Kudos to J.J. Abrams for doing something extraordinary to Star Wars with his Rise of Skywalker: he has made me not care about it for the first time in my life.
Look: I am the clichéd GenX Star Wars fan who was eight years old in the summer of 1977 when the first movie hit us all with the force of a supernova. I lined up as a teenager — the queue wrapped around the cinema; just a one-screener back in those pre-multiplex days — to find out what Return of the Jedi would bring us.
I was there when the first Phantom Menace trailer debut broke the baby World Wide Web. I spent the summer of 1999 rewatching Episode I many many times and having endless (and still not resolved) philosophical discussions with other fans about just what, precisely, constituted the “phantom menace” and whether Qui-Gon was stupid and incompetent or wise but thwarted and what “bringing balance to the Force” would mean.
I was so very primed, in 2015, for the third trilogy to bring the 40-year-long story of my geek existence to a conclusion. This myth has defined my entire pop-culture life, in so many ways: it has contributed to the patois of Generation X (“Use the Force”; “I dunno, I have a bad feeling about this”); it has shaped how we all think about movies now. Star Wars — the first movie but also the ongoing sprawling saga, with its videogames and cartoon TV series and all of it — has been the Ultimate Story in the same way that, say, Gone with the Wind or Casablanca, or Lawrence of Arabia or The Sound of Music, have been for earlier generations, except even more all-encompassing. The Star Wars machine has become The Movies. Star Wars is almost religion… almost literally.
What I’m saying is: I love Star Wars and I very much own that love. I have lived that love. The saga is in my geek blood.
And yet I watched The Rise of Skywalker and — throughout it and after it — could muster no reaction beyond a huge heaving sigh of I No Longer Have Any Fucks To Give Here. I don’t even want to argue about any of it anymore. I’m exhausted by all of it, and not in a good way. I am exhausted by the toxic fan reaction and by the ultimate pointlessness of it all. (I am not saying that arguing over fiction is pointless. I am saying that arguing over this particular story has been deliberately rendered pointless by those who have been telling it.) I’m kind of relieved that it’s over, actually, because it has stopped being fun. Worse, it has stopped being interesting.
And it’s all the fault of J.J. Abrams.
Four years ago, I summed up my review of Abrams’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens — the first installment of this new trilogy — like this:
[It c]harts a path to a future that refuses to get mired in nostalgia. Yet all the ‘Star Wars’ notes are here, remixed into a glorious new arrangement.
And then Abrams passed off — though I don’t think it was by his choice — the next chapter, The Last Jedi, to writer-director Rian Johnson. A chapter I loved it, because it:
[u]pend[ed] expectations, demythologize[d] the mythos, and [took] an iconic series in a bold new direction with a story full of humor, courage, and dazzling imagery.
It seemed to me that this was the right approach for the first two movies of a new trilogy, a wrapup trilogy, to take: acknowledge the past and play with the tropes, but then move in a much-needed new direction. Finish this particular story but open up this universe and make room for it to expand into fresh vistas. I mean, that’s how you keep it going, right? That’s what you need to continue raking in big ol’ corporate profit, no? It’s a big fucking galaxy out there, isn’t it? Let’s explore it!
But with The Rise of Skywalker, Abrams — director as well as one of four credited screenwriters — sucks it all back in upon itself. Nothing that happens here and none of the answers to the mysteries the previous films in this new trilogy posed are the least bit surprising or enlightening. The biggest narrative crimes of The Rise of Skywalker are the same ones as Solo: A Star Wars Story: everyone in the galaxy actually knows everyone we’ve met before. This big crazy wide universe is, in fact, really insular and really fucking small and incredibly familiar.
Say what you will about George Lucas’s prequel trilogy — it certainly has its problems, to say the very least — but at least it showed us a vibrant, diverse galactic civilization. And yet Rise of Skywalker might as well be a soap opera set in a small village, for all the scope it has. It’s genuinely shocking how cramped this movie ends up feeling.
