J.J. Abrams’Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalkeris a lot of movie, as it attempts to bring a satisfying conclusion to a nine-episode saga while also feeling a full experience on its own. It also, very much, tries to be a rebuke to everything that filmmakerRian Johnsonand his collaborators accomplished on the previous film,Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Now, whether or not you love that movie (and I really, really do),The Last Jediat least tried to continue the storyline from the previous film (Abrams’The Force Awakens) while contributing new elements to the mythology and deepening the thematic concerns. It was genuinely different. IfThe Force Awakenswas about luxuriating in nostalgia, thenThe Last Jediwas about moving beyond that; not to “kill it, if you have to” (in the words of Kylo Ren) but to learn from it and continually evolve. It was a message for the franchise too: if you’re too mired in the past, you’re going to be left behind.
Major spoiler warning (obviously).
The Emperor
At the end ofThe Last Jedi, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), decisively cutting Snoke (Andy Serkis) in half and assuming command of the Empire-like First Order, crowned himself the Supreme Leader. (Remember that great scene where he chokes Hux and Hux says, “Long live the Supreme Leader?“So good.) By introducing the return of the Emperor in the opening crawl, that gives Kylo yet another evil boss to work for. It robs him of the agency (emotional and otherwise) he has clearly established in the previous two movies, by both cutting down his father and Snoke. He’s a free man now, able to rule the galaxy in whatever patently screwed-up way he seems fit but … we never get to see that. Instead, he’s back to playing second fiddle almost immediately, running around the galaxy for doodads and whatnot. Anyone who claims the Emperor was in play from the beginning is lying; too many loose ends were tied up at the end ofThe Last Jedi. Instead of creating something new, Abrams seemed to go, “Oh what about the Emperor?” And here we are.
The Jar Full of Snokes
And speaking of Snoke, many of theLast Jedidetractors were mad that there wasn’t more backstory given to the sequel series' big bad, seemingly more interested in a Wookiepedia article than a feature film. (We didn’t know anything about the Emperor in the original trilogy and when that was fully explored it led to the dreaded prequels.) An early scene inRise of Skywalkerwith Kylo Ren and the Emperor has the Emperor telling him thathewas really behind Snoke, even though there was nothing to even remotely suggest that in either of the previous films. (It’s a bit like Christoph Waltz taking credit for the 007 villains that came before him, when just one movie ago Javier Bardem was out on a very personal mission of revenge against M. Sure!) And if the point wasn’t abundantly made clear, Kylo Ren walks past a giant jar full of either embryonic or mummified Snokes. Did he really need to make more than one creepy weirdo who is super into gold pajamas? Guess so! This is another way in which Kylo Ren’s agency is completely diminished. Instead of being a character who makes his own decisions, he’s yet another puppet on a string.
Kylo’s Helmet
At the beginning ofThe Last Jedi, Snoke makes fun of Kylo Ren, calling him a “child in a mask” and stoking the fires of the rivalry between Kylo Ren and First Order General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson). It was established inThe Force Awakensthat Kylo Ren is a Darth Vader fanboy and worships his grandfather’s melted helmet, and Snoke basically calls Kylo out on cosplaying as his famous grandpa. Kylo Ren, being the rare Star Wars villain ruled by emotion, petulantly smashes his helmet into tiny pieces and spends the rest of the movie without it. Not only was this a bold decision, it’s also a good one since we can see Adam Driver’s face (and oh what a face it is!) and read his emotions. Imagine if he’d had those Force-unified conversations with his helmet on? It’d be like a Funko Pop talk show. InRise of Skywalker, Kylo quickly re-builds his helmet and while images of the toys revealed this new look earlier, the resulting look is more comical than cool - those red lines where the pieces reformed looked like they would be glowing, like the hot magma (perhaps a callback to Darth Vader’s betrayal on molten planet Mustafar and the castle he kept there) but instead have an almost hot pink quality, more Lisa Frank than Darth Vader. And he keeps it ona lot.
