First Impressions on The Rise of Skywalker

My initial thoughts on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. (This was written the morning after viewing on December 20, 2019.)

Warning! Spoilers ahead!

Well we all know this movie has a lot of pressure on it and a lot of heavy-lifting to accomplish, given the lack of momentum from the previous entry. So we need to acknowledge how hard this would be to accomplish, especially with such high expectations on the line. And of course with so much at stake, I am sure this movie suffered under an incredible amount of script notes from every direction. Nothing creative was ever accomplished by committee consensus, and you can feel it happening. 

The structure was clearly plot-heavy, trying to set up and then resolve a lot of story threads in one movie. A lot of that is because the previous movie had been such a diversion and did not build on these me from the first movie. 

As a result of being so plot-heavy, it fell into some long exposition scenes and lacked a bit of the humour and lively tone these movies had most of the time. 

On the trilogy as a whole, I thought they wasted the Finn character...he was set up as a bit of a mystery, an outlier at the beginning and they really should have built on that in each movie, and perhaps made him a become a force user or more critical to the main story. Why did he defect? What made him different? Who will he become and what part can he play in the overall story? Turns out he is a useful guy running around and doing ground missions but not that special or pivotal. Kind of a missed opportunity. It really seemed like HE was starting on the Joseph Campbell heroes journey. (Again, the previous movie is to blame for that arc not developing.) 

I noticed they sent Rose back to count some inventory, stock some shelves or something, to stay out of the way of the plot. Kind of funny, but totally appropriate because she was an added character in a cast that already had a lot of characters. Plus, it seems clear she was added to the previous movie to reach out to the Chinese box office and not for any good story reason. In fact, her addition ended up as a destructive story element for the trilogy because it derailed Finn from a good arc. (I think this is the real reason people do not like her very much, more so than just her being a superfluous character.)

Later in the movie it almost seemed like a cavalcade of cameos. You could almost imagine it like an old TV show reunion with gushing schmaltzy applause each time one of these cameos appears. "Hey, it's the Fonz! Remember the Fonz? He was cool, right? Pause a moment to let the applause subside, tip your hat and move on--we know why you're really here!"

I did really like having Harrison Ford back and was not that surprised in a way because they needed to do a redemption arc for Kylo. Movie logic dictated that Kylo be found at least partly innocent, have a redemption, and die. He was not evil enough ("just 1 calorie, not evil enough") to be the main baddie, and he needed an arc, and there was only one way to go with that. This is the sort of thing they would have established when they broke the story in the writers room, before the script was even started. Redemption was stamped all over his story line, with a caveat that he could not be redeemed from patricide without paying a personal price, so clearly he had to die.

Kylo has the more interesting arc by far. His self discovery is more winding and interesting that Rey's, which is unfortunate because she was such a bright and refreshing character at the start. (Many have pointed to her seeming like a Mary Sue character and nothing seems to have been done to counter that in this film.)

I must say that Harrison had the best line in the movie: "I know".

The way they set up the story, I really thought they should have brought back Anakin for a moment as well. He was the one that supposed to bring "balance" to the force and he did so when he supposedly killed Palpatine in ROTJ, so their decision to have Palpatine survive sort of meant Anakin had failed unless they brought him back. I sort of picture an "elevated force ghost" version of Anakin showing up in the final battle to block some force lightning or reflect it back or absorb it, saving Kylo and Rey, and hurting Palpatine or making him more vulnerable and beatable. It would be a critical turning point, but still allow the main characters to win the day. I think people would have cheered like crazy and it would have tied things together really well. Instead it kind of demotes Anakin and Darth Vader as a secondary and unimportant role in the saga. ("Oh yeah, he was just one of the Darths. They come and go.") 

Of course, it would be important for him to not overshadow the main characters, but it seems needed to  tie things together well. Otherwise, it kind of weakens the other movies. They spent enough time referencing him in all of this trilogy, with his helmet showing up several times. It would seem to be set up well, and not disorienting to the audience. 

I was really hoping for some dramatic turning points near the climax and did not get it. The closest to this was Kylo's shift but that was partly build on a newly invented force power (healing). As a story turn, that moment was fine, but there still needed to be another, stronger twist right at the climax. To me that would have been giving Rey and Kylo a hockey assist from Anakin. 

(I know some will suggest the healing ability was established in a book somewhere, but it is still a bit of a deus ex machina as far as the movies are concerned...inserted into the final chapter with both setup and payoff. Totally unnecessary since the plot demands could be met in other ways. This seems only added to allow an added plot reversal to try and surprise the audience, but it feels unearned and seems like a cheat.)