Who is Rey (Daisy Ridley: Peter Rabbit, Murder on the Orient Express)? Whence comes her Force powers? From there? Really? *groan* Forget whatever space battles this movie wants to mount; forget everything else Rise of Skywalker could have been about: Abrams (Star Trek Into Darkness, Super 8) makes this movie about that question, and the answer is tedious as well as aimless. For all the endless callbacks to beats from the original Star Wars trilogy — just when you think Abrams is done referring to the old movies, he throws in an even more shameless reference — Rise barely seems interested in the spirit of the overall tale. In 1977, Star Wars was rebellious and antiestablishment in every way it could be, from its provenance as a scrappy little indie in a Hollywood that didn’t know what to make of it — it was damn near cinematic outsider art — to its protagonist, the lonely farmboy who dreamed of adventure and of a life anywhere but where he was.
Last Jedi was imbued with that spirit: in its audacious suggestion that the Jedi were greatly in need of, at a minimum, a Reformation, or that maybe the faith’s time had come to die; in its celebration of the little people who win wars with their necessary slogging gruntwork and its rejection of showy one-man heroics. Last Jedi was anti status quo, was all about blowing up the metaphoric Death Star that is this movie machine. Its target — perhaps unwittingly, though I suspect not — was as much a hidebound fandom as the increasingly hidebound franchise it worshipped.
And then J.J. Abrams comes back, here in Rise, with, “LOL, hell no!” and delivers multiple fuck-you reversals to what Rian Johnson did in his film. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac: X-Men: Apocalypse, Mojave) is back to being celebrated as a cheerfully reckless hothead. Ex-Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega: Pacific Rim: Uprising, Detroit) and maintenance engineer Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) are completely sidelined, their brand of quiet power and everyday courage not required here, and certainly not deemed of any worth. (Rise brings in another token nonwhite nonmale in order to pretend it is Diverse, but mysterious low-tech warrior Jannah [Naomi Ackie: Lady Macbeth, Doctor Who] ends up with almost nothing to do, too.)
It’s one thing — a depressing thing — to see that, obviously, there was never any unifying vision for this trilogy; no one mapped out even a sketch of a overarching plot for the three movies, and the grand story it tells is damn near incoherent because no one seems to have had any idea what it was going to be about. Way worse, though, is how, with The Rise of Skywalker — the film struggles to justify that title — Star Wars became the Empire, solidifying ideas about lineage and nobility (broadly defined) and destiny and heritage that, more than ever in today’s world, need to fucking die, when slavish adherence to dynasties and heritage are doing so much damage.
Somehow I’m always shocked when anything considered science fiction or fantasy shows itself to be so lacking in imagination, and when its fans reward it for its narrowmindedness. I’m also never not disappointed. It’s clear now that whatever flight of fancy Star Wars once took me on, it is no longer interested in having me along on the journey. This saddens me, but there are plenty of other stories out there that will engage me as I need.
see also:
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie review: a new hope
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi movie review: a great disturbance in the Force
In addition to what you pointed out, every single character (save Rey and Kylo) is a plot device. The whole story was slapped together while they were scripting, and it shows. It’s such a waste of Daisy Ridley’s talents (she deserved a strong finish for the franchise that gave her a career), as well as putting Oscar fucking Isaac in a leading role and not giving him much to do.
I thought the ending was beautifully done, but everything else was a mess leading up to it. If Disney decides not to make more Star Wars films — I’d be just fine with that.
What the HELL was that?
What the hell WAS that?
What the hell was THAT?
George Lucas got crazier as the movies he made progressed into the new episodes, but everything he did was because he believed in it. Disney’s interest is in seeing how high they can build the pile of SW money. The first clue was Disney trying to turn out a film every year; those three-year gaps between the Lucas films made you hungry for the next installment. Now, not so much….
Rian Johnson believed in the story he told, which makes it all the more angering how its edges were sanded off in this one. Makes me wish I’d gone to see Knives Out instead.
It’s funny, I agree with almost all of your specific points, but still enjoyed the hell out of this one. MaryAnn and I are the same age. Maybe the magic and not being able to imagine NOT loving Star Wars are still working for me. And maybe a little of it is the headcanon I invented for this movie that takes the little bit of Dark Side necromancy we see and just runs with it. Still ending up at the same place, but with some much cooler bits in between.
All of the above being said, I’m in total agreement with this: “I am exhausted by the toxic fan reaction and by the ultimate pointlessness of it all.” This stuff (and the reactions *to* the reactions, and the counter-reactions to that, and the hot takes and clickbait attempts to make it look like the creators and actors are all screaming at each other just like the “fans” have pretty much drained me.
