With 'Rise of Skywalker', the 'Star Wars' Saga Doesn't Stick the Landing

Rise of Skywalker is the third and final installment of the third Star Wars trilogy, and the ninth “Episode” overall.  It depicts the final battle for the fate of the galaxy, with Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaacs), and the rest of the Resistance on one side and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the First Order on the other.  In addition, making his shocking return is the former Galactic Emperor, Palpatine a.k.a. Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid), who has apparently been manipulating events from the shadows all along.

Rise of Skywalker isn’t as terrible as I was led to believe it was supposed to be.  As a blockbuster spectacle, it’s actually very enjoyable.  However, as the finale for not only the sequel trilogy but to the Star Wars saga as we know it (unless, they make an Episode 10), it unfortunately disappoints.  It neglects to tie up many plot threads and themes that were brought about by its predecessors, and with those it does tie up, it does so unsatisfactorily.  And while it does have some cool, clever ideas, nothing cohesive or impactful comes out of them.  Nothing in this movie blew me away.

A lot of things in the movie feel “corrective” in nature.  By that, I mean it seems like Lucasfilm didn’t like the narrative direction that Rian Johnson took with The Last Jedi, and the studio tasked J.J. Abrams to make remedies that make it “safe” and “fan-friendly” again.

Abrams had to take the shape of the story that Johnson left, and then remold it back to a starting point from which he could carry out his own take on it.   Of course, such kind of “starting point” would already have its unevenness, as it wouldn’t be as ideal and clean of a starting point as that of a fresh one.  Think of it as a preschooler writing the alphabet on paper.  His output is going to be more beautiful if he writes on a clean piece of paper from the very start instead of one that has something previously written on it, which he had to erase first before he could write the alphabet.  Furthermore, not only did Abrams have to make a third film from a compromised starting point, but it was necessary for him to fit his versions of Episodes VIII and IX into it. As a result of these, the third installment has a bloated plot, underwhelming resolutions to the character arcs, noticeable dissonance with its story beats, sloppy pacing, and unearned developments and twists-and-turns.

To be fair to Abrams, he did the best, possible job that he could in carrying out the mandate.  It just couldn’t be helped if the only thing that could come out of a “best, possible job” is still a mess.

Now, I actually don’t think Abrams is to be blamed for Rise of Skywalker’s mess – at least, not entirely.  This is mostly on Kathleen Kennedy and other Disney/Lucasfilm bosses.  They failed to oversee this properly.  It’s rather clear now that there was no true vision for this trilogy.  It had no creative guiding force.  It had no Kevin Feige figure.  Thus, it was as if the trilogy was just winging it as it goes.  Abrams was left to do his own thing with The Force Awakens, and then Johnson was left to do his own thing with The Last Jedi.  It was like Abrams was all, “This is where we are going.  Okay?”  And Kennedy replied, “Okay.”  But then Johnson took over and said, “No.  I don’t like that.  We’ll do this instead.”  And Kennedy was like, “Sure.  Whatever.”  But when a sizable part of the fandom became upset of The Last Jedi, Kennedy panicked and brought in Abrams again: “Scrap what Johnson was doing!  Do what you can with it.”

Here’s the thing: even if the haters were right about The Last Jedi sucking, the best course of action is still to build upon what it has already established in order to ensure a smooth, logical continuity.  Or, if Lucasfilm couldn’t be dissuaded from doing a “do over”, then it would have been preferable to stretch what occurred in Rise of Skywalker into at least two more movies.  One for “cleaning” what needed to be cleaned up in the story, and the next for delivering a proper finale.  The best chance for a quality ending should have been held paramount over maintaining the traditional trilogy structure.

So, yeah, Rise of Skywalker is a dud.  Thankfully, we also got The Mandalorian in 2019, so the Star Wars franchise wasn’t a total failure for the year.

Miscellaneous musings (w/ SPOILERS):

• Obviously, Rise of Skywalker has a detrimental effect on my opinion of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi – especially The Last Jedi, whose daring choices needed to be justified by a finale that would build upon it.  Since there were no genuine payoffs and validation for those daring choices, then they would be retroactively deemed as botches, making The Last Jedi a bad Star Wars installment.
• The Knights of Ren were the most overhyped nothing burger in the sequel trilogy.
• Finn was a Stormtrooper that had a change of heart, and got to hold and wield a lightsaber.  That was his set up in The Force Awakens, and it was one of the most original and most intriguing character setups in Star Wars ever.  Well, that was a waste.  Nothing of compelling worth ever came out of that.  His arc was a bust.  The writers failed him.
• Rey assuming the Skywalker surname for herself (hence, the title of this movie) was dumb.
• It wasn’t perfect, but Kylo Ren easily had the best story arc among all the characters.  One way that Rise of Skywalker could have been improved is if it had been primarily about him.  He should have been made the titular Skywalker, not Rey, and his heel-face turn should have revolved around him finally embracing (i.e. “the rise) his Skywalker heritage.

• The bombastic space battle should have been epic, but it felt soulless to me.
• In the scene where Rey heard the voices of all past Jedi, it would have been more gratifying they appeared as Force ghosts as well, standing behind her after she got back to her feet.
• It would also have been extremely satisfying if in the final scene, Rey saw Ben Solo as a Force ghost standing alongside the Force ghosts of Luke and Leia.
• Rey and Kylo Ren’s kiss was pure cringe.  Just like many of the big moments that Rise of Skywalker presented, it was not convincingly earned.
• The thing that I would have wanted to see is a legit resolution to the “bringing balance to the Force” theme that had been repeatedly brought up during the entirety of the saga.  I imagined Rey and Kylo Ren putting the final nail in the coffin of the Jedi and the Sith, the two flawed orders that harnessed the Force, and pioneering a discipline or philosophy that embraces both the light and dark sides of the Force, as it’s realized that good doesn’t necessarily define the light and evil doesn’t necessarily define the dark.  Thus, balance.  It’s saddening that the sequel trilogy couldn’t be bothered with taking this nuanced path and settled instead with a plain, conventional “light side vs. dark side” narrative.