Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker Review (2019)

(It feels like ages since we had a proper review, the explanations is from changes in life and work having me take on more responsibilities and cut down time for me to express my thoughts in a coherent or concise matter.  Well, with a new year, I hope I can make some more changes and keep connected to storytelling in films, TV shows, and video games.  Without further ado, my full-on review for Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker.)

We are still feeling the aftermath of the fan divide and brand damage dealt to Star Wars as a whole, no thanks to the visually stunning but shallow, and severely flawed Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.  It seems the destructive nature of that film on fans and viewers is coming into fruition with everyone returning for the supposed finale to the Skywalker Saga (retconning hard to fit with the other entries).  However, there is that lingering hope that it can come together and provide enough connections to tie it to the other films in a meaningful way, along with reliably getting entertainment with its fast, zippy pacing and action set pieces that is expected from J.J. Abrams’ approach to the series.  So, does this film provide a proper and enjoyable finale for the film series, or does the haphazardly confusing and conflicting nature of the production and film itself provide yet another finale dud to bookend 2019?  Let us jump back into a galaxy far, far away about 1 year after The Last Jedi and look at the story itself.

Taking place about a year after Luke sacrificed himself to save the Resistance from complete destruction at the hands of the First Order, our heroes are now in hiding, rebuilding their forces and strength along with searching for a hidden threat manipulating the events of the galaxy for a final showdown.  Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), newly supplanted Supreme Leader of the First Order, leads an assault on a settlement and slaughtering the entire village to retrieve an ancient Sith Artifact known as the Wayfinder.  This takes him to a planet beyond the outer rims called Exegol, where he is confronted by a mysterious dark figure completely manipulating Ren through his extraordinary hold of the Dark Side of the Force.  It is a severely decaying Darth Sidious AKA Palpatine (Ian Mcdiarmid) who convinces Ren to seek out the last Jedi Rey (Daisy Ridley) and kill her for his necessary plans to retake the galaxy with his slowly recovering Dark Empire to be reborn.

Back in the Outer Rims, we follow the prominent members of the Resistance Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) as they are gathering recon on the latest schemes and war plans of the First Order on an ice world.  They are contacted by a mole within, that provides documents and details on the First Order’s next target acquisition on a desert planet called Pasaana celebrating with a traditional lively festival through a former Rebel general, Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams).  Meanwhile, Rey is finishing up her trainings from General Leia (Carrie Fisher, CGI Edited and Body Double) and instructs her with what she knows of her school days as a Jedi Apprentice.  Rey feels a disturbance in the force, involving Kylo Ren and sets off to seek out the hidden evil behind him by searching for an artifact that will lead her to the source of the Sith power.  This leads all of our heroes on a race to find the puppet master behind all of this conflict, leading into a journey of friendship, sacrifices, love, and closure to this story for many of the newer and legacy characters in a galaxy far, far away.

Where to begin, this is yet again a story that wants to take into account what happened previously yet toss out many of the damaging elements JJ Abrams did not like at all from The Last Jedi and the result is a conflicting, exhausting fetch quest that provides some closures that are meaningful but ultimately are flat and frustratingly disappointing overall.  The positives are the time spent with the characters interacting with each other, that was when the film took the time to breath and give them a chance to bond by providing some needed character development that has been touch and go for 2 films now.  It unwittingly tarnishes and dilutes the mainstay iconography and themes that tied the original/prequel films together, especially with the random yet unexplained revival of Palpatine.  The moments that work are literally tied to the original trilogy with at least half of them working quite well with the chaotic storylines and the others not committing to actual consequences at all.  This is inherent to the fundamental flaw with this film, attempting to play it safe yet ultimately failing to really go in interesting and new directions at all.

The film’s story is ultimately a failure from the start with the return of the iconic villain, Emperor Palpatine, negating the tragic yet gratifying victory earned by the OT characters at the end of Return Of The Jedi.  However, it speaks to the main issues that is amplified in this film, being the overuse of mystery boxes and unanswered yet vague explanations on certain characters/events that take place.  We never learn how he came back, survived being atomized, and even raised an entire nation of Star Destroyers all on his own.  This is ramped up with newly introduced characters of Zorii Bliss (Kerry Russell) and Jannah (Naomi Ackie), while interesting don’t have much to do in this story and only serve to get our characters to the next plot points rather than being actual, fleshed out characters operating in their own worlds that interweave into the main cast’s stories naturally.  Kelly Marie Tran (a very charming person but not given good material to work with) played the annoying side character Rose Tico and she has been relegated into the background as nothing more than exposition dump (a role dumped on numerous characters in this entry, not just her).  The problems are made even worser with the way the film ultimately ties it all together near the end.