Arguing about Star Wars (even the overheated reaction to the prequels, sorta) used to be FUN.
I was going to post much the same as what you said. I enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker — I saw it twice — but I agreed with almost all of the points MaryAnn made (which is the sign of a good critic — they provide insight even when you disagree).
Oh, yeah, on another level, something that just baffles me:
How the hell can you make these movies without at least *some* overarching idea of what the three movies are going to be about?
I’ve been a comics fan as long as I’ve been a Star Wars fan. Back in the ’80s, DC did this thing called the “DC Challenge.” It was a 12-issue round robin story with randomly determined creative teams for each issue. Each issue had to end with a cliffhanger that the next team had to deal with. For instance, I remember one that left Aquaman stranded in the middle of the Sahara desert and minutes away from dying due to lack of water.
The writer had to have something in mind for an escape from the cliffhanger, but the next writer didn’t know what it was, and might go off in a completely different direction.
The whole thing was fun, if a little disjointed and unavoidably gimmicky. But this was a minor comic book limited series. Sure, DC hoped it would sell, but if it didn’t, it was just this fun little experiment that wouldn’t ruin the company or anything.
How can you possibly arrive at the notion that a “DC Challenge” approach is in any way wise or appropriate for a multi-billion dollar franchise?
I know, it’s utterly ridiculous. JJ loves his little mystery boxes and allegedly had answers in mind all along but didn’t tell anyone. That’s a terrible way to manage a franchise, and just like the mystery of “who is Cumberbatch playing in Star Trek,” the resolution is the most obvious and underwhelming thing imaginable.
Except there isn’t even a mystery box here. :-(
“Where did Rey come from” is a mystery, but it was given a satisfying answer in TLJ. It wasn’t JJ’s preferred answer, though.
Well, there was one more obvious and underwhelming answer than what we got… but fortunately Rian pretty much took that one off the table. (this video was made after TFA and before TLJ)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjHEHuNyvME
Heh. Mystery box…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_xWhF2sSb0
Inspired of course by the novel that inspired this scene in another movie — a novel apparently much read by George Lucas (though I doubt that he and his many lawyers will ever admit that…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTjUzT-xto4
You’re saying he didn’t come up with a desolate desert planet and spice-mining on his own? Nah, impossible.
Pretty happy for future projects like the Mandalorian (didn’t fall in love at first, but it picked up steam and now I can’t wait for S2). But yeah, RISE seems completely pre-occupied with “wrapping this shit up”. Sidelining existing characters while introducing new ones that go nowhere, compound macguffins, character arcs that are more straight lines than arcs, retcons to address previous “retcons”…
It looks GORGEOUS. And everyone mostly gives it their all. I just wish this one was better than warmed-up Return of the Jedi.
This movie almost made me quit Star Wars but Mandalorian brought me back.
I was waiting eagerly for this and I was not disappointed. (This review, that is. Not the movie. The movie was garbage.)
It’s so, so, so sloppy. If you’re going to kill off Chewbacca 45 minutes in, maybe make the audience think he’s dead for a good hour before he comes back in the third act. If you’re going to have Lando call a bunch of ships for a big, sweeping moment of support (that specific moment is done beautifully), maybe show him calling the ships. If you’re going to have Finn insist that he’s going to tell Rey something, HAVE HIM TELL HER THE THING. If you want Adam Driver to have a character arc, maybe give him actual lines and things to say- there’s only so much looks (and unwarranted kissing) can justify in the third act. As much as I disliked this movie (and I was never going to like Reylo or Rey Skywalker, Rey Palpatine could have been okay but was treated lazily, like everything else), I would have enjoyed seeing the three-hour cut that was rumored.
Agreed with all of this. I was so angry at the reveal of who Rey really is. I loved all the weird directions TLJ took and I hate that JJ undid all of it. I particularly agree with the idea of the Jedi needing a Reformation. It’s one of the few things I defend in the prequels- I think the Jedi were deliberately presented as bloated and corrupt, and the three trilogies could have presented a cycle of fall and rebirth. I was guessing Rey would found a successor to the Jedi called the Skywalkers, justifying the film’s title. Also, I wanted more of Broom Boy and other nobodies to show up and play a role, but no go.
