Star Wars - The Rise of Skywalker has proven once and for all that fan service is killing popular culture, film and television.
From GoT’s final season to DC’s Justice League and now to Star Wars - The Rise of Skywalker we've seen how studios and creatives are trying to please the fan boys of the franchises first and foremost, instead of putting their efforts into telling a compelling story.
This has resulted in a Frankenstein’s monster of final editions of beloved franchises that lack a cohesive creative take or element of risk taking.
Let's dig into a very spoilery dive into Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker:
I should declare upfront that I’m one of the few Star Wars fans who actually loved The Last Jedi. Yes, I thought Rian Johnson killing Snoke was unearned and not cool.
I didn’t like the light sabre toss at the beginning but I loved that Rian had an idea he stuck by - it was encapsulated by the immortal words of Kylo Ren: “Let the past die, kill it if you must.’’
Rian was willing to let Star Wars break away from being beholden to the original trilogy and prequel mythology. He started carving new ground: it ended with Rey as the definite heir apparent to the Jedi mantel and Kylo Ren as the heir apparent to the big bad guy role.
Now, the question was: how will this play out?... enter JJ Abrams with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker… and a lot of potential was squandered. Why?
Star Wars fanboys.
They were up in arms with most of the changes that Rian brought, including giving Finn a love interest outside from the trio in Rose Tico (and it didn’t help the fan boy that Rose Tico is of Asian ancestry and not white).
The other big issue was that Rian dared to challenge the concept of what a hero means today instead of aping George Lucas' 1970s ideals… How dare he.
So JJ Abrams, the man who gave the fanboys a facsimile of A New Hope / The Force Awakens was given another chance to pander to the fanboys and give them what they want… narrative sense and continuation of themes be damned!
So JJ gives the fanboys the Kylo Ren helmet back (even though TLJ had addressed why he needed to move on from the Darth Vader fan boy helmet).
The fanboys liked the Knight of Ren...well, JJ brings them back but you know as much about them at the end of this movie as we did in TFA…
akere it's not about story or character development but about the Knights of Ren looking cool. They are a plot device.
JJ gives you more light sabre battles, more planets, more creatures and more retconning of legacy characters that are shoe-horned in the last film... 'cause why? - it will get the fan boys going.
The mentality: let's shoe-horn the emperor 'cause it will get the fan going…never mind that it doesn't make narrative sense to bring in “this surprise” in the closing chapter of a trilogy.
But what happens to story: the story suffers. Many of the threads from The Last Jedi and even The Force Awakens are not built on.
Instead JJ and the writing team decide to create their own movie that needs to be set-up within the first hour of the movie and paid off in the last hour by ignoring mostly what happened in TLJ .
The closing chapter of the trilogy ignores the mid-chapter - yes, that’s what happens.
We get a new big bad… who was never hinted at all in the previous two movies.
We get new information about legacy characters that did not exist in the original Star Wars trilogy nor the pre-equals or extended materials or even the animated series but hey, who cares? The fans will go wild for Palpatine being back all of a sudden…wow.
Then we have bits from other movies that are re-done and the repetition comes to the same fight being repeated over and over.
The sad part is that there's a powerful story in The Rise of Skywalker about identity, family and self-acceptance that is drowned out by JJ trying to score points by making fans happy which means the plot misses its own story.
The story suffers so much that even one of the fundamental ideas introduced in The Force Awakens around Vader's legacy is never answered.
Kylo models himself on Vader but Anakin never shows up to have a heart-to-heart with his grandson. Instead we have a Man of Steel motif ripped off very badly with Han Solo being brought back.
The film suffers from too many fake-outs that come across as playing chicken, unwilling to do gutsy things with characters like letting Chewbacca die or letting C3PO have his memory wiped out to give the movie some real emotional and tangible stakes.
At least the movie is not entirely all bad. No, it's definitely not the final season of Game of Thrones or Justice League bad... there are charming characters like Babu Frik, some great looking planets and sets
but it doesn't begin to touch the heights of The Last Jedi or even Rogue One.
The saga ends on a whimper. You need to be under 10 to thoroughly enjoy what JJ has done with the last film - that’s how insulting it is.
It's not terrible, it has great visuals, some cool ideas, some potential character developments but the story is weak from execution and development.
It’s stuffed with a too many incidents that don’t cohesively gel within the trilogy itself… I hope Kennedy has learned her lesson that being too beholden to fans does not make for a good story.
A good story has its own reward and there's nothing wrong with taking a risk and making fans cry and hurt.
What it felt like: JJ was giving the middle finger to Rian Johnson and he thought the force was so strong with the fan boy base that we won't see that the emperor is naked or that Disney has produced a B-Grade movie with millions of dollars.
This is an indictment on Kathleen Kennedy's stewardship of this trilogy and an end to the hero worshipping of JJ Abrams.
Rating
**
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* trash **you are on you own ***its good ****almost perfect *****instant classic