That any movie exists at all is a miracle, and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is no exception. It’s the culmination of years of work from so many incredibly talented people whom I respect and admire, and it’s a massive accomplishment by virtue of its release. I hope that this spirit is built into all of my writing, but I wanted to foreground it here for reasons that will soon become evident.
This review is spoiler-free, for some reason.
Deep down, something inside me always knew that it would turn out this way—well, maybe not always, but at least for a week or so. “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” premiered to a mixed critical reception, setting in motion tectonic rumblings that promised to usher ‘the discourse’ into new, heretofore-unseen levels of opinionated dissonance and petty conflict. In my anticipation of the film, one which slowly merged my genuine thrill surrounding the “Star Wars” franchise and the at-least-partially-ironic delight often found in the spectacle of a cinematic trainwreck, I’d made a crucial miscalculation—a tragic conflation. Over time, I had come to think of my largely-bored reaction to “The Force Awakens” as one grounded in nihility. The movie was fine, I thought—derivative and predictable, but fine. Then came “The Last Jedi,” a movie that reminded us all that “Star Wars” is at its best when it attempts to innovate and inspire. Spoiled by this experience, perhaps, I said to a friend, “Honestly, after thinking more about ‘The Force Awakens,’ I’d rather hate ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ than feel nothing!”
Well, it turns out that boredom isn’t nothing; it’s something! It’s a dull, blanketed dissatisfaction adjacent to complacency, a vague longing for something more than is immediately present. To be bored is to feel boredom, and to feel something is tautologically not the same as feeling nothing. Nothing, as a concept, is vacuous. It’s the space between stars. It’s not a medium; it can’t conduct sound. To utter into nothingness, even to scream, is only to waste breath, and to feel nothing when watching the conclusion of a beloved saga that’s served as a cultural monument for decades certainly isn’t boring; it’s baffling.
“The Rise of Skywalker’s” narrative beats unfold as they would in a video game whose developers, desperately trying to justify its industry-standard price tag, packed it full of content in service of nothing but a corporately-mandated playtime target. Our heroes, now bunched into a single adventuring party by a cynical combination of convenience and residual demand, zigzag across the galaxy in search of… something. This something is supposed to help them find something else, which in-turn can be used to find something else. These Matryoshka McGuffins are such a transparently hollow device so completely disconnected from the prior films and employed with such little consideration for narrative craftsmanship that you almost have to marvel at the brazenness of it all.
Quick sidebar, if I may: I do find the aforementioned “video game” analogy a bit problematic, not because it is overly harsh towards the film, but rather because it’s quite reductive and it reads as backhanded towards an artistic medium which has made immense strides in self-actualization over the past decade. “The Rise of Skywalker,” in near-direct defiance of its predecessor’s insistence, reflects no such strides.
This scattered, frenetic narrative (more-aptly-described as a pale-imitation of one) exists as a deeply confused amalgamation, at once a ghost of “Star Wars” Past, Present, and Future. The film’s core conceit, that a great evil has been behind each and every one of the series’ twists and turns from Naboo to Crait, is likely meant to be one of meta-unification, an attempt to trace a line through each trilogy that connects gracefully with the final installment. “See?” it pleads as though trying to assuage doubts, “This has all been planned from the beginning!” Ultimately the gambit proves unconvincing on both intra- and intertextual levels; there was no plan here.
Ay, there’s the rub. Can you really blame a sequel for a lack of storytelling integrity when it must necessarily follow the events of a different film?
Yes! Despite some rather curious public sentiments, “The Rise of Skywalker” was not backed into any sort of corner by the events of “The Last Jedi.” The choices made here in terms of what’s backgrounded (Rose’s agency and certain other character revelations) versus what’s foregrounded (nonsensical nostalgia plays and plot twists for their own sake) speak solely to the priorities of this film. Seeing Disney et al. backpedal so vociferously from “The Last Jedi”—an unqualified critical and commercial success which somehow managed to deeply aggravate a vocal contingent of fans—with no real sense of what to introduce in its stead, I’m reminded of the John Mulaney bit in which he laments that hosts never know what to offer their guest who doesn’t drink.
“Would you like an old turnip we found in the cabinet? Would that be good for you? Would you like that?”
Okay, so it’s not all old turnips. To say that “The Rise of Skywalker” has some positive qualities is pointedly not the same thing as saying that it has redeeming qualities, but I would be remiss if I neglected to mention its virtues. For one, Anthony Daniels’ C3PO has never been given so much to work with, and he proves such an unquestionable asset that it feels almost cruel to tap into this potential only now, in the series’ concluding chapter. Also, newcomer Babu Frik (voiced by Shirley Henderson) is objectively grand, converting his five minutes of screentime into a place in the “Star Wars” pantheon of essential ancillary players. Finally, through it all, the heroic trio of Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac remain good; it’s just more than a bit surreal to see their characters so adrift in what should be their finest hours.
Though this all sounds quite grim, it is the season of giving and I’m led to wonder: is it possible that I’ve erred? Could “The Rise of Skywalker” really be the worst “Star Wars” movie when the prequels still exist? Does Babu Frik radiate enough light to pierce through even the bleakest fog? If I were to rewatch the film knowing what I’m about to see and calibrating my expectations accordingly, would everything not come across as an abject, incorrigible mess?
Bah, humbug.
Grade: F
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is in theaters now.
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