It is one massive fetch quest for 2 hours until we get to the overloaded and ultimately underwhelming climax that commits to giving half hearted answers with little payoff or satisfaction earned in the major retcons taken to get the characters from A to B.  We learn about Rey’s backstory that ultimately reinforces the story beats from previous entries in a very loose and contradictory way, as well as her character suffering very little struggles outside of whatever the plot calls for her to finally be challenged that undermines her interesting beginnings and provides a very contrived, yet low key disrespectful close to her arc in relations to the Skywalkers.  Speaking of which, the Skywalkers are completely background story lore at this point, serving very little story purpose throughout the film other than cheerleading for Rey or yet again providing a similarly dumb finale to Leia as a character, like her brother Luke.   It all accumulates into a rushed redemption arc with Kylo Ren, getting into a lame physical group scuffle with The Knights Of Ren, and overpowered contrivance in force powers that undermines the very nature of that power to fit its rather dull and circular plot.  It comes across as highly produced fan fiction that should not have been made in the first place.

Let’s get into the principal characters of the film, starting with the heroes themselves.  Rey played by Daisy Ridley is still giving her best at times but there is a clear sense of apathy that has creeped into her performance, especially near the end of the film.  She is essentially the lead character of this story with everyone else relegated to unimportant sub plot filler or background noise and she has trouble carrying the entire film with her fine but relatively unremarkable performance here.  While an answer is given to her backstory and she does have moments of vulnerability that is refreshing to see, it doesn’t negate how OP she really is in this story and how so much of the conflict is resolved easily in her favor, even when she clearly is exerted or pushed as a character.  This will be a reoccurring theme but while Ridley does what she can with a character on one speed, she is clearly done with this role and that feeling of apathy in the role is felt throughout the film.

The rest of the heroes can be relegated as one offs as they literally have little to do in this film, with so much ground to regain and cover.  Finn played by John Boyega is completely wasted as a cheerleader for Rey with a dropped romantic subplot with Rey and being possibly force sensitive to give his character manufactured purpose to existed in this story.  Poe played by Oscar Isaac has been retcon to be more of a roguish character, which gives his character some semblance of inner conflict but only serves to get the rest of the cast to the next plot beat and nothing more meaningful than that.  As for many of the OT characters, they are just glorified comedy relief like C3P0 (Anthony Daniels), cameo appearing plot devices like Lando Calrissian, or just background dressing like R2D2 (Hassan Taj and Lee Towersey) and even Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) despite having his own subplot that ties mainly to Rey’s character arc.  Yeah, with so much going on and an intense focus on telling a complete storyline with Rey/Kylo Ren along with giving time for the heroes storylines to tie into it, you can see how so many of them, even the ones not mentioned here had very little to do in this film as characters.

The big one that has to be discussed separately is of course, Princess Leia’s final hoorah, using spliced footage and alternate takes of Carrie Fisher from The Force Awakens.  It is used well enough to not be too obtrusive to the story being told here, but it does feel awkwardly shoe-horned into this outing in weird ways.  It gets even odd with many of the characters that interact with her, coming across as exposition dumps from a few of the side characters and even Rey as well.  They also had to retcon her into being a jedi of a sudden, to rectify the lack of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who really only appears in a cheerleading cameo scene and bolts out faster than you can say hi.  They even had to throw in a bit of girl power by having her beat Luke in a training duel but the important point to make is the writers having to have a Jedi Master train Rey as a way to explain her new abilities, powers, and her being well versed/trained in the force.  So yeah, the Skywalkers are literally footnotes in this story, contradicting the importance of them in the very title.

Let’s get to the baddies for this one, as they are the few characters that actually do shine in this film.  Adam Driver as Kylo Ren/Ben Solo really does his best with the shallow material at work for his character, with his mask reforged and further developing his connection with Rey as the most interesting aspect of this story.  While there are moments between him and Rey that do resonate and hit the beats needed to be invested, it only happens occasionally in lieu of the fetch quest that dominates the majority of the run-time, which gives him very little to do until the plot calls upon him to resolve his story arc in some really cringy, contrived ways.  Palpatine played by Ian Mcdiarmid is clearly having a rollicking good time giving a menacing evil performance, supported by the touched up classic look from Return Of The Jedi as well as his explosive use of the force.  Unfortunately, he is very much one note and his finale is very underwhelming as well as feeling cobbled together from different versions of this battle.  There is also Richard E. Grant as Allegiant General Pryde providing a suitable villain role that should have clearly been the reoccurring heavy for this trilogy and then Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux being made into a comic relief villain that ultimately gets a twist to his character, only to be concluded in such a laughable way that it comes across as unintentionally funny.  Those were the characters and as you can see, there was so many of them and only a handful were given time to feel fleshed out or have an arc to follow.

As with previous films, the technical aspects are always of high quality usually but here we have to start with the cinematography and editing of this film.  This was shot by Dan Mindel and it is still a gorgeous looking film, especially seeing it on a premium screen as well as the use of locations and effective coverage of the real elements with the screen effects.  There are shots that exude the large scale of this story effectively well and the kinetic energy helps with the action beats, despite being a bit too much at times with the fast laser shots and CGI overload of the space/force driven battles.  Where the film is a mess is with the editing done by Maryann Brandon, as there is literally no sense of relief or moment to breath in the plot points or exposition as it keeps on moving fast, so much that it could actually induce a minor headache for how little time the viewer is given to follow along.  When it slows down for the character moments, it actually engages the viewers but anytime it zips from action beat to action best, it becomes a messy rollercoaster ride with no sense of coherence to enjoy from it.

