Greetings, Star Wars fans! This probably should have come sooner, but what can I say…I’ve been on vacation! I’ve seen the film twice and I’m ready to give my review, so let’s get right to it.
Overall Impression
Overall, I liked the move a lot. Coming out of my second viewing was much better than the first, although I liked the first viewing too. The second viewing allowed me to anticipate some things a little better, and it didn’t seem as rushed as a result. The movie has some excellent moments, and didn’t have too much in the way of “cringe”.
The movie was an adventure, and I really liked the return to the big three for this trilogy being together. This was one of the reasons why I think this move actually parallels A New Hope rather than Return of the Jedi, but no doubt has parallels to both. The mirroring comes because whereas in A New Hope the heroes save Leia and she joins them, in this one the heroes start together and get separated from Rey. I will write a more detailed article on that soon, regarding how this film fits into the overall ring theory and how it mirrors/parallels the other trilogies.
As a long time Goonies fan, I was pleased to see there was a lot of similarities. Jason Ward predicted/leaked this and it came through. The trio finds a dagger in a cave next to a dead body, much like the Goonies found the “skull key” next to the body (actually, around this neck) of Chester Copperpot in the tunnels. The dagger served to direct them to the beach on the moon of Endor, and then pinpoint the location of the wayfinder, much like the doubloon led the Goonies. Unlike many who have criticized the fact that they “just happened to be in the right spot” for the dagger to line up with the death star wreckage, I recognized that the inscription on the dagger that C3P0 translated gave those coordinates to lead them there.
Many of the reviews I have read seemed a bit harsh. Go back and read some of the negative reviews from critics and tell me that they are not dripping with vitriol. Some of the language of some of those reviews was a bit excessively critical in my opinion. Was the movie perfect? No. Was it a good popcorn flick and very entertaining? Yes!
I actually don’t agree with the idea that there was no plan for this trilogy. There were clues, and many of them. I have found several clues that Palpatine would return, and many of them are discussed by us in past articles. At the time, we didn’t see their full context, but there were some clues. This is yet another point that I would like to discuss in a later article because I think it deserves a bigger explanation.
Most of my theories didn’t work out, but some did. Personally, I would have liked it if they explored some of the ideas that we have discussed most recently, such as Anakin being a false chosen one. I can live with the fact that they didn’t, and I like how they balanced Palpatine’s return with Anakin’s actions to balance the Force by destroying the Sith. That said, I think our theory was still pretty sound and could have worked if they went that way. Some of my theories turned out to be true. For example, we predicted that Finn was Force-sensitive based on the events of The Force Awakens. This idea was later confirmed by JJ Abrams. Some other theories may have been true. For example, we predicted that Luke knew who Rey was. He refers to her as “Rey” before she says her name, and the novelization they made it very clear that Rey and Luke hadn’t spoken before that. So how else would Luke know that she was a Palpatine (and Leia knew as well)? Luke knew as soon as he heard she was from Jakku.
The Bad
The things that I didn’t like might be the rushed timing, especially the first half. I’m not the first to say this, of course, and I know a lot of people that had this impression. I felt that the first half needed about 5-10 minutes of breathing room, and maybe a little more explanation of Emperor Palpatine’s return at the beginning. A little more dialogue explaining what his plans were and what he has been doing would have gone a long way.
While a bit of explanation of Palpatine’s return could have been helpful, I think it for the most part worked. I actually have a theory of how Palpatine returned, and when it occurred to me, it gave me goosebumps. More on that later in a future article (I have a bunch of ideas for future articles).
I felt that lot of characters were underused. For example, Rose could have played a bigger role. Sure, Rose as a character may have been a bit divisive for some fans, but going from VIII to IX seems strange that she sort of quickly fades into the background just as quickly as she arrived in The Last Jedi. I’m thrilled to have Jannah in the movie and I think she was great, but a lot of her role could have been played by Rose. That said, Jannah served the purpose of showing that other stormtroopers had also defected. At the same time, I thought that it would have been cool if Jannah and her comrades defected after hearing about Finn leaving the First Order, and were inspired by his actions. This would have shown that Finn had an impact on other stormtroopers, and hence given Finn an even bigger impact on the trilogy. Similarly, I felt that the character played by Dominic Monaghan could have been replaced by more Rose. This might have made more sense, rather than barely introduce a new character in the last film of the saga just because he is the director’s friend.
One of my favorite scenes is the Palpatine/Anakin dialogue at the opera house in Revenge of the Sith. I thought that this film was overall devoid of any extended dialogue like that, and I felt that would have helped with the pacing. It would have given the movie the break that it needed. That said, maybe I will spot something like that in future viewings.
The Good
I thought the Leia scenes worked and they worked even better the second time around. I didn’t find them forced at all, and I have a theory about Leia in this movie that is forthcoming in a future article. I think they did the best they could given the circumstances, and overall I thought it worked. On the second viewing, the film seemed very streamlined rather than rushed. At that point, it made more sense, and the explanations that I wanted in my first viewing didn’t matter as much.
As I stated, I liked the whole adventure aspect, seeking clues that took our heroes from one place to the next on a quest. For me, this worked, and added an Indiana Jones vibe that I thought was cool. I’d like to see more of this in Star Wars in fact. Maybe if they do a Doctor Aphra series we will get this kind of thing. It could be a cool way to explore the past of Star Wars, and set up future movies/shows set in these older time periods.
I actually liked how they resolve the whole Rey/Ben Solo thing. I think it was a suitable ending and I didn’t think that Ben Solo deserved better. The guy killed a lot of people in cold blood, so I never thought he deserved a full redemption. He murdered Luke’s other Jedi trainees, he called for the murder of many villagers on Jakku, he murdered Lor San Tekka, he murdered his own father just so he could gain more dark side powers, and he murdered countless others. He was a spoiled, angry, aggressive, young man that couldn’t control his emotions. Like his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, he did some terrible things and didn’t deserve to live happily ever after. He returned as Ben Solo in the end, and gave his life to save Rey, much like Anakin gave his life to save Luke. So I see the Rey/Ben relationship as a type of Shakespearean tragedy like Romeo and Juliet. Tragedies can be beautiful too, and I didn’t want more than that. In the end, Ben “let go” and became a Force-ghost, if his vanishing is any indication. I don’t think he deserves much more than that.
I loved Luke returning as a Force-ghost. A lot of people criticize this as “retconning” Luke from The Last Jedi, but this couldn’t be further from the truth, and misses the point of that film. Luke had an arc in TLJ. He went from fitting the mythological archetype of the reluctant guru hermit wizard, to regaining his adherence to the Jedi in the end. He already changed in TLJ, and returned to the way of the Jedi at the end. So how Luke viewed the saber in Rise of Skywalker was totally consistent with his arc in TLJ.
Well that’s it. I thought the movie was pretty good, and if I had to rank it, I would put it as pretty high up there for me. It is easily in my top 5 Star Wars films. Here is my ranking of the nine saga films:
- Empire Strikes Back
- A New Hope
- The Last Jedi
- The Rise of Skywalker
- Revenge of the Sith
- The Force Awakens
- Return of the Jedi
- The Phantom Menace
- Attack of the Clones
This ranking is how I’m feeling now, but could definitely change with future viewings. I thought that Rise of Skywalker had tremendous rewatch potential, and thus it could be bumped up with later viewings. Thanks for reading! It’s been fun, and keep an eye outfor future theory articles interpreting Rise of Skywalker.
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