For good drama, the main character needs change, realize something, or believe in something, before he or she can win the day. (Perhaps the most convenient example is Neo in The Matrix, who starts to believe he can bring Morpheus back, a belief that defies everything he is told and makes him able to step outside the framework build around him.) 

This is a common feature of this kind of storytelling, but is hard to get it right and make it emotionally powerful, compelling and exciting. I thought this movie had a chance to do that. But certainly Rey getting up from having her life juice sucked out of her to face an even stronger Palpatine was not it. It was sort of a "try harder" moment that lacked all the drama and meaning it could have had. Rey is not changing, she is not guided by any true internal revelation, just some rah rah cheerleading, followed by gritting her teeth and grunting. (Insert bathroom humour here.)

That's why the story really needed Anakin to "return balance to the Force". This final balance could have been a type of intervention. He could have appeared, soaked up a big dose of Palpatine lightning or rechanneled it to make it help Rey and Kylo become more powerful, said a cool line to bring meaning to the gesture, and faded out of existence, depleted in the process, never to be seen again. He would not need to kill Palpatine, just to return "balance". Would have been epic. It could have been justified as a conjuring that could not happen until his kids joined the force and gave him the power or ability to reappear in a (semi) bodily form, a bit more than a ghost, and a bit less than in the flesh. 

As it is, without a bit of Anakin, maybe it should have been called "The Fall of Skywalker" or "The Rise of Irony" or "The Footnote of Skywalker". 

I also thought that this trilogy needs to stop inventing new force powers. To invent new powers in the last movie of nine is disorienting for the audience and makes it feel more magic-y. It is kind of cheating to change the rules as you go. Plus it makes it possible to solve problems with new movie magic just invented for that moment in the plot. I heard it said somewhere that a movies can ask you to believe one fantastical element, not three or four, or more. 

And force powers are better on a human scale. While the story needed a setback and needed Palpatine to be even more outsized in his powers, going all zappy to all the (opponent) space ships was a bit much, though I guess I can live with that. But again Rey just needed to snear and clench her teeth to do the guy in.

And whatever happened to the light side of the force flowing through nature and being at peace, confident and fearless? Those attributes could have given added gravitas and thematic meaning. This has been a missed opportunity a few times in the trilogy. It's all, "you got chocolate in my peanut butter", or "you got peanut butter all over my chocolate". It's a difference that makes no difference. 

In this day and age, isn't there something more to be said about hate and fear with such a clear construct at our disposal? But I don't think that kind of depth and meaning is going to come from JJ Abrams. He's had his chance before, and chosen surprise over meaning every time. A commercially-focused approach that might be stimulating at times, but seems to belong to the setup or development of a story, and loses its appeal as the end approaches. Again it brings me back to Finn--running in fear and confusion at first, and abstaining from violence based on internal decency--where could that story have gone in exploring his own maturation, developing courage, and dissolving fear? And what could it have meant to Rey and the overall story? It seems to me there was a far better trilogy that could have been made with this material, building on the solid beginnings of the Force Awakens, and it could have enriched all the characters.

Certainly the redemption of Kylo was necessary, and satisfying, and it made sense he had to die (as a hero) for movie justice kind of reasons. Can you imagine him at the celebration at the end? Everyone high-fiving with music and dancing and then he walks in the room and...crickets! The someone comes up, puts his arm around Kylo and says, "Ooh...I heard you had a personal revelation and really felt bad in the end, and helped out I guess, despite all the previous slaughtering and mayhem you caused.... so.... anyway... here's a ribbon for eventually helping out. You go sit over there. Yeah, waayyy over there.  Have a glass of punch and a cookie, and I'll go restart the music."

The ending at Luke's old home provided a parallel structure to call back to the original, but it was so transparently contrived, it does not bring the same epic feeling like the original. And it was already done better, at the end of the prequels.

Say what you may about Lucas. His power and success may have interfered with his ability to receive honest, challenging feedback and act on it as time progressed, and it seems to have led to some unchecked ideas and poor choices in later movies, but he deserves full credit for being the creator of this grand canvas, his vision. And while many contributed greatly, and some may have challenged him frankly (e.g. Brian DePalma), the original movies had a point of view, and were never the result of creation by committee as we see now.

It's like they asked themselves what their name was, and they said, "We're George Lucas."