There was one scene I really liked, and that was when they met the underground worm thing. It felt very Doctor Who, with our hero seeing a great beast but being affectionate towards it and helping to heal its pain.
One other thing I half-liked was C-3PO. Think I need a SPOILER WARNING here:
C-3PO is not allowed to translate Sith language but he can if they reset his memory. This is contrived and doesn’t make much sense, but from a story perspective it makes sense. He’s one of only two characters who’s been with us for every movie, so his offering to essentially die for his friends was pretty touching. But then later R2 restores his memory from a back-up file? So what was the point of that? It’s like JJ wasn’t satisfied with undoing TLJ, he had to retcon things that happened in the same movie?
I liked how the worm incident also started a little arc for BB-8.
This movie’s entire attitude is summed up by C-3PO’s restored memory not including any of the events from The Last Jedi.
Is that right? I know it had a gap in it, but I wasn’t sure how far back it went. But if you’re right, then yeah, that says it all.
I might be looking for slightly more than is really there in the text, but confirming it would require seeing it again, and that aint happening in a hurry.
J.J. needs to stay away from venerated sci franchises. He’s done more damage to Star Wars and Star Trek, that I don’t know if those two franchises will ever recover. He has the lead touch.
I really don’t think it’s as bad as all that. I absolutely loved the new Treks (and as far as I remember, MaryAnn did too. The first new SW film by JJ was great, the second SW made not by JJ was great. This one wasn’t great, but one out of five isn’t a bad record.
Yup, I’ve enjoyed the new *Trek*s, and I have the same relationship to *Trek* as I do to *Wars*: grew up with it, shaped my geekiness, etc. My issue with new installments in either franchise hasn’t been lack of Trekiness or Warsiness, but more basic storytelling issues.
His early career in the 90’s is mostly schmaltzy and sentimental, although I remember Regarding Henry being a minor hit when I was a kid. Joy Ride, Felicity, and Alias in the early 2000’s were his peak, then of course he made a truckload of money with Lost, which I know many people love. After that, I don’t know what happened, maybe he was given too much creative control a la Lucas, maybe he ran out of ideas, but everything went south in a hurry.
I keep waiting for him to stop imitating his idols and speak with his own voice, and it never happens. He’s not awful, visually he’s quite talented, he’s just cursed with an extremely mundane imagination. Maybe his crazy, novel ideas are shot down by studio heads, but after so much evidence to the contrary, it seems unlikely.
Good Science Fiction is about ideas and exploration, and he’s become incapable of building a world substantial enough to reward wandering through. As your comment and this review state, he and Disney have sucked all the wonder out of entire universes and left once rich, juicy ideas shriveled and crumbling in the mud.
I don’t want him to fail or succeed, I just want him to get better. Now Cameron, for some reason, partially jealousy, I kinda want to see him fail spectacularly. His failures have the potential to be overblown, campy fun, J.J.’s failures (and successes) are forgettable, shiny mush, like a bowl of cold oatmeal with candy sprinkles.
Personally, I always thought the cinematic SW universe was in trouble long before Abrams came along and that blaming the failure of the SW series on Abrams is like pretending The Phantom Menace would have been a sci-fi classic if not for Jar-Jar Binks.
I’m glad my niece and nephew find something to like in the new movies but apart from that, I have not much to say about the matter apart from noting that I wish for MaryAnn’s sake that the last two movies were a lot better.
Hollywood does not reward this, though. Or, at least, it thinks it doesn’t reward this until some dude (ALWAYS a dude, and a white dude, at that) bucks a trend that “inexplicably” makes a splash (see: 1977 George Lucas) has a hit that no one expected. And then said white dude is hailed as a visionary or whateverthefuck and… oh god I am so exhausted by it all.
I didn’t like the last jedi, found it a bore to watch i must admit and didn’t like any of the male or female characters in it(luke, poe, rose and holdo especially).
Not seen Rise of Skywalker yet, but i’m guessing as i mostly enjoyed force awakens, i’ll probably enjoy rise of skywalker more than you did.
Last jedi left such a sour taste in my mouth though, i skipped rise of skywalker because of it.
You’re probably right that disliking TLJ makes you more likely to like this one. I disagree with you strongly, but it’s nice to see someone express that opinion respectfully, without falling into sexism.
Write a better one… Let’s all see it.
