Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker Review

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker Review

We’ve made it to the end of my Star Wars review series. The Mandalorian & Grogu hits theaters this week. That means we’re reviewing the last Star Wars movie we got, The Rise of Skywalker. This is an interesting one that has caused all sorts of debates since it was released in December 2019. What do I think about it? Let’s get started! 

The Good

I will say this about the movie, as the concluding chapter for the sequel trilogy and the Skywalker Saga this film has a lot of issues. And we’ll talk about those issues later on. But as a movie in it of itself, Rise of Skywalker is a fairly entertaining movie. The movie has a little bit of a setup with Kylo Ren and Palpatine and then we hop straight into the action. There’s this chase with Finn, Poe, and Chewie that’s exciting. It goes from there to Rey training. There’s a little bit more exposition and then our heroes are off on their mission to stop Palpatine. The movie moves quickly from plot point to plot point. There’s not too long of gaps between the action scenes. On a story level, this movie is a total mess but as a Star Wars movie I think it’s entertaining. You can criticize JJ Abrams for a number of things. But one of the things that I think he’s always been great at is making roller coaster ride movies. Once his movies get started they never let up until the credits roll. That’s a positive about this film, it’s a positive about The Force Awakens, and it’s a positive about his Star Trek films. 

Another thing about the film, it’s a Star Wars movie so the production quality of the film is great. Disney and Lucasfilm had a lot of money to throw at this movie and in terms of the CGI and production design it looks very cool. One of the things that I like about the sequel trilogy is that with so many of the sets being practical it makes the movie feel bigger. With the prequels, George Lucas had such a focus on CGI and green screens. That by the time you get to Revenge of the Sith, none of it looks real and that’s frustrating. You watch the sequels and JJ Abrams and these teams clearly built out these sets and filmed the scenes on these sets. When Finn and Poe get captured by the First Order and they’re on the First Order ship it feels like John Boyega and Oscar Isaac are actually on these sets running around and shooting Stormtroopers. When they do the big CGI fights in the third act, it’s believable and it looks real. 

Finally, I really do like these characters and the actors playing these characters. The stand out for me would be Adam Driver. Given Kylo Ren’s character arc and him having to play the evil Kylo Ren in the first half then having to play Ben Solo in the back half you buy into that performance. What’s so great about the performance is that he’s able to emote so much with his eyes. If you watch the movie, Driver’s last line of dialogue is like an hour before the movie ends. His last line of dialogue happens when he reunites with Han Solo, despite having another 10-15 minutes of screentime. When he becomes Ben Solo, you buy into it because he’s able to communicate so much with his eyes and body language. The way that he moves as Ren compared to Ben (that rhymes) feels different. Beyond that, I like that in this movie we get Rey, Finn, and Poe together. Rey and Poe first met at the end of The Last Jedi. Because of the plot of the film, Poe isn’t present in much of The Force Awakens. In The Last Jedi, the three of them are all on their own in that film. In this film you see the dynamic between the three of them. Rey and Poe have this banter going on throughout the film, where clearly they’re annoyed by each other but they also respect each other. They did the best they could with the usage of Carrie Fisher. If you don’t remember, she died before they filmed the movie. They used deleted footage from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi for this movie. You can tell at points that Fisher was sadly never on set. But for the most part, they did a really good job of having Leia be a prominent character in this film. 

The Bad

Unfortunately, at the end of the Skywalker Saga and the sequel trilogy this movie is a massive disappointment. The film’s faults are a victim of the sequel trilogy as a whole. Where it’s well documented by the actors themselves and so clear watching this trilogy, that Disney did not have a plan. They were making everything up as they went along and because of that you get these messy trilogy. What Rian Johnson did with The Last Jedi, he created a film that subverted expectations but in the wrong way. He polarized the Star Wars fanbase because of the decisions he made. Because that film was so polarizing, they of course corrected it with Rise of Skywalker and you can tell. Everything in this movie feels like it was set up in The Force Awakens, but none of what Johnson did is really present in this film. You get a movie that’s messy, it’s clunky, it’s rushed, it’s frustrating, and it’s disappointing as the concluding chapter in the Skywalker Saga. I think a lot of the frustration and disappointment comes from the fact that this movie released the same year as Avengers: Endgame. Both movies were designed to close out their respective sagas. Almost everybody would agree that Endgame did the better job of closing out that saga and delivered a more satisfying conclusion. You watch Rise of Skywalker, and it has all of those moments but none of the hard work or pay off that made Endgame great and so special. 

