Carrie Fisher was wearing that metal bikini because it was all part of George Lucas’ grand artistic vision? Toss in the fact that the Special Editions are the only versions of the originals available, that the prequels are crap, and that I’m just too damn old to care about the sequels, and there you have it. Star Wars is just a big “meh” to me.
Secondly, I don’t think Disney ruined Star Wars. You know who ruined Star Wars? George Lucas. Not only did he make the dull-as-dog shit prequels, he re-edited all the original films into utter garbage. Return of the Jedi, which had always been my favorite of the originals, is nigh unwatchable now. Disney may have done a lot of things wrong, but they didn’t make it so that you can never watch your beloved childhood favorites again unless you find some low resolution DVDs or illegally download some fan-made “de-specialized” restorations.
Thirdly, while I don’t really like it, I also don’t hate the much maligned The Last Jedi. I just find it confusing that anyone would have made it. It’s so different from Force Awakens that all the characters seem like different people. Poe, for example, came off like a natural leader in Force. Someone who was happy-go-lucky, confident, respected and charming. Here he comes off as a hot-headed, paranoid, angry, lackey. Finn, who played a man haunted by his past and trying to find meaning and courage in his life, is reduced to bumbling comedic relief. Rey and Kylo Renn have a bit of growth I suppose, but they don’t really do much with it. She’s still plucky and he’s still evil. The only character that I found interesting was Luke Skywalker.
I’ve seen a bunch of reviews complaining that he’s too dark, but if you actually paid attention to the end of Return of the Jedi you’ll remember that he allowed the dark side of the force to take hold of him in order to beat Vader. So the movie acknowledges that it’s still there inside of him like cancer, and he can’t get rid of it. So it makes sense that he feels disconnected from the force and wants to stay away from people.
Lastly, I don’t really understand the Star Wars fandom. I go on Twitter or YouTube and I see post after post and video after video of people doing nothing but complain about how much they hate these movies. Yet, they still watch the damn things. Do you know when I gave up on Star Wars? Summer of 1998 when The Phantom Menace came out. I watched that slow dull piece of shit, then walked out of the theater and thought “I’m done.” and that was that. I don’t think I’ve ever watched Attack of the Clones all the way through, and I’ve only seen “Revenge of the Sith” once in theaters because someone paid for my ticket. I’ll admit that I was a little bit excited for Force Awakens just because Lucas wasn’t making it, and to be honest I found the film enjoyable. It’s certainly a lot better than the prequels. Then, when I watched The Last Jedi and realized the series was going downhill again I thought “Huh… how about that? I’m done again.” and this time it’s permanent.
Which brings us to “Rise of Skywalker.”
Now, while I’m still of the opinion that this is better than any of the prequels, this um… “movie” is certainly a test of my conviction. Rise of Skywalker is the equivalent of what happens when parents get tired of their kid whining and just let them eat ice cream for breakfast. It’s not good for anyone in the long run but you’ve gotten to a point where you just don’t care anymore. I mean, as bad as Last Jedi was at least it had some integrity. It attempted to do something different and original. It was stupid and got everything wrong, but it did have some semblance of a vision.
“Rise of Skywalker” is just an exercise in tossing as much fan service and nostalgia baiting at the screen as possible in order to get the audience to clap like seals. I mean, Christ on cracker, how hard it is to make a movie about Space Muppets? This isn’t the Gordian Knot. This isn’t Sisyphus and the rock. This isn’t the Riddle of the Sphynx. You have hundreds of millions of dollars to throw at these movies and THIS is what you come up with? If you can’t succeed at making movies with all the money and resources in the world at your disposal, then pack up your bags and go work for a dog food company. Maybe that’d be more your speed, although “dog food” is probably a good description for what passes as cinema in Hollywood these days.
Oh yeah! I’m supposed to review this movie, not just roast it.
So what’s the story Jeremy?
Somehow, Palpatine returned! Because Last Jedi was so badly received, Lucafilm and Disney backpedaled like maniacs and let J.J. Abrams back in the director’s seat. Like him or not, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for the poor guy as he had to untangle the mess left by Ryan Johnson. So Rise ends up feeling more like an assembly of quickly written scenes than an actual cohesive film. I wouldn’t be surprised if a LOT of people worked on the script all at once.
Basically, the story is this: Palpatine is still alive and wants to give a massively powerful fleet of Star Destroyers to Kylo Ren in exchange for him killing Rey. Meanwhile, Rey and her friends are trying to find out where the Emperor’s planet is so they can destroy the fleet before it’s sent out.
You know the rest.
