The Rise of Skywalker is here. While I would normally review something I’ve seen on MovieBabble, Star Wars is a very personal thing for me, and so I’d rather discuss it here where I am the sole representative behind the blog. 

The Spoiler-Free Zone

I honestly don’t know where to begin with this movie. So, I won’t.

Instead, I’ll begin with Star Wars as a whole. Star Wars has always been part of my life and a very strong part at that. I grew up with the Prequels in full swing and amidst the release of some of the franchise’s greatest video games- Lego Star Wars, Battlefront II, and Knights of the Old Republic specifically. Star Wars is the first thing I remember being able to share with my Dad, and it’ll always have a special place in my heart because of that. Even at five or six years old, Star Wars was this tangible thing that we both genuinely enjoyed as much as the other one did.

I remember going to see Revenge of the Sith on the big screen for the first time, and buying the 2-disc Special Edition DVD with the money I’d saved up in between its theatrical and home video release. I remember waiting in line for hours to get tickets to The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and The Last Jedi. I bought EA’s Battlefront games even though I knew they were lackluster because at least they were Star Wars. When I was a kid I bought every Lego Star Wars set I could afford and when I wasn’t in school I’d spend days building them. When I first got a laptop I used it primarily to dive as deep as I could into the Star Wars Wikipedia pages. Star Wars has never and will never be just a thing for me. If anything, it’s dangerously close to being a religion. So why am I telling you all this?

I’m telling you because I need you to understand how big a deal this movie was, and is for me. While I’ve seen lots of good and bad movies this year, none of them will quite have the same impact as Rise of Skywalker, even if they are much better or much worse. With that being said, let’s dive in.

Total Disrespect

There are no spoilers under this heading. This is just a general expression of my thoughts, with spoiler-filled specifics left to the headings following.

This movie is bad. Worse than that, this movie lacks any kind of real ambition. Say what you will about George Lucas’ Prequel Trilogy, but at least he was trying for something new and unique. The Rise of Skywalker tries for nothing but cheap fan service and a never-ending wave of callbacks. For the first time that I’ve ever watched a Star Wars movie, even the ones I’ve seen before, I was bored. I couldn’t wait for this movie to be over and that hurts.

I went to bed genuinely depressed last night because something that I care about was made so half-hazardly and without any of the real emotion that’s palpable in every other installment in this franchise (yes, even Solo). Instead of building off of the character nuances and developments established by JJ Abrams in The Force Awakens or furthered by Rian Johnson in The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker flattens its existing characters and overwhelms them with one-dimensional new additions. Even Emperor Palpatine, one of the coolest, most sinister villains of all time is nothing but an expository hood.

The Rise of Skywalker is, overall, a hollow, meaningless shell of a movie that is a disservice not just to the franchise, but to the art of moviemaking in general. It is a paint-by-numbers adventure filled with surface-level symbolism and a grab back of plot-trick MacGuffins. It is a movie that feels like it was written by the same man who thought that Batman and Superman’s mothers having the same name was incredibly nuanced. (Hint: it was written by that same man) A four-hour documentary about Jar Jar Binks going to his Proctologist would have been a more sound and interesting ending to The Skywalker Saga than the flaming garbage pile we received.

Spoilers Beyond This Point

The Last Jedi

You cannot fully address The Rise of Skywalker without first addressing The Last Jedi. If you think that The Last Jedi “ruined Star Wars” or “ruins [Character’s Arc]”, you are wrong. That is not an opinion. That is a fact. I don’t mean to be brash or arrogant, but you are either A: not being objective about the movie or B: Do not have the skill set required to properly evaluate/ critique movies. If you fall under category A, please grow up. If you fall under Category B, please watch more movies (especially ones that aren’t blockbusters or ones that are designed to challenge you as a viewer). Everyone has the skillset to watch a movie, but the skillset required to evaluate it for anyone but yourself takes training.

The Last Jedi both built off of The Force Awakens and laid the groundwork for The Rise of Skywalker beautifully. Rey learned that her origins didn’t matter and that she had, and was responsible for having, an active say in her destiny. Finn learned that fighting for Rey did not equivalate to being a hero, he needed to learn to fight for a cause that wasn’t himself. Kylo learned that he wants to be bad and to take control of his own destiny, similar to what Rey did but in the opposing direction. Poe learned the importance of strategy and fleet-minded thinking versus fighter-minded thinking. Luke learned that his mistakes don’t define or derail him and that he still owed a responsibility to his cause. The characters all moved forward in a meaningful way thanks to Rian Johnson’s unique ability to craft quality, nuanced characters in his writings.

Rey

Rey is exactly the same character at the end of The Rise of Skywalker as she was at the beginning. Rey was accused of being a Mary Sue in the previous two installments and that assertion was ridiculous. Now, it is absolutely true. Despite claiming to be unsteady and out of control with the force, we see Rey do more with the force than any other character in the history of the movies. Yet a focal point of the movie revolves around her opening up to the force and reconnecting with the generations of fallen Jedi which allows her to do exactly what she’d been doing the rest of the movie. Rey doesn’t learn anything, Rey doesn’t change, Rey doesn’t grow. For once, Rey is uninteresting.