Considering the hurdles faced in this finale, two principles being the incredibly short schedule and the loss of a key actor even before production began, it simply could have been worse, but wasn’t and I’m grateful for that.
I thought the Rey+Kylo scenes were watchable, and they had palpable chemistry. Ren is largely culpable in the murder of millions sentient beings though, which undercuts some of the dramatic moments near the end quite a bit. You have to admit Finn and Poe have arcs that go nowhere in this film, and the trilogy as a whole.
You’re right though, making a movie is not an easy undertaking, and there were certainly many challenges involved in this particular installment and many different interest groups to appease.
That said, “I’d like to see you do better – it could have been a lot worse,” is a weak defense. I personally think that MA could do a lot better, given the vast resources at J.J.’s disposal, and any movie can be worse than it is, as the special editions prove.
I’m happy you went in with low expectations and were pleasantly surprised – no need to challenge those who felt let down. If someone eats a piece of pie you like and says, “meh, not so good,” it would be a little silly to angrily retort, “I’d like to see you open up your own restaurant and bake a better one! It could have tasted way worse!” You liked it, they didn’t. MA has a personal connection to the series too, which makes her disappointment that much more heartbreaking.
“Write a better one” is a bad argument. You are allowed to criticize a movie even if you’ve never made one yourself.
I’ve written scripts, though. Nothing that has been produced, sadly, but my scripts have won some minor awards.
Which is to say: Fuck that guy that you are replying to, and fuck Hollywood. I KNOW movies, and I know what makes good movies, and what doesn’t, even if I have never made a small fortune in the process.
Yep, someone just got me the “Cat and Mouse” screenplay for Christmas. Haven’t gotten to read it yet, but enjoy the royalties.
Thank you! Hope you enjoy it.
(My royalty of $2.07 won’t even buy a coffee, but I figure you were being sarcastic anyway.)
MaryAnn’s screenplays are for sale? Awesome.
I’m hoping they’re not just available on a digital format
Just digital. Sorry.
Is this directed at me? Are you telling me to write a better script?
Cuz, fuck yeah, I will do that. But Hollywood gotta pay me to do it.
You don’t have to agree with her review but if the main points of your counter-argument are “write a better one” and “it could have been worse,” you might want to consider writing a better review yourself.
Not gonna lie, The Rise of Skywalker is to Return of the Jedi as The Force Awakens is to A New Hope, except RotJ wasn’t that great to begin with, so TRoS is commensurately worse.
I was going to write that well, it could have been worse, but after considering for a long while, I realized I couldn’t think of any way it *could* have been worse.
It passed the final episode of a trilogy of trilogies over to J.J. (“I’m not good with endings”) Abrams, instead of Rian Johnson, who was originally going to make episode nine until the whining fanbaby men writing ignorant screeds on the Internetz got Disney scared and they replaced him.
It threw out and un-did all the wonderful stuff Rian Johnson had done in THE LAST JEDI, and gave us stupid fan service to placate the worst element of the fans.
It wasted a bunch of good actors, most notably Kelly Marie Tran, who I thought the best thing in THE LAST JEDI.
It brought back Palpitine, which was both a silly idea in its own right, AND robbed the first trilogy of its victory.
It did such silly things as making the hidden fleet of star destroyers each have its own Death Star cannon, making you wonder why in hell they’d bothered building Death Stars to hold those cannons in the first place. (It goes without saying that any time you find yourself considering logical points in a STAR WARS movie, you’re kinda fucked.)
Pssh, there are lots of ways to make it worse:
1) In the middle of the film, Kylo makes a pit stop at 69 Aftward, the 24 hour night club on his ship. As he orders a cold one, he spots a mysterious female Twi’lek across the room and offers her a twirl on the dance floor when Hux cuts in with a smirk saying, “These tentacles are taken, why don’t you Ren back to your room Kyloser.” They breakdance to the death, but it ends in a draw. They lock eyes panting in exhaustion, go to Ren’s room and make out awkwardly, but it’s Disney so the penetration is implied offscreen.
