Star Wars: Episode IX—The Rise of Skywalker

I went into Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker completely blind. I deleted all of my social media, shut myself into my school work for finals, and only watched The Mandalorian or Star Wars: The Clone Wars series when I needed a break. I wanted to completely immerse myself within the image Disney wished to project for their Star Wars universe, but I also wanted to see this film without anyone’s personal distortions. The notorious rage inflamed by Star Wars: The Last Jedi was too concussive for me to ever return to that film without bias. Most of that hate is fake—to the point where rumors sparked of Russian bots starting it in the first place. Sure, it is a rough watch, and it ruined the shining fantasy of a classic story, but I am sick and tired of hearing it dragged through the mud. I know people will do the same for this film, because they want to be heard and they want to seem important, which is why I avoided all of this by shutting myself out of the internet. There were even clips leaked weeks in advance that were spread across Instagram and Twitter to start this hate before the film even had a chance to speak for itself in theaters. So instead of ruining it for myself, I decided to experience the story the way it should be watched: fresh, new, and on its own. On the big screen.

So… what did I think of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker? It’s good. Not great, but good.

What this film does best is smooth out all the dents and cracks left behind by Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The core team of characters develop with each other—they do not branch off to do their own useless subplots on meaningless planets. They stick together, which eventually becomes the theme of the entire story. Rey’s backstory is rewritten to be more engaging, Finn offers a lot of emotional moments, Poe is level headed and hilarious, and Leia is… amazing. It felt like Carrie Fisher was still alive, the clips they added into the film were fantastic. There were even newer additions to the crew, such as C3-PO and Lando, that offered a lot of fun. The sad part about this course correction is that Rose is trampled by the supporting cast and left in the dust. She has enough lines to not be considered an extra, but it is sad for the actress to be ridiculed so long and not even have a second chance to prove herself. This film finds every way to not reference the last film, meaning it moves forward at full speed (i.e. there is one line about Snoke, then he is never mentioned again). There is no regard for wondering what happened in the past because there are too many things happening in the now. It offers enough entertainment to fill the time, but it leads to the one true problem that the production of The Rise of Skywalker has.

The editing killed the story. The writers bit off more than they could chew—and they had to add a lot more changes to satisfy the fans angry from The Last Jedi—which could only amount to each scene being edited down more and more to fit the entire film within 2-and-a-half-hours. There is too much to show in far too little time, and the final product is a very rough cut of what it used to be. So many characters and emotional scenes are lost in the noise because this film has no time to let the audience sit and bask in the moment, which is a problem when it needs that audience to care about what is happening. I liked a lot of the arcs and set pieces I was seeing, but I did not care about a single resolution or character goal. It was all crashing in on itself, stumbling over the previous scene, and as soon as it was able to get up the audience was already being shown the next scene. The pace of this film is at break-neck speed, and my eyes started to hurt after the characters traveled to four different planets within ten minutes. It is constantly going and going and going, dropping subplots left and right in order to make it to the finish line.

An invisible issue that has permeated Disney’s films took center stage in this final episode. This film was produced, funded, written, and directed by men, but Disney wants its product too look progressive and diverse—so they hire 80% of the extras to be women, and if they are wearing helmets, they give them a line to prove that they are women. “And you know what? Let’s throw in two actresses with no character-names together in the last scene to kiss, and then the surrounding female extras cheer around them.” Great idea, except these are not characters, they are cardboard cutouts on puppet strings. This is not diversity, nor is it representation. It is a façade that Disney has played for the past decade and it was egregious in this film. There is one scene where Poe and Finn get in a shootout with stormtroopers, and all of them are shouting clear, singular lines to prove that all of them are female actresses, but so what? They do not have names, and are never seen again. The crew behind the camera is all men, a vast majority of the core cast is men, so Disney tried to rebalance it by overflowing the screen with forgettable female characters that do nothing. That is “plastic representation,” when they cast women in male-written roles expecting it to be good enough. This excuse is prevalent in Disney, and it beats this film in the head with a club.

In all honesty, J.J. Abrams had no intention to come back to Star Wars after The Force Awakens. He was the emergency contact after the shipwreck of The Last Jedi, and his job was to quite literally right the ship and anchor it in the harbor. Did he succeed? Yeah, he actually did it. There is enough magic and energy in this film for kids today to experience the joy of seeing Star Wars on the big screen. There are elements from the TV Shows and all the preceding films, bringing the conclusion all together and focusing on the series’ legacy. He did all of this and succeeded in not messing up the story. So, applause to you J.J. Abrams, a worthy golf-clap to you. Now take off your cap before the ship can set sail again.

Overall, most episodes in the Skywalker Saga are not that good. These new additions by Disney were never going to be as impactful or innovative as the original films—mainly because they were reboot-sequels for money. Looking at the technical work behind The Rise of Skywalker, the effects are mind-melting, the action is fast paced, and the banter is snappy. The Achilles heel of this film is the break-neck editing; it prevents any of these scenes from being remembered, and it does too much too late. The story is enjoyable, the main characters are fun, but I have no intention of ever watching this again.

Story Rating: 6/10

Character Rating: 6/10