The Rise of Skywalker: Professional Reviews

The film plays like a 150-minute checklist of cool stuff and surprises designed to please as many fans as possible. That may sound great, but in the process, that densely packed highlight reel fails to tell a story that’s narratively interesting, thematically cohesive, or that builds any impactful stakes. It’s a film designed to tantalize and delight in the hope those things cover up its many shortcomings.

Hopefully, thanks to the trailers, you know that Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), the Sith Lord at the center of the previous two trilogies, is back. I say “hopefully” because the movie largely glosses over how he actually comes back. He just...is. By bypassing a logical explanation (there is one but it’s ill-conceived, to say the least), co-writer and director J.J. Abrams completely shifts the entire crux of the sequel trilogy thus far. The grand idea of the First Order never quite recovers from Palpatine’s introduction and all of their massive power developed over the previous two films is sorely undercut.

As for her son, Kylo’s role is even more fascinating and complex than it was in the last two films. However, slotted into this dense, rushed story, it’s not given the time it needs to be explained properly and ultimately falls a little flat. Getting into more detail about either of those things requires talking heavy spoilers, so we’ll leave it there for now.

Rey is once again the center of the movie, and she’s once again maybe its best part. The character has to endure a lot here—physically, mentally, spiritually—but Daisy Ridley continues to make it look all too easy. Close-ups of her reactions to some of the film’s bigger moments are heartbreakingly beautiful and a reminder of what Star Wars can be at its best. Some of her moments are so beautiful, in fact, that the tears in your eyes may make you forget the bumpy ride it took to get there.

Driver and Ridley are excellent together every time they’re on screen. However, they’re on screen together so much in this one that at a certain point their lightsaber battling almost sputters off, as if they don’t know why they are even doing it anymore—like the movie has exhausted the idea of these two going toe-to-toe again and again. That awkward pause does lead to a new angle, though, so it’s not a total waste, but the pair certainly could have used an extra conversation or two to pad some of their narrative beats.

Sadly, it suffers mightily from being more focused on excess instead of resonance. For some people, that will be more than enough—but for us, it’s not. The Rise of Skywalker may be the end of this Star Wars trilogy, but there will be more in this universe eventually. The legacy of this film, and this trilogy, will not be an ending. Instead, it’s the beginning of a Star Wars debate that will last forever.

Given that there is no possible way of pleasing all the people even half the time when it comes to Star Wars, the good news is, The Rise of Skywalker is the send-off the saga deserves. The bad news is, it is largely the send-off we expected. Of course there is epic action to savour and surprises and spoilers to spill, but given the long, long build-up, some of the saga’s big revelations and developments might be a little unsatisfying on reflection.

Ren and Rey’s mysterious connection has been the most intriguing aspect of the new trilogy. Here, it unfolds in a series of teases and false starts that almost border on wearisome, though there are hints of ambiguity and even eroticism to it. Let’s just hope they don’t turn out to be brother and sister this time. As with the original Star Wars trilogy, there is just enough in this dynamic to muddy up the simplistic good-versus-evil themes, although this latest trilogy has been as much about hope versus fear, which is where it could possibly strike a contemporary chord.

Rather than continue to forge a new path, Abrams leans heavily into nostalgia, and although this film doesn’t quite follow in the footsteps of The Force Awakens by mirroring the same beats of an episode from the original trilogy, there are nevertheless a number of similarities between The Rise of Skywalker and Return of the Jedi. From the young Jedi harnessing the teachings of a deceased master to face down impossible odds and hopefully save the galaxy, to the powerful Sith apprentice trying to lure the Jedi to the Dark Side with an offer to rule side by side, to the final desperate battle where victory hinges on a single heroic act, much of this feels like we’ve seen it before.

That’s not to say Johnson’s ideas have been completely discarded. Some of them, like the telepathic link between Rey and Kylo Ren, are further explored and expanded upon in interesting ways, and both Ridley and Driver are phenomenal in their scenes together. Meanwhile, other plot points are clumsily retconned, effectively undoing many of The Last Jedi‘s choices. This necessitates an incredibly frenetic pace during the first half of the film, with the screenplay from Abrams and Chris Terrio attempting to explain away previously established canon, and new information coming so frequently that we scarcely have time to absorb it all, let alone make sense of how it affects or alters the narrative.