2) Near the end of the climactic battle, an army of Ewoks led by a fully shaved Wicket hang glide out of a wormhole and drop water balloons filled with purple egg nog on the heads on the storm troopers guarding the shield gen… er radio tower. A force ghost of Anakin appears, the Jake Lloyd verson, and exclaims, “Now that was Pod Racing!” The ghost then breaks out in a lively Jedi space shanty to celebrate their victory, and the remaining Storm Troopers, driven mad by the beauty of the song, take off their armour and put it on again upside down so that it looks like they’re all walking on their hands and waving their feet in the air. Everyone tries not to look at Wicket’s smoothly, shaved body and fails. “Are you an angel? You’re Endorable!” exclaims Jake Lloyd Anakin. The Force Ghost and Wicket embrace, then make out awkwardly while everyone around them slowly pretends to suddenly have somewhere to go. It’s Disney, so you only see Wicket’s sideboob for a couple seconds, and his nipples are blurred out.
3) After the credit roll, the camera pans up from the spot in the sand to a robotic foot, as it continues upwards, we see that the robotic legs are attached to the torsos of Darth Maul, Jar Jar Binks, and a badly burned Jyn Erso. “At last meesa reveal ourselves to the Jedi, meesa have hope, revenge issa built on hope!” the creature exclaims ominiously. Rey and the the charred torso of Erso make out awkwardly while the Maul and Binks torsos play rock paper scissors to decide who gets Luke’s saber. Baby Yoda and Baby Groot drive up in a gold plated sandcrawler wearing blinged out Geordi La Forge visors and begin rapping about blasters and slave girls, Jabba features, but his verse is subpar. It’s Disney, so they play the clean radio edit.
Wait… all those sound better than what we got. Shit, you’re right. It’s impossible.
It’s bizarre that Disney would want to play it safe with this franchise, given that it was guaranteed to make money no matter what. Why not swing for the fences?
That doesn’t bother me at all. After forty years, the technology has no doubt advanced, so I’m willing to accept that they just now managed to miniaturize the cannons enough to fit on a Star Destroyer. It’s actually nice to see a sci-fi universe where technology isn’t frozen in whatever people thought “futuristic” meant in 1950’s pulp magazines.
I’m grateful this new trilogy happened just for The Last Jedi. I love that movie so goddamn much. It ignited a passion I’d never previously felt for this series. I happily isolate it as a glorious one-off. Not being a Star Wars fan, the shocking awfulness of this movie can be shrugged off as another piece of Hollywood horseshit. It might as well be called “Star Wars Episode IX: Fuck Rian Johnson”. It really feels like this movie was made to placate fans who hated Last Jedi.
As soon as it was announced JJ was going to direct this, I adjusted expectations accordingly, down to zero. I just detest everything Abrams does. He has no artistic soul as a filmmaker. All of his shots are empty, existing only on the surface. Potentially engrossing moments happen but the second they’re over they disappear. I’ll go further: his movies are all sociopathic. There’s no emotion. There’s the appearance of emotion, but there’s nothing true behind it. All potentially engrossing moments happen quickly then pass without lingering or seeping in to the subconscious to be truly savoured. Every moment is like that. An astonishing image appears onscreen but it never actually becomes astonishing. It’s always taken away by inherent falseness, an embedded emptiness suffusing the entire film. And also by the lightspeed editing that ensures nothing stays on screen long enough to matter. Nothing feels earned or honest, nothing is real. There can be no time to be sincere as that would disrupt the momentum of emptiness. A genuinely moving cinematic experience becomes ‘real’ in the mind of the satisfied viewer. You can feel it. You know when it’s reached you on some deeper level. Nothing here came close to that. This is pod people film-making.
The ultimate example of JJ Abrams’ deeply unpleasant cinematic sociopathy is still the destruction of the Republic by Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens. Five densely populated planets are destroyed in what is far and away the most monumental, devastating, cataclysmic, unimaginable mass-killing in the history of the universe, and literally five seconds later the movie forgets all about it. Hey fuck it. That’s over with. Next! I get that on one level this is all broad pulp sci-fi nonsense, but it still shocks me how that film made that into such a banal moment. Meanwhile, Paige Tico’s sacrifice in the opening of Last Jedi still makes me gasp and shiver with an intense emotional response. With less than two minutes of screentime and no dialogue, she’s a living breathing person who matters. I can’t say that about anything in Rise of Skywalker.
Finally saw this film, and while my immediate experience was “enjoyment” thanks to my utter lack of expectations (funnily enough a general movie-going philosophy I adopted after going into The Phantom Menace with high hopes), you absolutely nail the lasting impact of the film: Nothing.