More specifically, what didn’t work about the film. The biggest thing that stuck out to me re-watching the film was the amount of wasted potential and frustrating moments. There’s big examples of this throughout the movie. But the ones that frustrated me the most were the ones with Finn and Poe. The movie attempts to give both of them these big moments that are supposed to feel like the culmination of their characters arc but don’t. In The Force Awakens, they established this great character that’s something different. He was a Stormtrooper that was done with the evil of the first order and decided to join the Resistance to stop them. That’s a great character arc where Finn can be this Spartacus type character. But Rian Johnson wasn’t interested in telling Finn’s story, so they sidelined him for that film. With this movie they introduce this idea that Finn’s choice sparked this revolution within the First Order and other Stormtroopers left. That should be this powerful moment that has weight when you realize what Finn’s choice did. Since the trilogy wasn’t planned out, that moment doesn’t have the same emotional punch that it should. Beyond that, when Leia dies in the film she promotes Poe to general. You can see how Poe being the new general is a nice continuation of this character arc. But the film rushes through that and so once again, it doesn’t have that emotional weight that it should. They bring back Emperor Palpatine as this the final film in the Skywalker Saga. I don’t mind that he was brought back, Palpatine was a big part of the prequels and original trilogy. So the fact that he’s the big bad of the concluding chapter isn’t an issue for me. What is an issue for me, is that it doesn’t really feel set up at all. There was nothing in The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi that teased Palpatine returning. This is so relevant with the fact that Poe literally says the line “somehow Palpatine has returned”. That right there is even more proof that Lucasfilm had no plan for this trilogy. That’s what’s so frustrating about this film. You can see all of the good ideas that they had that they completely wasted. 

Also, this film is the ultimate victim of Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy not having a plan for this trilogy. It’s been said before but each entry in this film feels like it undoes everything that previous film did. The Last Jedi undoes everything in The Force Awakens, and The Rise of Skywalker undoes everything in The Last Jedi. One of the most polarizing aspects of The Last Jedi was how Rian Johnson treated Luke. That film establishes Luke as this loner off on an island and the reason is that he failed Kylo Ren and failed to rebuild the Jedi. They deconstructed Luke and made him this grumpy old man. They subverted expectations also by having Luke throw the lightsaber off the cliff, why? Because it surprises the audiences, but just because it surprises the audience doesn’t make it the best choice. So with this film, you get this whole sequence of Rey on Luke’s island. There’s some interesting ideas in there but it starts off with Luke telling Rey “you shouldn’t treat a Jedi’s weapon like this”. It’s so hypocritical of Luke to say that at that moment. It feels like it was included by JJ Abrams because he didn’t like The Last Jedi and the choices Rian Johnson made. Prior to this film coming out, I believe Abrams and Johnson were having a little bit of beef on Twitter discussing the differences in The Last Jedi and this film. 

The other thing here is with this movie, I think the film was ultimately hurt due to releasing the same year as Endgame. For the obvious reason, Rise of Skywalker is the obvious point of comparison. Both films were designed to close out their respective franchises and pretty much everybody thinks that Endgame did it better. Rise of Skywalker tries to have those moments of cheering the same way that Endgame but didn’t do the work. Both movies use the classic trope of “here comes the Calvary”. When Endgame did it, it was this big cheering moment that got everybody excited. Everybody that has seen that movie claps and cheers whenever Doctor Strange’s portals start to open and you hear Sam Wilson say “on your left”. The reason why that moment worked so well was because the entire plot of Endgame was building up to that moment so the payoff was great. Rise of Skywalker tries to do something similar with Lando recruiting people but utterly fails at it. There’s one line of dialogue in this film that establishes Lando is off to get help but it’s not brought up again and lacks the emotional umph because the film had to rush through so many things. Another example comes in the third act where Palpatine goes “I Am All the Sith” and then Rey responds with “I Am All the Jedi”. Which is the exact same dialogue that Iron Man and Thanos exchanged in Endgame. So there’s multiple points in this film that draw the obvious comparison to Endgame but utterly fails at building to those moments the way that the MCU did for 11 years. 

Finally, there’s some really lazy and stupid ideas and moments in this film that pull you out of the film. There’s really three big moments that come to mind here. First up, the idea of General Hux being a spy within the First Order is terrible. You can see that they wanted to give Hux redemption but it doesn’t work at all. Once again, had the film or the trilogy teased this idea of Hux turning good then the payoff here could’ve worked. But it’s this idea introduced at the beginning of the movie in a line of dialogue and by the time you get to the reveal the audience has completely forgotten about it. Second, the idea of force healing makes no sense in the world of Star Wars. Why in the 9th and final film in the Skywalker Saga are we just now introducing the idea of force healing? Did Rey invent force healing? Did Luke discover it and taught Rey about it at some point? I don’t know. You immediately go back to the amount of Jedi and people that could’ve been saved if this happened. Qui-Qon Jin could’ve lived through the prequels. Order 66 could’ve been reversed if there was force healing. You can go through every single time a character had died they could’ve been brought back by force healing. I remember watching this movie opening night and seeing the sequence when Rey force heals that alien creature and thinking “this is stupid”. Third, Rey calling herself a Skywalker I don’t think works at all. Once again, you can see where they were going with that. It’s the Skywalker Saga so ending the trilogy with a new Skywalker makes enough sense. But in the context of the trilogy, Luke was sort of an asshole to Rey, so why should she want his name? The logic of it based on the information we got in this trilogy makes absolutely no sense. 

Final Thoughts: Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker is one of the most disappointing blockbusters of the last 10 years. This should’ve been an easy win for the Star Wars saga and closing out this Saga with a slam dunk. But this film is the ultimate victim of Disney Star Wars not having a plan for this trilogy. There’s lazy ideas mixed with bad execution that makes for such a lackluster and borderline bad film. 

The Score: 7.5/10 (C)