My viewing this Stevening... 'Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker'

On December 5th 1995, The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular aired on television. It was an episode created to act as a satire of all the episodes of American sitcoms that existed merely to show a compilation of clips from prior episodes to remind you of what came before. If the show was long-running enough, it would act as a nostalgia trip, reminding you of the good things that came before, but this episode did so in a way that still added something new that didn't make it feel like a clip show, and had it presented as a kind of inception of Simpsons episodes. Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker basically served as the Star Wars equivalent of a clip episode, except they decided that The Last Jedi just didn't happen, unless they absolutely had to acknowledge it. Spoilers ahead, by the way.

When the trailer first came out for ROS, I admit I was excited. I loved The Last Jedi because it introduced something new for the Star Wars franchise. TLJ ended in a way that had The Resistance cornered, so it was genuinely exciting to consider just how the franchise would wrap up a story that has spanned more than 40 years of cinema. The idea that Emperor Palpatine would feature in the movie too was also exciting as it seemed like an interesting way to link all the generations of Star Wars that has featured this struggle between Light and Dark. Then the movie was released and I attended a midnight showing on release day, because I knew it wouldn't be long before spoilers filled the internet, and boy oh boy did I not like this film.

Before going in, I had read that it sat at 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, so I admit my expectations were lowered, but it was fundamentally worse than I had anticipated. We start with a Kylo Ren on a journey somewhere, he finds a planet using a weird pyramid map thing, where we discover Emperor Palpatine has been hiding out and somehow building a secret massive fleet of Star Destroyers, staffing them with people all completely in secret. He calls it his Final Order, and offers such a fleet to the disposal of Ren on condition that he kills 'The Girl'. Palpatine is actually alive, by the way. Helped by a machine of some sort, and basically zombified, but apparently, from his secret planet not on any maps, he's been pulling the strings all this time. Oh, and Snoke was a clone. That's it. Nobody really important, just a clone, so we can forget about him now.

Eventually, the Resistance finds out that Palpatine is back because the First Order has a spy in its ranks, and they set out on a number of fetch quests to find a map that can guide them to the Emperor's hideout and take the fight to him. Oh, and Palpatine is actually Rey's grandfather, so the idea that was set up in TLJ that anyone can be a hero and become a Jedi if they have a good enough heart? Yeah, let's forget that, Rey is secret royalty now. The film climaxes in what becomes essentially a rehash of elements of Return of the Jedi. The Emperor tries to use Ren to turn Rey to the Dark Side, but Ren turns to the light side, betrays the Emperor and pays for it with his life, while Rey goes toe to toe with the Emperor herself and kills him properly this time. Oh, you know the Knights of Ren? The coolest thing hinted at in Force Awakens, and ignored in TLJ? Well, they're back and badder than ever from that brief sequence in Force Awakens that was of no real consequence.

I've read online that perhaps the biggest issue with the inconsistencies with this film compared to TLJ was the use of different directors for all the films meant that there was no consistent vision. No consistency in story elements and plot points, and I think that overall, ROS' problems were purely because each film reflected the individual visions of the individual Directors. Sure, there was talk of there being an overarching plan for the films from day one, but fundamentally, how broad that plan was, compared to how specific the individual movies had to be to bring life to that plan. This meant that a lot of threads that were established just simply got lost in the shuffle. The Knights of Ren weren't really given any depth because they didn't really have much to do in just one movie, Finn's storyline was completely forgotten about, the idea initially set up for Rey's character being a 'nobody' which was completely flipped on its head meant that her rise to being a Jedi just felt utterly meaningless when considering her lineage. What about Rose Tico and Finn's relationship? What was Finn really going to say to Rey before he was sucked into the ground? JJ said he wanted to say he was sensitive to the Force, which okay, that would have been cool, but that was given no time to flourish into anything important, so what really was the point in including that line in the first place if it wasn't going to be developed?

Perhaps some of the dumbest parts of this film involved the fact that it mostly was a side quest inspired by an RPG videogame. Somehow, the things they need, the positions they need to be in in order for the things they have collected to have relevance, all seem to just be exactly where our heroes are at the first moment they land anywhere. The story is all just too convenient for our heroes to succeed in their treasure hunt and literally none of it made sense. NONE OF IT!

I've really enjoyed Disney's take on Star Wars. Even Solo was enjoyable for me, but this was just... meh. It was very much a film filled with fan service, and points where people will say "Oh, I remember that from that other film", but I didn't want to watch the Star Wars clip show, I wanted to witness a satisfying conclusion to an epic story. Having the Emperor survive and be the 'puppet master' served to only try and link the big bad influences from the original movies to the final trilogy, but I don't think anybody wanted or needed that to be a thing. Perhaps the most compelling part of the new trilogy was the growing link and conflict between Rey and Ren. This would have made for the more compelling story device to conclude the saga without needing to shoehorn the Emperor into the mix.

I know there were people who enjoyed it, and it's certainly filled with fun moments that in isolation are enjoyable. But as a single, cohesive story? It's such a damp squib of an ending to such an influential movie series.

Score: 4/10