Like you say, every scene, every visual, every moment, every emotion, every idea, breezes by in a moment and vanishes, never to be concerned again. There’s some things that happen which should have major ramifications but don’t because the movie doesn’t care. Including, once again, destroying a planet. Which isn’t a spoiler because it doesn’t matter at all; like I don’t think the protagonists even know it happened? At least — and holy turds is this damning with faint praise — someone was like “Whoa! The Republic was destroyed, that’s bad!”
That’s a good point – in Force Awakens there’s at least some reaction to the planets blowing up. But in Rise, it just happens randomly, because it’s the sort of thing that’s supposed to happen in a Star Wars movie. It’s only there for the audiences’ benefit, not the characters, which ends up not benefiting the audience, because shallow fan service in place of a real dramatic story isn’t a foundation for anything meaningful.
“We are what they grow beyond.” Yoda was right in The Last Jedi; we just didn’t realize he was talking about us having to grow beyond the film franchise itself. :-/
I’m with Stacy Livitsanis: I’m glad the new trilogy gave space for TLJ to exist as a fantastic one-off. It stands on its own both as a film and as much-needed commentary on both the franchise and its fans; and the film’s themes will continue to resonate, whether future storytellers fulfill or squander its promise. But I’ve pretty much given up hoping for a cohesive, satisfying narrative for the Star Wars universe as a whole, and will just have to enjoy whatever nuggets of gold emerge from the inevitable sea of mediocre or atrocious crap. Sturgeon’s Law and all that.
I believe we actually ARE living through a time of quality Star Wars storytelling… it’s just that it’s all happening in The Mandalorian. Oh well.
I have a theory.
REALLY TRIVIAL SPOILERS AHEAD
.
.
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This movie shows a number of women working for the First Order. These women have hardly any lines.
My theory is that the First Order went on a huge recruiting drive, trying to add more women to the team, but they couldn’t find any women who were willing to sign up. So they came up with a plan.
The First Order’s spies knew that the Resistance had made tremendous advances in artificial intelligence, and had developed extremely lifelike androids to fight on their behalf. So they conducted a raid on a Resistance base and stole as many female androids as they could find. They reprogrammed all of the androids to join the First Order.
There was only one problem. The androids’ original programming didn’t allow them to speak the Sith language. No matter how much time the First Order technicians spent trying to solve the problem, they could never get the female androids to speak more than a sentence or two. So the women spend most of their time saying nothing at all.
The other possibility, I suppose, is that J.J. Abrams and his team made very little effort to put interesting female characters onscreen, but it’s 2020, so surely he’s aware of the need for better representation in the movies.
Given what we actually got, Colin Trevorrow’s leaked original script actually sounds pretty good:
More details — clearly showing that Trevorrow was going to build off of TLJ rather than try to negate it:
And Kylo Ren was apparently going to be the big bad throughout — no playing second-fiddle to a recycled Emperor, and no redemption:
Sigh. It’s so frustrating to see that Trevorrow actually seemed to GET what Johnson was pointing toward, and we were so close to getting a movie that fulfilled TLJ’s potential. Maybe there can be a Force-induced Star Wars Multiverse where this story can still happen. Until then, there’s always fan fiction…
A leaked script, if unproduced and never to be produced, is just fan fiction.
PAID fan fiction, though (I would hope.) :-)
Oh, I’m sure it was. But as far as everyone not Colin Trevorrow is concerned, it’s nothing more than fan fiction.
True enough. Again, it’s frustrating that it won’t ever be more than that. It might have made a better movie.
And it’s worse because it is more than fan-fic in the sense that it had a real chance of becoming a movie in a way that none of the “It might have made a better movie” fan-fics have. Like, the studio literally paid someone to write it so that it could become the actual script of the actual movie, they just decided “nah”.
So, doesn’t change anything about the merits of the final film just like a fan-fic, but frustratingly closer to a reality we could have inhabited.
Kinda like the original script for that terrible Russel Crowe Robin Hood movie that was gonna make the Sheriff the protagonist. Like they had gold in their hands and flushed it down the toilet. That’s much worse than the idea of the sympathetic Sheriff simply existing.
