The Rise of Skywalker: The Anti-Sequel

What do you get when you cross a full-time, sleep-deprived student who's double-majoring in TV and film production with a demanding college ministry obligation regiment? 

Zero movie reviews, that's what you get. 

Anyways, for the five of you who read this film review blog, that's why I haven't been posting at all, and that's also why I'm a borderline insomniac at this point. Anyway, I decided to post another review today because I finally have the time to do it, and I figured what better way to re-kickstart this blog than to bash the atrocious Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker? So, before you yawn and click off of a review you may be assuming will be a whole "been there, done that" affair, I assure you that this is not going to be another one of those poorly thought-out, uninformed, and rage-fueled fanboy "reviews" of the film if you can even call them that. If you remember my review of The Last Jedi, you may recall that the critic in me actually really appreciated that particular film, so no, I will not be sequel-bashing today. However, what I don't appreciate is a film that actively tries to backpedal on everything its predecessor accomplished in a misguided and foolish attempt to appease a wildly toxic, opinionated, and frankly unintelligent portion of a fanbase that simply doesn't understand the nuances of critiquing a film. You may say "But Mr. Critic, you and the fanbase have the same opinion on The Rise of Skywalker!" I suppose you would be right. But the difference between me and your everyday Star Wars fan is that I know what exactly makes a good movie good, and what makes a bad movie bad. A lot of fans rightly labeled this film as bad, but I don't think a lot of them know why it's bad. I hope that I can shed some light on that matter in about one thousand words.

For those of you who don't remember, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which is the final installment in the main storyline of George Lucas's famed Star Wars saga, follows Rey and the rest of the Resistance as they race to stop the evil Sheev Palpatine, who has somehow risen from the dead to threaten the galaxy once again. 

I don't think it needs to be said that the obligation of a good sequel is to somehow make what came before that much more meaningful, either by building on it, challenging it, or even twisting it. For example, some good building sequels are Dune: Part Two and Across The Spiderverse. Some good twisting sequels are Aliens and, in my critical opinion, the predecessor of The Rise of Skywalker, Rian Johnson's much-maligned The Last Jedi. However, Episode 9 does none of these things, and instead does something that makes me slap it with the label of "anti-sequel." It launches into its own relatively standalone film that actively distances itself from its predecessor as much as humanly possible. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the continuity of this film is just terrible when you look at the story that The Force Awakens and, yes, The Last Jedi were trying to set up, and Episode 9's lack of execution in this area condemns a lot of other aspects of the film to an unceremonious death, at least from a critical point of view. On that note, I want to move on to one of these aforementioned aspects: the pacing of The Rise of Skywalker. Starting over on your written narrative in the final film isn't a recipe for a well-paced or meticulous movie, and I like to think of this film as a prime example of this because, to be frank with you, I can't really think of any other films that committed this form of narrative suicide off the top of my head other than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. This film packs an absolutely obscene amount of content into its 2-hour, 22-minute runtime, so much so that it feels bloated even though it happens to actually be a relatively long film. The movie always rushes, and can never seem to settle on any moment to let anything sink in for the audience. Of course, this is a byproduct of the filmmakers and studio trying to start fresh instead of building on what came before, which would have been a far easier task as well as a much more effective filmmaking tactic. But no. They decided to do twice the work and get half the results, which is a strategy I'm actively trying to understand as I write this down. 

In addition to all of these fundamental issues is a little rotten cherry on top of the film that I and many others like to refer to as fan service. Director JJ Abrams is so obviously checking off boxes while also trying to appease a simultaneously unintelligent and wildly opinionated fanbase that clearly doesn't know how a good movie works instead of trying to craft a cohesive narrative, and I sincerely and solemnly declare that fact as someone who used to be a part of said fanbase. I sincerely and solemnly declare it whilst twirling my evil film critic mustache and adjusting my evil film critic hat. But I digress. I don't love studio interference in a film, and this particular film may be the very epitome of this problem. The Rise of Skywalker is nothing short of the blatant antithesis of vision and creativity. In an attempt to appease a fanbase that will never, ever be truly pleased, the filmmakers capitulated and played it safe while ironically still managing to make a clunky, lumbering shell of a film that if it were a playground set would still be far from safe. Now, not everything I'm going to insert in this article is bad and negative. At least the playground set has a fresh coat of paint because, for all its flaws, The Rise of Skywalker looks absolutely stunning from a visual perspective. The action sequences are well-executed and well-staged, and the characterization and performances in the film are, at their absolute worst, relatively serviceable. The film's computer-generated graphics look really good and mostly avoid dipping into uncanny valley, even if they do lack the Three Outlaw Samurai-esque artistic flair that we saw in The Last Jedi. 

All in all, the final installment of the beloved Star Wars saga tried to play it safe by reversing a controversial installment, and in doing so forwent the possibility of tying the loose threads its predecessors set up in anything even remotely resembling a satisfying manner. It's an anti-sequel in every sense of the word and leads a lot of people to say things like "Let's remake the sequels the way the fans want!" Granted, I find myself vehemently disagreeing with this sentiment, because I don't particularly want to watch The Revenge of the Sith but Worse. I think it's good to let sleeping dogs lie. In short, The Rise of Skywalker played it safe for the sake of the fans and ended up accomplishing nothing. You know, now that I write that down and think about it, The Rise of Skywalker could be a good allegory for my romantic life. Ha. Ha ha ha. Alright, I'm joking.

Mostly. 

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - 4/10

Proverbs 24:30-34

Note - I can't guarantee how often I'm going to be posting from here on out. This review may just be the writing equivalent of a one-night stand because a writer is a restless spirit and likes to move on to new things. Maybe it'll be a screenplay, maybe it'll be personal journaling. You never know. Besides, I'm a full-time student, and even if I love writing, my work schedule unfortunately does not.