Luke’s Lightsaber
The most dramatic moment inThe Last Jediis when several of the storylines converge: Holdo does her sacrificial run on the First Order, while Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) and Finn (John Boyega) are about to be executed and Kylo Ren and Rey are fighting over Luke’s lightsaber (both on a ship Holdo cuts through). The Holdo maneuver coincides with Kylo Ren and Rey ripping the lightsaber apart with their force powers and the Kyber crystal inside possibly exploding. (Rey doesn’t wield her lightsaber for the rest of the movie and the ultimate fate of the pieces is unknown.) The explosion was symbolic of the struggle, both by Rey and Kylo Ren, and the metaphoric repercussions are huge; would Rey even want to repair it? Who could do the job? And was Kylo Ren still after it? (At the end ofThe Force Awakenshe says that it belongs to him.) Well, none of that matters inRise of Skywalkerbecause Rey just has it again and that is that. Move along people, nothing to see here!
Rey’s Parentage
Now we’re getting to the meat of the matter. Again, there were some that raged when it was revealed that Rey was essentially a nobody from Jakku. She goes on a spiritual journey on the island looking for her past and finds …herself. Kylo Ren knows this too and taunts her later, as he tries to get her to join the Dark Side. (There’s even negging in space!) Not only does this give us a definitive answer about who her parents come from, it speaks to one of the larger themes ofThe Last Jedi: that the Jedi have held power over the Force for too long and that it should be democratized. In essence: a wielder of this power can come from anywhere! This is echoed in a number of subtle moments in the film (Poe closing his eyes in the opening space battle, Paige catching the detonator, and the use of native animals on each planet to symbolize the communion between humans and nature) and double-underlined by the closing image of a child slave on Canto Bight, inspired by the Resistance, magically catching his broom, looking up to the stars, and raising it ever so slightly, the moonlight catching it and turning it into a lightsaber.
But actually not.The Rise of Skywalkeraggressively reverses course on this, revealing that Rey isn’t in fact a nobody, born to drunken parents who currently reside in a pauper’s grave. Nope. She’s Emperor Palpatine’s granddaughter. Just typing that out makes me feel icky. Not only is it dumb and nonsensical, but it also says, to every little kid watching these new movies, who thought,maybe I can be a Force wielder, that it doesn’t really matter unless you have a famous grandparent. It also muddies everything else pretty considerably, including the final shot of the entire saga being a Palpatine walking off into the sunset. What (and who) were these movies actually about?Anybody?
“The Holdo Maneuver”
At one point inThe Rise of Skywalker, a desperate Resistance is spitballing ideas about how to combat the First Order, now referred to as the Final Order thanks to some added, very confusing muscle from the Emperor. (We don’t have time to get into it but where in the holy hell did all that come from?) One of the fighters suggests “the Holdo Maneuver,” referring to the sacrificial run that Holdo (Laura Dern) made inThe Last Jedi, one that cut through the First Order’s fleet and was one of the most visually striking moments in anyStar Warsmovie ever. Instead of acknowledging how successful this was and perhaps folding into their attack strategy, it is dismissed out of hand. “It’s a one in a million shot,” someone (I believe Poe) says. But is it really? Because all Holdo did was point a spaceship in the direction of some other spaceships and go into Hyperdrive. It’s honestly amazing this hasn’t been done in one of the movies before, and could potentially happen dozens of times in the universe by accident (like during Poe’s hyper-skipping montage earlier in the film). Like most things that got their start inThe Last Jedi, it’s quickly erased.
Diminishing Rose
Poor Kelly Marie Tran. She’s been through the wringer during her voyage to a galaxy far, far away. First there was the mystifying public outcry against her inThe Last Jedi, which got so bad that she left social media. And then there was the controversy, earlier this year, when merchandise and soft-goods that originally had her image were mysteriously scrubbed clean (leading to a “Where’s Rose?” online campaign). But all of that was preparing her for the ultimate injustice, which was being completely marginalized and sidelined inThe Rise of Skywalker.
By the end ofThe Last Jedishe was a part of the team: she had been involved in a lengthy side-mission with Finn, nearly died, and become an active participant in the last stand battle on Crait. And she had that cool ring! But almost from the beginning ofRise of Skywalker, she’s on the outs. Instead of going on the mission with Poe, Finn, Rey and the droids to the music festival planet of Pasaana, she says that General Leia (Carrie Fisher) needs her to stay on the Rainforest Cafe planet of Ajan Kloss, despite the fact that there were many Resistance fighters just hanging around looking at charts and whatnot. And not to get off topic but they also did Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o) dirty. This is a character who, in early versions ofThe Force Awakens, was either a Jedi or at least Force-sensitive (there’s a deleted scene on one of the home video releases that shows how they escaped her castle - she held up crumbling walls using the Force), and who is active and pugnacious. She only makes a brief appearance inThe Last Jedi, but she’s shown shooting a blaster and flying around with a jetpack. Here she stares off into the distance, relays some expositional dialogue, and blinks. Give her something to do!
