Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - Movie Review

I know I made a review of a Star Wars property last week, but because this week was May 4th Disney decided to release The Rise of Skywalker on there as well. Maybe in the summer I was hoping to talk about it and not have my fun with The Mandalorian ruined, but no... it's out now. I was spoiled a little as to what happened at the end of the film and I was hoping most of what I heard was wrong because what I heard sounded like it would come from a crappy fan-fiction and not an official Star Wars movie. But I have watched the film and it's true.

When the previous film, The Last Jedi, came out I went to theaters with friends to watch it and we walked out very... conflicted and confused. Then the reviews started popping up and it made us realize how bad the film was. It's like Rian Johnson unintentionally wrote a rag-tag comedy film like National Lampoon's Vacation in place of Star Wars film. Worse was that it broke rules and slapped fans of the franchise with horrible executions like a grumpy Luke Skywalker, teleporting matter with the Force, and light-speed collisions (which doesn't work with the official lore of the Star Wars canon), to name a few. It's still highly controversial right now and I was hoping that would be the worst of this new Star War trilogy. I was wrong.

You see after all the backlash of TLJ, Disney and Kathleen Kennedy (the current president of Lucas Film) tried everything to change up the next film to fix the problems of the TLJ. They even brought back the director of the first sequel film, J.J. Abrams (who before this made films like the Star Trek reboot and Super 8). Abrams himself seems to have felt very passionate about repairing the damages of Rian. However, by just listening to the fans they seemed to have made a script full of plot holes and even more problems. As much as I like the idea of Rian Johnson's dumpster fire to be purged away from Star Wars canon, I found that this film barely tries to connect to the last film, which is terrible since this is supposed to be a trilogy. I'll get more into these problems later though.

So in this film we find out in the opening crawl (like any Star Wars trilogy film) that Emperor Palpatine is alive. Everyone knew this because Disney couldn't keep their mouth shut, but it could have been possibly a great reveal if it was kept secret. In honest truth, Palpatine (played once again by Ian McDiarmid) was one of the better parts of the film. I mean his role in the story wasn't that good and I'll explain why later, but just his performance and the evil he was selling once again with this character was great! Every trilogy he has this manipulative side to him and great power hidden underneath that and we got there in this film as well. But his appearance to many people is just a sudden change in script because Mr. Subverting Expectations (AKA Rian Johnson) killed off our main bad guy in the last film. So they brought in the Emperor as a backup I guess.

Beyond him though most of the characters in the film weren't that interesting or good. Our main characters, Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), were continually not getting along with one another. That felt very odd considering in the previous films they all got along pretty well. But now they're suddenly back-talking one another and it makes them all unlikable. I don't understand why they were written like that. Further more, we get even more characters in this film that play one role in the film and never important again. It reminds me of the newer seasons of Fear The Walking Dead, where they keep adding in characters and they barely get screen time. It's awful. This is amateur writing guys, something that shouldn't be in a Star Wars movie! Also, I know that the character of Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) was hated by everyone in TLJ and the actor was bullied so much she abandoned social media, but this could have been the chance to redeem her character in this film. But no... got to listen to the rabid fans.

Now there are two other characters who, while not as cool as Palpatine, did make a bit more impression on me than the rest. First is Leia. Yes, Carrie Fisher is dead and has been dead for over a year. But I'm very thankful that the people working on the film didn't just CGI her into the movie and just used old clips of her with a few doubles from a back view to show her character. That's very respectful of them to that since she's passed away. Next is Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). When The Force Awakens came out I wondered why the actor had to play such an overly emotional brat of a Sith. But then the next year I saw the film BlacKkKlansman and Adam's performance in that film blew my mind. He has insane acting talent and I still think Disney wasted it with these Star Wars film. But in this film his performance is great (for the script we got) and I really enjoyed him on the screen. To be honest he was more of a main character than Rey because he went through challenges and struggles that Rey didn't and became a new person because of them.

This leads me now to one of my biggest complaints for this film: Rey. I never really liked her in all the new sequel trilogy and while it seemed Daisy Ridley was trying a bit more in this film, it just didn't sell to me that she was a powerful Jedi or that I should care if she was. That's because she never lost a single fight or had any trouble learning how to use the force or become a Jedi until this film. And even her struggles in this film were easily shrugged off or soon conquered because the writers just don't understand what makes a main female character interesting or compelling. It isn't just that they can do cool things, they have to earn those talents through struggle. Just like all the other films it feels like she was written by some bad internet feminist that believes women have to be better than men to be respected. I'm not going to open that can of worms up more, but real feminism is equality with men, not being better than men. Yennifer of Vengerberg, Ellen Ripley, Brienne of Tarth, and Ahsoka Tano are real female characters to look up to, not Rey.

To be honest though, even if she was written better with this film it still wouldn't improve it much because of what has happened with the Force. It was hinted at in the previous film that there might be a trick with the force to teleport matter and we fully see it in this film. Now that was a real force power in Star Wars canon before Disney declared all those decades of Star Wars lore were not canon anymore. However, in those stories there was only one force user (Jedi or Sith) that could use it: Luke Skywalker. And he had to train hard to obtain this power. But in this film it seems any force user has that power and that leads to a lot of plot holes. There's a few other force powers I won't get into, but they'll also make you scratch your head and think, "This isn't right... They're jumping the shark with this script." And with J.J. Abrams all about making look big and awesome he kind of ruins the limits of what the Force can do to the point I kept saying, "This is ridiculous, you're going to far with all this Abrams!"

