‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ non-spoiler review
It’s that time again, time for the entire internet to collectively lose its mind over a Star Wars movie. Prepare for the endless bombardment of bloggers and YouTubers eagerly awaiting their chance to tell you how it’s either the greatest thing ever made or the worst piece of garbage they’ve ever seen. Get excited to fight with people on social media for liking or not liking this movie and prepare to defend your opinion in comments sections everywhere like you’re an attorney on a murder trial. Ugh. Remember when movies were fun?
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker marks the conclusion of the generation-spanning Skywalker saga, a series that contains some of the most beloved and most loathed films in each of its decades. With this movie, director J.J. Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio had to tap dance over the landmines of angry internet fans, manage the expectations of an entertainment overlord studio and conclude a story that spans generations—not exactly an easy task. And they had to do all this on the heels of one of the most divisive films in recent memory, The Last Jedi, which I actually really liked.
The Rise of Skywalker is not playing around and dives headfirst into the plot from the second the opening crawl disappears from the screen. Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) has become more evil and powerful in the dark side. At the same time, Rey (Daisy Ridley) has been training as a Jedi and has become even more powerful with the force. The Resistance isn’t exactly thriving, but they’ve pieced themselves back together and they’re ready to take on the First Order, but first, there are MacGuffins to hunt, mystery boxes to open and even badder bad guys to reveal themselves. I don’t feel like it’s a spoiler to say that Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) plays a significant role in the story considering so much of the marketing has prominently featured him.
This time it’s bigger, filled with more action, and moving at a breakneck pace that rips some big bandaids off early to keep the plot rolling. Don’t like what happened in this scene? Doesn’t matter! We’re moving on at light speed to the next one! In many ways, it feels like we get a condensed version of what Abrams would have done with Episode VIII before we can move on to the deeper moments we need in Episode IX. Is there pandering and lazy fan service, absolutely! Does that completely ruin the movie? Not to me.
Let me explain.
I might be in a weird position because I thoroughly enjoyed both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. I’ve always liked Star Wars, but I wasn’t as precious about it as some of the fanbase. The original trilogy was something I watched on VHS and by the time I was old enough to see it in theaters, all we had was an auteur gone mad with power and technology. This new trilogy brought the franchise back to the prestige level that had been tarnished by the wooden acting and excessive CGI flips of the prequels. TFA made Star Wars magical again, even if that magic felt a little too familiar at times.
Then we got The Last Jedi, which sought to shake this franchise up and challenge the expectations we’d all settled comfortably into over the years. It was far from perfect, but it moved things forward, it had a vision—even when that vision didn’t seem to include a storyline for Finn (John Boyega) who had been the emotional heart of the first movie. While critics applauded the new direction, a lot of hardcore fans were…less enthused. In short, people lost their shit. The same fanbase that chided TFA for being a rehash had a visceral reaction when Rian Johnson’s film strayed too far from the formula, and Disney had to respond. So when it came time to conclude the new trilogy, they were, understandably, more cautious, getting rid of original director Colin Trevorrow and going back to the Abrams nostalgia well in an attempt to “fix” the direction of the franchise.
And oh, is it evident they wanted to reverse a lot of Johnson’s choices! Johnson, like George Lucas, seemed to be of the viewpoint that you make the movie you want to make and give less weight to fan demands, but Abrams is a fan service guy, and Disney apparently felt they needed to win back the favor of this sometimes-toxic fanbase by retconning out a few of the bigger holes Johnson knocked in the formula. Are you one of those fanboys who hated Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran)? Congratulations, she’s relegated to a background character here. Did you think Kylo Ren’s helmet was badass? Don’t worry, it’s reforged. Were you pissed that they promoted the Knights of Ren in marketing but then basically forgot about them? Rejoice, they’re here, too!
Abrams has always been the master of member berries and it seems like Disney felt that the best way to make its most temperamental fanboys happy was to give them a good old nostalgia blast. Hell, they even brought back Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) who is as smooth as ever, even if his inclusion doesn’t feel super necessary. The entire concept of bringing back Palpatine because you need some other big bad after Johnson killed off the last one feels like an unfortunate backtrack. I get that this is a conclusion to all nine Skywalker movies, so he fits the bill for a final boss, but it’s less about serving the story and more about showing people things they remember so they won’t be so mad at you for changing things last time. Thankfully, the most significant backtracks happen in the first 15 minutes, so you have time to get over it if you still want to enjoy the rest—and it’s absolutely possible to still enjoy the rest, even if a few of those early decisions really bug you.
The Rise of Skywalker gives us more humor than we’ve had previously, but it feels more natural to the situations than it might have in TLJ. Oscar Isaac is charming, even if he does feel a bit too much like Han Solo at times. The Finn/Poe/Rey dynamic is fun and I was glad to see Boyega getting more screen time again, since he is hands-down one of the biggest wins of this trilogy for me. Surprisingly, a lot of the best laughs come from C-3PO, who is genuinely likable and amusing in this film, a minor miracle in and of itself. Abrams is great at tapping into that part of your brain that remembers how you felt when you watched a fun adventure movie as a kid, and those fun parts feel a lot more in line with what you’d expect from a Star Wars movie. At times, the pandering and fan service can feel a little cowardly, but a lot of it is forgivable and it’s relatively easy to move on from as the story surges ahead.
When we do slow down a bit, it’s to explore the connection between Rey and Kylo Ren. Ridley has grown by leaps and bounds since TFA and she seems more confident and comfortable overall with every line. Driver is so much better than we even deserve in a Star Wars movie that it’s impossible to not be fully engaged in his scenes. He has a lot to do in TROS and he makes you feel lucky that an actor of his caliber is even involved. I’ve always thought he’s one of those rare actors who is so outrageously talented that he elevates the performances of those around him in every scene through some sort of talent gravitational lensing effect, and that’s the case here as well. As someone who loved Kylo Ren in TLJ, it was a huge relief to see that Abrams didn’t totally walk back the character’s journey, and Driver’s performance made the conclusion of Kylo Ren’s arc feel satisfying.
The Rise of Skywalker seems set on playing it safe, understandably so given the way people responded when Star Wars was willing to “let the past die” and take huge risks with the story. But, as we know from RuPaul’s Drag Race, safe doesn’t always win you the crown. Somewhere between all the hyperbole being screamed across the internet is the reality: the movie isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either. If you’re willing to go along for the ride, you can have a fun time with it, but if Star Wars is too close to your heart, too much a part of your identity, you might struggle to sit back and go on this adventure.