For the most part, these changes are an unnecessary divergence from the path laid out by the previous film, likely designed to appease a particular segment of the fandom that felt Johnson’s approach was too radical. And while the instinct to course-correct is a natural response to the kind of offensive, hate-filled vitriol that cropped up in the wake of The Last Jedi, it’s ultimately a detriment that only serves to make The Rise of Skywalker less congruent, less original and less interesting. The film certainly isn’t lacking in thrills, surprises or plot twists, and is unquestionably enjoyable in the heat of the moment — but there are so many missed opportunities and storytelling miscalculations that it all begins to crumble under the slightest scrutiny. The Rise of Skywalker is far from the worst Star Wars film, but as the final chapter in this saga, it should have been much better.

The result? For the most part, 'The Rise of Skywalker' works as a testament to how familiarity can be both a comfort and hindrance. You're never more than five or ten minutes away in the movie from a knowing glance to the original trilogy, or an acknowledgement of 'The Last Jedi' and how this story is attempting to counteract and correct it. What you have, really at the core of all of it, is an attempt to blend two very different stories and ideologies together and heal the rift that's come about in the audience.

You could very easily argue that this is cowardice on Abrams' part, and that instead of embracing the bold strides Rian Johnson took in 'The Last Jedi', he's going back to what he knows will work for the audience.

The only thing that kept me invested for most of the run time was the interaction of the characters. Rey and Kylo continue their Force-flirtation, regarding one another as adversaries inextricably drawn together. Finn seems at all times about to say something to Rey but doesn’t quite find the words. Poe and Rey don’t see eye-to-eye on how best to serve the Resistance, and Poe and Finn are bros. These are nice moments, when we get them. They further the relationships fans of the new trilogy care about most. It’s nice that we got Han and Luke and Leia in these movies, but they got their trilogy.

The only plot thread that feels like it gets the time it should is Rey and Kylo. Their relationship is this trilogy’s most fascinating, and weird. And horny – holy crap is this movie horny. But rather than really engaging in philosophical discussions or melding minds, they primarily resort to inconclusive lightsaber battles. It’s the actors’ ferocity that makes these scenes work. There’s nothing in The Rise of Skywalker to further examine their connection that rivals the substance of the Snoke throne room scene in The Last Jedi.

But The Rise of Skywalker just doesn’t deliver, beyond that superficial sheen of momentary fulfillment. It does a disservice to almost all of its new characters. It dismisses or retcons major plot points. One “revelation” is so clumsy and uninspired—and unnecessary—that it’ll probably make people’s eyes roll out of their heads. I had fun enough while watching it, but like spending too much time on a moisture farm, the whole thing starts to seem flat, meandering, and endless. Anybody can start a story. Too bad this is how it all ends.
2.5 out of 5

Unfortunately, The Rise of Skywalker director J.J. Abrams doesn't seem to have fully grasped Johnson's message in The Last Jedi--that we have to "let the past die" to move forward. Johnson sought to establish a fresh direction for the Star Wars saga, but in Rise, Abrams is interested in killing only the parts of the past that he disagrees with. Instead of continuing down the path that Johnson set, Abrams swerves the franchise into yet another hard u-turn, cramming enough story for two movies into one, and largely acting like the previous film never happened--or actively retconning it.

The result is a movie that feels less like the conclusion to a Star Wars trilogy, and more like the casualty of a behind-the-scenes battle between the visions of two diametrically opposed directors. Rise of Skywalker bends over backward to undo what The Last Jedi did, just as that movie subverted all the mysteries set up in The Force Awakens. But much more than its predecessor, Rise of Skywalker exudes petulance--like Abrams is mad someone played with his toys wrong, and his only remaining recourse is to scoop them all up and go home.

When it focuses on Rey and Kylo, this film usually works. Whatever the Dark Side says, we can make our own destiny, and we change the universe when we do.

It looks gorgeous and offers strong performances from Driver and Ridley in particular, but ultimately the saga ends with neither a bang nor a whimper but something inbetween.

rawpowah wrote:This is going to be an entertaining read for my commute when I get back home.

special_cases wrote:I see that rewriting dialogues on set, listening to actors, introducing new unnecessary characters and pushing things in the last film that weren't established in first two worked quite well. I'm surprised that the criticism is about both script and direction. Ever time Driver is properly praised, there is a note that he wasn't given that much to do. This was quite...a choice.