When the trailers first came out I knew this film wasn't going to go well. It felt like the Disney executives were hovering over everyone in the production and telling them, "It was to be bigger. I said bigger! BIGGER YOU STUPID IDIOTS!!!" because they were probably thinking if they made the fights and action bigger and louder and more flashy that we'll all fall in love with the film. But like I said before I knew they were going too far. I saw thousands and thousands of Star Destroyers suddenly rise from the ground and just as many Resistance ships start attacking them. That though doesn't make sense because the First Order in the previous films never had that many ships and the idea they suddenly have that many is just jumping the shark. Same thing with the Resistance because they lost almost all their ships in the last film and the idea they have so many suddenly is just... What the hell is going on?

And now get to the big issue of the film, the one that I have seen hardcore Star Wars fans, fans who in previous Star Wars reviews pulled out their lightsabers to show their excite, look down in depression with dull, empty eyes: The story. I though that was bad in The Last Jedi, but compared to this that film now looks like something actually good, even with the casino planet plot included. There is barely ever a break in the story and plot is continually thrown at you so that you're trying to comprehend what is happening. Worse still is that the writing, I'll say again, keeps opening plot holes. But it gets even worse than that guys, oh god it does. Characters keep getting in danger and some appear to make great sacrifices, but because they don't want to kill off any favorites all those great moments, moments that people would be shocked by and later on remember as tragic points in the story, are continually scratched out. With that there is no sense of danger or tension throughout the film. Why should I care for anything that happens if there's no danger or sense of challenge for any of our heroes? And yet they continually kept removing more and more any big obstacles with horrible writing and just plain luck as the film went on! What the hell where the writers thinking?!

From what I heard, Abrams had a plan for the trilogy and shared it with Disney. But Rian, because he's pretentious with his films, threw away those ideas and went with this own. I don't want to be hateful towards him, but I also saw his latest film, Knives Out, and while it was well crafted with a great mystery, I felt the writing in that film was also pretentious. Because TLJ was so different though and failed in so many ways it seems like Abrams had to try and gives us a satisfactory conclusion. However, watching this film it feels like he was trying to squish two of his film ideas into one. Also, just after we get a bunch of plot and/or exposition and we're trying to wrap our heads around them, then there's a explosion or sudden action sequence that distracts us. That's probably why the story is so jumbled with plot and exposition continually thrown at the audience. This should have been two films, with the former replace TLJ. Instead it felt rushed and messy to the point that I almost wanted to stop.

When it eventually got the big finale I was just praying for the film to be over. I didn't care what was going on or how flashy and larger that life the final fight was, I just wanted it to end because bigger isn't always better. Plus there was so much nonsense going on that my brain was hurting. Many times I was continually thinking how any of this writing was approved because there were so many plot holes it was indescribable. Rey especially just didn't make any sense expect the writers want to make her feel "empowered" as a woman. I'm pretty sure you all reading this know that the good guys will win in the end, but with what is said and done in the film I think that what they've done has actually doomed the Galaxy just as much as if Palpatine was victorious. You'll see why if you do see it, but my god is it just so stupid.

But then, just when I thought it was all over, there was one last middle finger to me and to even the most dedicated Star Wars fans and it's definitely the biggest middle finger this movie gave the franchise. To put it simply, this final scene is basically telling us that all the stuff that happened in the original trilogy, the one started the whole thing, is now pointless and not important, that Disney and their new bigger and better trilogy should be loved and the old original one should be thrown in the garbage. That... is unforgivable. Also, like the doom I also predict because of our heroes, the writers never considered the other viewpoints and their script when writing this finale. A lot of the internet has really lost their tempers with this and I don't blame though. It's filling me with so much rage just remember that last scene.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is an utter disaster. I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn't expect it was going to be this bad! I now consider this whole Star Wars sequel trilogy to be fan-fiction because it's so poorly written and Disney stupid didn't have a plan for any of this trilogy. They thought they could just copy the MCU idea for Star Wars and make lots of money. But the MCU has over 20 films to it and a trilogy is three films. You need a coherent, interconnecting story for all three films, you can't just go wild with it! True, the visuals and sound were great and the Emperor was fun to see again, but the story and almost all the characters were terrible. And the force as a concept is just completed ruined now. How this was ever approved I'll never know. There was so much focus on damage control that there was no focus on making an good film.

Tentative Score: 3.5/10

Definitive Score: 3.25/10

I'm not die-hard Star Wars fan, there's more to my life than Star Wars. But it also holds a huge place in my heart and the hearts of countless others, so seeing this as the finale episode in this trilogy is just depressing and frustrating to no end. I'd rather watch the prequels any day than this trilogy. How could any of this film been approved? It feels like first draft stuff... At least The Mandalorian is good. And because of the failures of Disney I've seen a lot of people redo the this new trilogy and some of them are really exciting! Keep an eye out for any of these on Youtube because they're not just critiques, they're better stories being crafted by dedicated fans who understand the source material and the wider fanbase.