Next up will be the art direction and costume designs of the film, as it is a space-faring adventure and you expect the best from the genre to be on display here.  At certain points, it does show some creativity in the festival sequence as well as the different planets we visit, despite mainly being under the First Order occupation.  However, the costumes seem to be the bare minimum, only covering the basic designs we have seen in previous films and are not quite as remarkable or unique as it was in previous films.  As for the planets, they seem to be nothing more than rehashed carbon copies of what we have seen before.  There is also a small number of aliens featured in the film that add to the universe in weird but funny ways, but it feels like they matter little to the whole war aspect along with the Jedi/Sith storyline that dominates the majority of the runtime.  Just like the story beats, it is content with rehashing or reinventing what came before and worked on through the art direction, costumes, and disappointingly minimal alien designs featured in this film.

The action set pieces are numerous and frantically stitched together, but not in a way that works in tandem to the story beats at play here.  They usually keep moving or being thrown into laser gun battles one after another, with only the occasional exposition break and maybe a short lightsaber scuffle with possibly only 2 of them that can be considered duels.  The lightsaber battles are underwhelming and disappointingly bland in their coverage, only going for more of the medium to close up shots throughout the main 2 duels that take place.  It dilutes the action beats to the detriment of the scenes and with the shoddy editing, makes it a bit of a convoluted mess to follow along.  This also the case for the gun battles as well as the space faring combat, which is mainly reduced to the climax of the film surprisingly enough.

This ties into the visual effects of the film as they are both spectacular and too weightless as well as overly ludicrously in the overusing of CGI to really feel too chaotic to enjoy.  The de-aging as well as the CGI doubles for Luke and Leia at younger ages are in use here and thankfully used sparingly for the scenes featuring them but feel a bit jarring to showcase them in the film’s overuse of flashbacks as the series has avoided using it until now.  As for the space battles, they are admittingly cool looking but feel a bit too cluttered and disjointed to follow along as we are not given time to see the pilots reactions to the battle at hand as well as feeling a bit lifeless to really appreciate the scale of the set pieces (this is the case with the Emperor’s big atrium setting with the faceless Sith all over the seating areas).  The rather mixed quality of the VFX is tied to the patchwork efforts felt in the editing, zipping between the actors on blue/green screen to the fast paced, sensor flickering space battles that take up the later parts of the film.  Technically, it is a rather chaotically mixed in quality but does not quite add up to a satisfying whole.

Lastly, the remaining elements of the technical direction to explore are Sound Design and Music with John Williams coming back for one last rodeo as the composer of this film.  All the familiar sounds are present throughout the film, the laser blasts to the hums of a lightsaber and a few moments of audio cues that are handled exceptionally well for the big moments of the set pieces.  This is in spite of the story/visual dissonance at play here but the sound team did a great job making the soundscape truly hit heavy and add to the excitement at times.  As for the score, Williams does a reliably good job bringing back the familiar themes of the score from all the films in this one and it is always a pleasure hearing him at work.  However, it does lack its own musical identity that the original and prequel trilogies were able to invoke well, but it highlights how generic and recycled the whole trilogy feels from the visuals to the musical sounds of this series.  From a sound design standpoint, it is exceptionally well made as usual and the music is great for fans but unwittingly highlights how much it lacks any memorable themes or musical beats that the other films were able to instill to their films.

What else can be stated without beating an obvious dead horse?  Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker is a chaotically inconsistent, messy blockbuster finale that does not quite end on a clean note and unknowingly damages the previous films before with its excessive use of retcons and rule breaking jumps in character arcs and plot logic in general.  Outside of a few notable action beats and character interactions that do work and provide some fun to the proceedings, it makes so much concessions to rectify the changes and dead ends brought about from Episode VIII: The Last Jedi that it suffers from having too much plot driven scenes with little time for the characters to be developed at all.  In a way, it feels like the summation of how misguided and clueless this trilogy of films has been from the moment it was bought from Disney and the numerous back and forth of finger-pointing blame, fan division, and numerous interviews to justify the poorly crafted script and committee driven filmmaking at work here just further makes these types of films antiquated nowadays.

Score ⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker is a cynically made, mediocre close to the series on film.  Other than the competent acting on display with the hard-working quality work from a visual and sound design standpoint, it tries to satisfy the story beats that came before and ultimately provide a light fun adventure film that is driven by nostalgia and fan service.  It ends up doing neither well and ultimately repeats the mistakes of every blockbuster that ran into these problems as well, mainly the DC films that exhibit the same issues that ultimately sank those films quality wise.  It is ultimately a sad feeling to have, and not out of malice to state that this film represents what is completely wrong with big budget films in general and it really is a shame that a Star Wars film has to be an example of that viewpoint.