Perhaps most tellingly, Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran, who was trolled viscously by a toxic cohort of so-called Star Wars fans after The Last Jedi, is pushed to the margins of the main plot. Though she was a fairly central figure in The Last Jedi, she’s pointedly excluded in The Rise of Skywalker, especially relative to newly introduced characters. She was a welcome, spunky screen presence in the last film; in this one, the role could have been filled by anyone. It’s noticeable, and it’s hard not to think that choice is designed to avoid further angering those fans who harbor a racist vendetta against a movie that dares to cast an Asian woman in a co-starring role.

It has a lot of lightsaber battles, but it lacks humor, the thrilling reveals of The Force Awakens, and the visual imagination of The Last Jedi. Moments are emphatically teased (particularly one between Finn and Rey) and then never resolved, presumably so that they can be mined for fan service in some future comic book or TV show.

could say some other stuff about The Rise of Skywalker. About its insistence on a morally simple universe where you’re either dark or light, but you only get to be on one side. About its continued mixing of gnostic and biblical imagery, but without a lot to say about either. About how it could have said something intriguing about our contemporary culture, power, or empires, but just doggedly insists on broadcasting the same two messages that Disney movies fall back on time and time again: first, that you have to believe in yourself, and second, that the real Force was the friends we made along the way.

Let's begin with the biggest failing of the film by far: how the character of Princess Leia awkwardly fits into the plot.

Shortly after the tragic passing of actor, writer, and activist Carrie Fisher, Lucasfilm announced that she would appear in Rise of Skywalker as Leia and that the film would use her real-life footage, as opposed to a CGI-ified Fisher. The resulting footage is perhaps the worst-case scenario Star Wars fans could have imagined: cookie-cutter dialogue against a green screen that could conceivably be slapped into any plot, devoid of the heart or humor that consistently marked Fisher's work in the role of Leia.

As I said last time around, Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) continue to suffer from the sneaking suspicion that one of those characters was supposed to tragically die two films ago. As a result, they are once again forced to split precious character-development screen time, which they admittedly nail better in Rise of Skywalker than ever before.

Abrams makes a few dreadfully wrong calls in terms of who to leave on screen and who to dismiss from the action. Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), in particular, returns to the action as a wasted hanger-on, and her dialogue mostly comes in the form of calls-to-arm battle cries instead of paying forward her progress as a unique "everywoman" soldier among the ranks of Jedi and Resistance leaders. Weirdly, in this film, Finn mostly pretends she doesn't exist, in spite of their emotional connection by the end of Last Jedi (when she, ya know, saved his life). Why write her into the film and force us to ask what the heck happened between the two?

Did we really need another droid who offers zero new dimensions of cuteness or humor? And did we really need.... ahem, nope, there's no spoiler-free way to conclude this sentence about the bloated cast.

Once the opening blur of fetch quests and video game-like missions concludes, and Rey and Kylo's trajectories firm up, the rest of the film becomes easier to stomach. This is largely because Kylo and Rey continue to reach across dimensions in striking fashion—a good reminder that Rian Johnson's directing wizardry from Last Jedi was easily one of the best contributions to the series at large.

I'm left so stunned by both Driver and Ridley's performances that I can't pick a favorite between the two. Each pushes the other to extremes as centerpieces of this trilogy's most brutal conflict, and both are forced to consider disobeying their characters' purest principles—and convey their struggles with these choices through tense, drawn-out sequences. Some of these are marked by epic, brutal lightsabering. Others are marked by tear-filled stares and conversations. Neither feels out of place or overdone in the context of their eventual, dramatic conclusion. (Meaning, don't expect Driver to star in laughable memes based on this film's footage.)

The major plot point that moves both actors to the film's conclusion might be debated by series addicts for some time. But I would argue that this development, even if it doesn't add up in terms of series canon, is the new film's most nimble element. Both Rey and Kylo needed to come together and battle their respective, diametrically opposed demons to face off in the breath-catching manner that Rise eventually reaches. Abrams and co. figured out a nifty plot device that would bring the characters together in ways that each actor can believably (and enjoyably) sell.

The exception to all these problems is Rey’s ambivalent antagonism with Kylo Ren, which provides some of the film’s most fleshed-out and engaging scenes — as well as a series of complex lightsaber battles that rival anything in the earlier sequel films.

The film is merely a component part of a larger machine (the trilogy) that plugs into an even larger mechanism (the Star Wars universe). It has no more use or appeal when examined in isolation than would a sparkplug or a distributor cap.