Ten thoughts I had while watching the movie
#1 – The movie’s first ten minutes set the dreadful tone for the rest of this garbage. We open with Kylo Ren killing a bunch of people so he can get a mysterious “thing” and then he goes to a planet where discovers that Emperor Palpatine is still alive. Then we have Poe and Finn meeting up with some nameless alien on an ice version of cloud city so they can get a “Message for Leia” which immediately turns into a chase scene that is so loud and frenetic that I actually started to become bored. Then we’re with Rey as she’s being trained in the force by Leia. None of these scenes are set up in any way. None of these scenes are allowed room to breathe. They just sort of happen and then they’re over.
#2 – I actually liked one thing in this movie. There’s a scene where Rey, Poe, and Finn are on this planet celebrating a festival, and for one brief moment it felt like the movie was coming alive. Most of the film feels like set-pieces. There’s no sense that any of it inhabits a bigger world. However, during these too-short festival scene I was almost charmed.
#3 – The Carrie Fisher scenes feel downright ghoulish. It’s like Disney wouldn’t allow her the dignity of dying so they resurrected as a CGI puppet spouting dialogue from deleted scenes she’d filmed for another movie. I know it’s been done before, but it felt particularly obscene here.
#4 – The majority of the dialogue in this movie is so bad and SO inauthentic. So much of it is comprised of sitcom level of quips and zingers that make you groan every time someone says something supposedly funny.
#5 – The plot for this movie makes zero sense. If Palpatine was still alive after all these years and had all these superweapons at his disposal, he would have used them a long time ago. Also, the Resistance was shown to be absolutely decimated in Last Jedi. So even if they did find Exegol and Palpatine’s fleet, there’s not much they could do about it. As for the whole subplot of The Emperor wanting to pass on his spirit into a new body, that doesn’t make any damn sense either because why not do it to Kylo? He’s got a powerful force user RIGHT THERE in front of him.
#6 – The fact that Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter is one of the only really interesting things about the movie. A lot of fanboys hated the Rey Palpatine reveal but, seriously, who else could she have been? Her character was obviously set up to be related to someone the audience would be familiar with. She couldn’t be Han and Leia’s daughter because Han didn’t even know her. She couldn’t be Luke’s daughter because he didn’t have a clue who she was either. She couldn’t be Kenobi’s granddaughter because he never had children. This only really left Palpatine as the only reveal that would make the audience gasp in surprise. Also, and I hate to use this logic, but Rey and Palpatine both have British accents and Star Wars isn’t the smartest of franchises, sooooo…
#7 – One of Disney’s most grievous sins when dealing with Star Wars is that they didn’t want to make a sequel trilogy so much as create a never ending franchise. It’s kind of obvious that by the time Rise of Skywalker came out they were saving the “A” material for The Mandalorian.
#8 – I wasn’t bothered by the new force powers, like force healing. I’m a veteran of the Christopher Reeves Superman films. Remember when he tried to stop one of the bad guys by throwing the big S on his costume at him?
#9 – Unlike the majority of Twitter, I’m not bothered by the fact that Rey is overpowered, so much as by the fact that her character seems to have no arc and no direction. She doesn’t take a journey, so much as she is dragged on a journey by other people. By the end she’s almost at the exact same place where she began.
#10 – Rise of Skywalker’s ending doubles and even triples down on what I think made the prequels suck. LOTS of special effects everywhere on screen, all honking for your attention. People screaming generic action cliche action movie dialogue. A huge fleet of ships is attacking another huge fleet of ships. My finger hovering over the fast-forward button. I was so thankful that this nonsense was intercut with scenes showing Rey and Kylo Ren fighting The Emperor. Yes, it was pure cheese, but at least it was something I could recognize as “film” and not just a bunch of poor actors being drowned in CGI. Ian McDiarmid is a treasure.
Was it actually bad?
Hell yes it was bad! This is the worst kind of Hollywood garbage. Empty entertainment whose biggest ambition is to help the audience pass the time. However, I will say this: While I didn’t feel much of anything watching this stupid thing, I did feel a wave of sadness wash over me as the credits rolled. I’m not joking. I felt incredibly sad, because I realized that this is the last time I will ever watch a Star Wars movie. Oh, I’m sure they’ll keep making them, but I won’t be watching them. Nostalgia can be a poison. Life is not about looking back all the time and trying to relive your childhood. That’s lost forever to time.
Life is about moving forward and having new adventures, living new happy moments, and discovering new things to love. What I see, behind all those angry reviews on YouTube and Twitter is a bunch of adults who are trying to feel the same way they did when they were kids, and then being horribly disappointed when they don’t. Guys, that time of your life is over and I beg of you to just let it go. Star Wars has been pretty much dead since 1997 when Lucas forced the Special Editions on everyone. It didn’t get better from there. When Disney bought the franchise the whole thing had already been on a long slow decline for almost twenty years. It’s not going to get better. Lucas killed it and Disney doesn’t know how to save it. Time to move on.