But back to Rose: this is a total slap in the face to the character, the actress, and to little girls of Asian descent who finally got to see themselves in a franchise that up until then had either marginalized or vilified them (remember those evil banking aliens inPhantom Menace?) Rose not going on the adventure this time is deeply harmful.
“That’s No Way to Treat a Lightsaber”
Whew boy. After the opening space battle inThe Last Jedi(it should also be kept in mind that Abrams has yet to stage a proper space battle since all of the “wars” in his two entries take place within a planet’s atmosphere), we cut back to the island where Rey is confronting Luke (Mark Hamill), a cliffhanger left over from the end ofThe Force Awakens. She hands him his old lightsaber (found at Maz’s castle), he carefully accepts it, and then he tosses it over his shoulder. He’s done with the Jedi and he’s not interested in the Force. Of course this is what he’d do. But fans were outraged. And in a pivotal moment inRise of Skywalker, set on the same island, Rey tosses her lightsaber into a fire … only it’s caught by Luke’s force ghost who says, “That’s no way to treat a lightsaber.” Maybe even more damnably he says, in his next bit of dialogue, “I was wrong.” So much of the movie is devoted to his spiritual pursuit, how the Jedi were arrogant and shouldn’t have kept the Force to itself, so he’s sitting out the rest of his days on the island, engaging in pacifism and thoughtful reflection. He taps into the Force one last time, to give the Resistance the spark of hope they so desperately need, but it’s like a junkie taking one last hit. It’s too much and it ends up killing him. On a character level, it makes no sense that he would say that stuff, but it also has such metaphoric weight, that the act of undoing his lightsaber toss is one of the most blatant middle-fingers toThe Last Jedi(although Abrams disagrees), especially given Hamill’s outspoken disagreement with Johnson’s direction, apparently disregarding everyone who thought that his performance inLast Jediwas the best of his career. Maybe the crummy wig he wears inRise of Skywalkeris his punishment.
This isn’t a huge one but it did stick in my craw: at the end ofThe Last Jedi, the Millennium Falcon had been infested with porgs, the bird-like creatures that populate the island Luke was hiding out on. Even in the climactic battle, they’re there, causing havoc and making nests. (If you walk through the queue for Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run, keep an eye out for all of the porg nests.) Again, their involvement in the story and the reason they’re everywhere isn’t just because they’re cute: they also symbolize the relationship of the Force with the natural world. And we see this time and time again in the movie, whether it’s the fathiers on Canto Bight or the crystal foxes on Crait – these creatures are emphasized for a reason. So to have them completely gone from the movie (save for a very iffy-looking moment on the island), particularly in the Millennium Falcon, seems completely disingenuous and yet another rebuke to the chief thematic concern of the last movie. At leastThe Rise of Skywalkeris consistent: Rey is a Palpatine and the porgs are gone.
What Spark?
At the end ofThe Last Jedi, Luke astral projects to the crazy salt planet of Crait in order to face off against his former pupil Kylo Ren and to buy the Resistance some time in order to escape and/or rally the troops. In the process he sacrifices himself, which is very sad. You can tell that word of this epic standoff has already reached the far corner of the galaxy because the little slave kids from Canto Bight are recounting the adventure at the end of the movie, complete with a homemade action figure of Luke. But at the beginning ofRise of Skywalker, the Resistance is still a scrappy band of misfits; not only does no one reference Luke’s sacrifice but nobody else shows up, negating the emotional impact and thematic heft of the finale. Even when our heroes encounter Lando on Pasaana inRise of Skywalker, they are just happy to see him. Nobody asks, “Where the hell were you when we really needed you?” (And he oddly enough doesn’t ask where Han is.)
Towards the end of the movie, when the Resistance is facing off against the First Order or Final Order or whatever the hell they are, there are tons of Resistance fighters who join them (some more iconic than others - the Ghost fromStar Wars Rebelsand The Razorcrest fromThe Mandalorianhave been spotted). Them showing up at this opportune moment further diminishes Luke’s sacrifice and his attempts to “ignite the spark” that will light the fire of the Resistance. It makes very little sense and flies in the face of everything established inThe Last Jedi.