We begin with a furious collection of narrative bits that struggle to form a cohesive pattern. It’s as if Abrams opened the door on a room full of squabbling chickens and, rather than making any effort to calm them down, closed it again and let them sort it out for themselves.

Some of the returning deadies are ghosts, but not all. Look, he’s alive. Look, she’s above ground again. By the close one half-expects to see Bambi’s mother return.

The endless attempts to address political and familial questions become, however, so exhausting that it proves hard to care which Skywalker will rise. It’s not clear how funny Domhnall Gleeson and Richard E Grant, apparatchiks of Empire, are supposed to be, but Domhnall does, at least, deliver the best line in the movie with some gusto.
Poe and Finn get only nano-smidgeons of character development. At least one likable character from the previous film is tidied away into insulting subservience.
Yet the component will just about fit in the prepared slot. Star Wars was modelled on John Ford’s The Searchers and Akira Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress. The current “content” has more in common with the last update of your PC’s operating system. Have fun watching the grey bar complete itself.

Perhaps most tellingly, Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran, who was trolled viscously by a toxic cohort of so-called Star Wars fans after The Last Jedi, is pushed to the margins of the main plot. Though she was a fairly central figure in The Last Jedi, she’s pointedly excluded in The Rise of Skywalker, especially relative to newly introduced characters. She was a welcome, spunky screen presence in the last film; in this one, the role could have been filled by anyone. It’s noticeable, and it’s hard not to think that choice is designed to avoid further angering those fans who harbor a racist vendetta against a movie that dares to cast an Asian woman in a co-starring role.

The problem with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker isn’t just that it absolutely walks back a number of potent reveals and plot threads from the last movie, but rather that the 142-minute action fantasy spends almost its entire running time retconning its predecessor and adding painfully conventional “plot twists” and patronizing reversals in the name of mollifying the fans who merely want to be reminded of the first three movies.

We then jump into a “go to the place and find the thing” adventure, and the filmmakers seem to think that the mere idea of Rey, Finn, Poe and Chewbacca on a journey together is in itself incredibly compelling. Alas, absent memorable dialogue and much in the way of honest interaction, plus two extraneous new characters seemingly meant to “no homo” Finn and Poe, the journey becomes about the destination. That destination is merely more arbitrary plot reveals.

It’s not just that Rise of Skywalker undoes Last Jedi’s “it’s not your franchise anymore” metaphors aimed at a generation that grew up loving Star Wars and then allowed two Palpatine-ish leaders (W. Bush and Trump) to come into power for a generic “don’t worry, Star Wars is still the best!” fan bait. It’s that this express purpose is the only real reason this movie exists.

Adam Driver does his best trying to sell this nonsense, and there’s a momentary glance when he unexpectedly finds himself with a weapon that has more charm and character than any number of “applause now” introductions or fan-friendly callbacks.

The film continually teases status-quo altering events and then immediately walks them back, offers generic action where even the seemingly emotional showdowns are interrupted by digressions and past-tense exposition and gives Daisy Ridley essentially no real arc of her own. The screenplay never forces her to make any hard choices or live with the consequences of her mistakes.

Finn, Poe and Rey are mostly action figures moved into place as the plot demands.

At times, the film literally announces its intentions to (sky) walk back The Last Jedi, as when the trio of Resistance heroes loudly declare they are going on this big adventure together, and that they will win this time by sticking together, after one of the criticisms of The Last Jedi was that the heroes spent too much time apart.

The results overall have a real be-careful-what-you-wish-for vibe. The team stays together — and most of the movie strikes the same, loud note over and over, with Rey, Finn, and Poe getting into one interchangeable shootout after another. The characters literally say they want to have conversations with one another about important topics and then never do — they simply don‘t have the time amidst all the plot machinations. And without spoiling them, Abrams’ big galaxy-rattling revelations retroactively make a lot of the events of The Force Awakens more implausible, and more coincidental. l

The only thing holding it together is the wonderful cast, particularly Daisy Ridley as the soulful Rey and Adam Driver as the conflicted Kylo Ren. Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio’s script pushes Kylo in some questionable directions; Driver’s full-throttle performance sells every single one of them. His work here, in comparison with many of the most infamous moments in the Star Wars prequels, does make you realize how much of the material in all the Star Wars movies is very silly. Sometimes the only difference between the stuff that works and the stuff that doesn’t is the quality of the actors involved.