Star Wars Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker Review [SPOILERS]

[Obviously heavy spoilers for the movie and SW 1 to 9]

Coming in I had really low expectations, unfortunately that was not enough.

The movie was at the same level of shittiness as The Force Awakens and way worse than The Last Jedi. It seems like Disney doesn’t care at all about existing lore.

They made a plot and rammed it through not caring about existing character arcs either. I see a lot of similarities to Game Of Thrones Season 8 in there, but it is not as bad as GoT in my opinion.

Where to start… so many things wrong with this movie.

The whole SW story arc is nullified

George Lucas has said repeatedly that the whole arc of SW 1 to 6 was the fall of Anakin to the dark side and his redemption. Even if you don’t like the prequels (I love them) you can see how they are consistent with the overarching story and rules and how they deliver on that vision.

The whole reason for his fall was trying to save Padme. The new trilogy now make it seem that bringing someone back from death is a joke.

The whole idea of the chosen one that would bring balance to the Force that culminated in Vader throwing the Emperor down a shaft in episode 6 is now in shambles. Anakin in the end did not bring balance. He failed to kill the Emperor. What a joke. It was all for nothing.

No bigger plot

SW 7 to 9 don’t have a structure at all. They just decided 3 standalone plots for the 3 movies and that’s it. They have characters in common, are set in the same universe, and they happen chronologically but apart from that there is not much else going on.

Many story arcs started in previous movies were never finished and were just left abandoned (Fin story arc for example) and you can’t see an overall story progression from 7 to 9 as you do in 1 to 3 and 4 to 6.

In the end we are at the end of 9 in the same place as we were in 6, the story didn’t not progress at all. Apart from the fact that most people we cared about are now dead. (RIP Carrie Fisher)

Force as a superpower

The Force has always been very strong in what it could do, but it had its limitations. We always knew what it could do (pull, push, lightnings, ..) and what it could not (teleport). Already in The Last Jedi we’ve seen the Force gaining the ability of making someone appear on another planet and interact with people and things there. We’ve seen Force Ghosts before so this could be excused and I didn’t think too much ill of it. In this movie those new abilities just keep piling up and up in an unbeliavable fashion.

The authors seem to excuse themselves behind the curtain of “it’s because of the bond between Kylo and Rey”, but even with that bond this is totally crazy.¹

A few egregious examples:

1. Giving life

As I said before the whole Anakin story arc has been destroyed. Now anyone can heal. Force heal is not a new thing, but before it was something really hard to do. Now even bringing people back to life can be done and the whole Darth Plagueis the Wise thing has disappeared. In the Old Republic with Jedi in peace and studying for millenia they were never able to crack it, not Windu, not Yoda, but we are to believe than now magically it can be done so easily.

1. Dementors

Now Palpatine has become a dementor. Stealing life Force is acceptable and if this was the only thing happening in this movie I would not have complained, it is when it’s put together with all the rest that makes you think wtf.

1. Force lightning

Force lightning can now destroy a whole fleet. That same Force lightning cannot kill one single Jedi. And can be overpowered by 2 lightsabers, neat!

Palpatine

The whole Palpatine thing was ridiculous. He disappeared for 30 years and now he comes back out of nowhere, no forthshadowing at all. He gets introduced in the scrolling credits… And when he does he lasts less than three hours and is dead by the end of the movie.

Palpatine has always been a real strategist, especially during the Original Trilogy as we’ve seen him rise to power. His behaviour here is totally not in line with the character. After having his strenght restored and neutralizing a whole fleet by himself he gets beaten by 2 lightsabers reflecting his lightning back to him in a flashback of Episode 3… We didn’t even get a decent fight scene.

Copy of Ep 6

This is not as egregious as The Force Awakens in which almost the whole movie was a copy paste from episode 4, but the final scene of the vault opening to reveal the rebel fleet losing and Rey having to take the throne to save her friends was so cringy. Try to make it look like you’re at least trying…

Others

• Lando doesn’t do anything and doesn’t add anything to the movie, was nice to see him back though. They had him go around the galaxy asking for help with Chewy…²

• Fin needs to say something to Rey and that whole plot is abandoned.

• The Knights Of Ren appear out of nowhere and go nowhere. They don’t even have energy sabers, what they have looks like can be cut off by any lightsaber with ease.

• In the end Ray goes to Tatooine. I would understand if Kylo went there to live like Obi Wan, but Tatooine doesn’t mean anything for Ray… They talked about it like the Skywalker loved it. I’m sure both Anakin and Luke hated that place so much (for obvious reasons).

• Leia is now a randomly a Jedi. As with the rest of the movie without any kind of foreshadowing or explanation. She just is.

• All the Star Destroyers that are so advanced to kill a planet with one shot can’t lift themselves without being guided by a navigation beacon. A beacon that can be destroyed by laser fire. But there is a second beacon on the command ship, but nowhere else because plot.

• Many more (Kylo and Rey kissing, non Jedi surviving in the vacuum of space, Palpatine has manifestations of all the Sith watching the battle while the Jedi are nowhere to be seen³).

Conclusions

This trilogy is not for fans of the original Star Wars. People new to the franchise and kids are going to like it and this is the audience Disney focused towards.

The movie is not bad in isolation, but putting the Star Wars logo behind it is such a shame.

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