The only real development we get with Rey is the retconned identity of her parents, which is the dumbest lineage explanation I’ve seen since Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Rey’s parents are still “no one”, but now her father was also the son of Palpatine? That’s right, the Emperor impregnated an actual human and started a family, making Rey his grandchild. Because of this Rey is suddenly drawn to the Dark Side and struck with anger issues, which we actively saw her manage and resist in The Last Jedi. She’s also become a very plot-convenient conduit for the Emperor to take over like Venom. This undermines Rey’s character arc by making it not about her. It also lessens the stakes because then everything can be blame-shifted to Palpatine, which is The Rise of Skywalker‘s go-to answer for Kylo Ren.

Rey left the last film in control of her name and her destiny. The Rise of Skywalker strips her of that freedom and meaning and is very careful to assert that she only matters because of her link to Emperor Palpatine. Not only is this unrefined storytelling, but this is also a major blow to female representation in movies and everything that Rey has grown to represent.

Kylo Ren

This movie took Star Wars’ most nuanced and exciting Villian (yes, even more so than Vader) and turned him into a puppet. The entirety of The Last Jedi established Kylo as a genuine, bonafide, powerful villain. He was bad and he made conscious decisions that lead him to that darkness. The Rise of Skywalker takes that polished character development and says “Nope, Palpatine made you evil and you do what he says now.” Kylo willing becomes a doll on a string in the first scene of the movie and then spends the remainder doing what everyone else tells him to do. The fire that made him so compelling is completely snuffed out so that Prequel fans can get an extra movie with Sheev Palpatine. I love the Emperor, but not enough to want him to snuff out what could have been a meaningful and unique end to Ben Solo’s arc.

Instead of continuing his journey, The Rise of Skywalker forces Kylo into reverse and sends him on a journey that is only compelling on a surface level. The framework needed to make his turn to the light mean anything was not laid, and the framework established by the previous installments was completely abandoned.

Finn

Finn does things in this movie. He doesn’t do anything of real meaning, but he does things. He yells out “Rey!”, he shoots some generic-looking Star Destroyers with a bunch of characters we never have time to learn, nor care about. Finn has also suddenly become force sensitive in this movie, with no explanation or real reason to be. J.J. Abrams has not only squandered the best redemption story he had in this trilogy, but he also squandered the talents of John Boyega.

Poe Dameron

Poe Dameron has never been a focal point of the sequel trilogy until know. Instead, the first two films spent much needed time with Han, Luke, Rey, Finn, and Kylo. Poe fulfills his role of secondary character nicely, especially in The Last Jedi. In The Rise of Skywalker, Poe is crammed into a primary character position but is given nothing to do. There’s a quick sidequest into his past that tells us nothing about the character nor where he came from. Poe is boring, he has no clearly defined relationships with any of the other characters and he if he were to be removed from the film, the plot wouldn’t change a bit.

Chewbacca

Chewbacca is the only character to get a sincerely emotional moment in this soulless, emotionless film. When Chewie learns that Leia has passed on, Chewie is given a rare moment to breathe and to feel. When the rest of the movie is so focused on jumping from plot point to plot point without missing a beat, this is a much-needed breath of fresh air.

That being said, Chewbacca is the biggest “no stakes” plot point in the film. Chewie is “killed” in a very obvious off-screen death and then revealed to still be alive in literally the next scene. Herein lies the film’s greatest weakness, its lack of breathing room. The audience and the characters themselves get no time to mourn for Chewie or genuinely react to his loss before being carted off to the next planet for the next MacGuffin.

Leia

Leia is retconned into being a Jedi and very shoehorned into the film as Rey’s master, despite no previous sign of her ever being trained in the ways of the Jedi. Granted, this is going to be heavily influenced by what footage and dialogue of hers they already had, so I won’t dwell on this too much.

General Hux

Nobody likes General Hux. Nobody really cares that he died or that he was even in the movie in the first place. That’s okay because that’s kind of his thing. However, what foil he provided for Kylo in the first two films is gone and Hux is given a quick, one beat arc before being replaced by a stereotypical Imperial General.

Rose Tico

Rose Tico is a better character than anybody introduced in this movie. Yet, she is severely underused. With maybe three lines of dialogue, Rose isn’t allowed to explore any of her pre-existing relationships from the previous film. She exists only in the background, and that is a sad waste of a nuanced character. Shame on JJ Abrams for reflecting the internet backlash against her onto the script of this film.

The New Characters

The new characters add absolutely nothing to the story. They don’t foil out and further develop the main characters. The newbies stand on flimsy archetypes and at best lob up one of the heroes for a funny quip. Zorri appears and disappears without any insight into who she is or why she matters, other than the quickly skipped over past she has with Poe. General Pryde exists only to bark orders and make the First Order seem eviler than it already is. Jannah is just Finn, but a woman. Literally, they have the same backstory and do the exact same things in regards to moving the plot along. Even Lando is useless. He gets one cringy line about giving Leia his love, and other than that he’s only there because he’s Lando.