A important caveat to the relationships between Trevorrow’s and Abrams’s Ep IX scripts: Trevorrow was fired from the production 3 months before The Last Jedi premiered.
Also, Collin Trevorrow has made one reasonably good movie, which (Ep IX aside) has allowed him to fail upwards since then.
How is that a caveat?
Oh sure, there’s no guarantee that what looks promising on paper actually winds up being good onscreen. All I’m saying is that Trevorrow seemed to understand and go along with the story direction that Johnson was suggesting. He was “yes-and”-ing Johnson, as opposed to Abrams who just said “Nah, we’re gonna go back to my idea.”
It means that the decision not to go with his script was not made in response to the reactions to The Last Jedi. It was deemed unsuable all on its own. However disappointing Abrams and Terrio’s script is, Trevorrow’s film would almost certainly been at least as disappointing in its own, unique ways. Which makes this whole “leaked script” business into a ridiculous exercise. One that, because this is still the early 21st century, is already morphing into a bunch #ReleaseTheTrevorrowCut nonsense.
.
And that’s assuming we take the authenticity of this script at face value, which, really? Consider, this is a production company that went to such lengths to keep the existence of a major character, in a highly anticipated and heavily promoted new show, under such wraps that Etsy sellers made more money selling merch of this character last year than did two of the most merchandising savvy companies in the world. But somehow a rejected script by the guy they fired leaked out? Pull the other one.
I never said that it was. I *will* say that TROS feels like Abrams’ very personal response to TLJ taking the story in a direction he seems not to have wanted.
*shrug* I’m going by independent confirmations from /Film, Collider, and the Playlist. You can choose whether or not to believe their sources.
But whether or not the Trevorrow script is real, it’s a story that feels more satisfying and makes more sense as a continuation and culmination of the themes and story elements that have come before.
Trying to offer something positive, I just listened to an episode of a Star Wars podcast called Scavenger’s Hoard celebrating Rose Tico and what she stands for. Partway through the episode the hosts read several moving comments from people talking about how much Rose still inspires them, regardless of the insulting way Rise of Skywalker treated her. The embrace of hope and love and the rejection of cynicism and hate gave me a solid lift out of the numb state I was in after seeing Rise.
https://soundcloud.com/scavengershoard/episode-129-saving-what-we-love-a-rose-tico-celebration
I glanced at your red dot and quick take before going to see the movie anyway, hoping it would be one of those cases where I disagreed with you, or where I kind of agreed but liked the movie anyway.
Nope. This was a dud almost from beginning to end and I am mad at it.
Sorry. :-(
I think most everything else has been said so I’m just gonna add two things after seeing the movie.
1) Adam Driver and Daisey Ridley — but especially Adam — freaking carry this dead-cow of a movie. The closest anything came to ‘working’ was their story and that’s 100% because of their acting chops adding depth that everything else on screen lacked. No offense to any other actor; John Boyega did what he could with “Reeeeeeeey!”
2) Boy the last line of the movie ticked me off. When she’s asked for the second time “Rey who?” and she pauses to think, then smiles, I was actually starting to feel a swell of emotion for what I felt had to be coming next: “Just Rey.” Same answer as before, but this time said not with insecurity and shame but confidence and acceptance, because it’s her found-family that matters and they aren’t signified by a family name. But nooooope!
Re 2) Yeah, I like your ending better. But I guess Abrams had to justify the movie’s title. :-/
I think you could find justification for the title without that, and no other changes to the movie. At this point all the Skywalker line we know of are dead and the evil ones redeemed — ‘rise’ could mean to ascending to Jedi Heaven. But whatever. The main thing I hate about the line is how it reinforces the theme that your lineage is actually super-duper important and if yours sucks/is egregiously evil the best you can do is adopt a better one.
Yup. The more I read about it, the more I really, really prefer the Trevorrow version that could have been: where Rey gets over her obsession with lineage and decides that “just Rey” is more than enough.
I can just imagine the line “No one is no one” resonating in the culture in a way that nothing in TROS really has. It would have been a rallying cry for anyone protesting all sorts of injustice, for anyone who felt marginalized, for insecure teens and unmoored adults… for everyone, no “Chosen One” status needed. It would have been brilliant. And a damn shame it was never allowed to happen.
It figures. The most memorable movie quote I’m most likely to hear this year is a movie quote that never appeared in the actual movie…