This movie is so bloated with characters that look cool and none that actually contribute or, you know, act cool. This film is incredibly surface level compared to its predecessors, and the core of that problem lies within the fact that its characters are a complete mess. Instead of complimenting each other as they have in film’s past, each one claws at the other for additional screentime.

No Stakes

Stakes are what make things interesting. Without stakes, there is no drama. Without drama, there is no story. The Rise of Skywalker has a lot of plot, but it has absolutely no story. I’ve already mentioned Chewie’s quick fake-death. However, there’s also C-3PO’s fake death on top of that. Rey also gets a quick fake-death. The characters have nothing to lose because the Emperor’s gamble is too broad.

The Emperor doesn’t want to convert Anakin, as he did in the Prequels. The Emperor doesn’t want to kill Luke as he did in Return of the Jedi. The Emperor wants nothing except what he already has, a big army and galactic dominance. At no point in the film does he ever feel close to attaining that second goal, because it’s too broad. The key here lies in the fact that when the Emperor wanted dominance in trilogies past, it was always personified. But the Emperor doesn’t project that onto Rey here. No, instead there’s a convoluted subplot that tries to establish the Sith as a lineage that inhabits a person. The Emperor doesn’t want Rey, he wants the dynasty. He also has no stake in Kylo, nor are we ever given an explanation for why Kylo should have a stake in the Emperor. Kylo Ren goes from rabid curr to a tamed puppy in a single scene, without any context or emotional weight given to justify the transition.

Kylo Ren is the only character in the movie who receives any kind of stakes, but that’s only after sacrificing everything his character had been built towards. Though he pays for his transformation with his life, his character transformations are too focused on events that already occurred and characters that have already left the story rather than what he actually goes through as an individual.

Unwarranted Fan Service

This movie is bloated with characters, but it is equally bloated with undeserved and unwarranted fan service. There’s a throw-away line about Snoke’s origin that answers a question by not answering it. Luke’s lightsaber is restored, tying Rey and Kylo back to Luke without letting them move on as they had done in the past film. Lando, as mentioned above, is another example of this. The only thing Lando does is rally the troops, off-screen. His contribution is never seen and once again this movie would work just the same even if you cut his scenes out.

The only moment of fan service that feels somewhat earned is when the voices of the Jedi appear to Rey at the end, but even then, that plot point is lost between its inception with Rey’s first line and its second and final reoccurrence two hours later. This movie feels like each scene was written by a different Reddit account, with the screenwriters just trying to shove in as many cheap rounds of applause as they could.

No Ambition

Personally, even after a second viewing, I believe wholeheartedly that this is the worst Star Wars movie. If it weren’t so crowded with bland side quests to retrieve even blander MacGuffins, it really could have been something good. But those bland side quests are what sink it to the bottom of the Star Wars totem pole.

Even when the Prequels were bad (particularly The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones) George Lucas was still pushing for something new and ambitious. The execution failed by most accounts, but there was so much energy and souled poured in that it’s at the very least forgettable, if not condonable.

Rise of Skywalker lacks that ambition, and it certainly lacks that execution. Instead, it’s a movie loaded with as many fan service ideas as a franchise can hold. It’s a movie that tries for nothing new, and can’t even effectively redo what you’ve already seen. It’s a soulless, sad little movie that is representative of what this fan base has become.

Star Wars Fans

Most Star Wars fans don’t actually like Star Wars. They love A New Hope and everything after that is iffy. Rather, it’s a group of people who want the idealistic version of a galaxy far, far away that they’ve created in their own heads, but who will not take anything else. Star Wars fans are complete pieces of sh*t. Need proof? Go to any social media website and post the words “I enjoyed The Last Jedi“. You will be attacked by dozens of trolls who don’t really care what you have to say, but who will be more than willing to take a dump on all of your feelings and beliefs. More frequently than not it’s done with a handful of slurs and multiple-choice explanations they are unwilling to back-up with any independent thought. More often than not, they are also unfamiliar with the film and haven’t seen it since the first day it released. Yet, these are the dominant face of the Star Wars fanbase. That’s why they received the soulless fan service of The Rise of Skywalker. It’s not the Star Wars movie we needed, but its the one they deserved, a film just as hollow and toxic as they are.

Goodbye

I’m glad Star Wars is going away for a while. Lucasfilm needs time to restructure with Kathleen Kennedy stepping down. They also need time to understand that Star Wars isn’t Marvel, which it appears as if they are in the process of learning and reacting to this lesson. While I held out great hope for the Sequel Trilogy, it left me feeling empty and depressed. After a solid first act and a one-in-a-million second act, the third act has come to an agonizing crash and burn in the form of The Rise of Skywalker. Maybe it really is time for the Jedi to end.