Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is Bad Reddit Fanfiction and a Middle Finger to a 42-Year Old Legacy
Yesterday, I had the privilege of seeing a Star Wars movie on opening night in IMAX 3D. The energy was electric during the opening crawl. That energy died within minutes after the movie started. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is supposed to culminate a 42-year old legacy, one of the most enduring movie franchises of all-time, but its asinine writing and retcons of its best film, The Last Jedi, simply makes it the worst Star Wars movie ever made.
Before I go any further, I will give a SPOILER WARNING. But I will say this, if you have read u/JediPaxis’ “Leaks Megathread” post on reddit (r/StarWarsLeaks) one week prior to the film’s release, I can absolutely confirm that all of the leaks that were posted on the publication are TRUE (I read it after I saw the movie). Once again, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! I cannot stress this enough. If you care about spoilers, don’t read this, if you don’t or have seen the film, go ahead. Thank you for your cooperation and May The Force Be With You.
Where to begin? I’ll just go ahead and say it. This movie shits all over the best Star Wars movie of the new trilogy and the best Star Wars movie overall, The Last Jedi. When the film first opened, I didn’t know what to expect. When the opening crawl kicked in, I was in awe (like every opening crawl). I should’ve picked the signs of a bad film, though, when its first sentence, “The dead speak!” appeared. This is an obvious jab to Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)’s “Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. It’s the only way to become what you’re meant to be”. I should’ve known that bringing Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) was a bad idea, but I could only get excited for it, as I absolutely love Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine, especially in Revenge of the Sith, as he is the memiest character in the film (“Kill him. Kill him now. DEW IT!” and “It’s treason, then.” *snarls*) are the truest and most purest lines of cinema that exists. I was already conflicted before the movie even started. However, when I saw Kylo and stormtroopers plowing through the red woods of what looks to be Mustafar (maybe not, idc), with a superb use of slow-motion, 3D, and a rousing score from John Williams, a smile came on my face. I was completely hooked. The film looked incredibly promising, and all of my worries whooshed away. It’s worth noting that the movie does look visually stunning throughout. Dan Mindel’s cinematography is absolutely superb and the visual effects are top-notch (and not unfinished unlike Solo). The film also looks FANTASTIC on IMAX 3D and is the best use of 3D I’ve seen this year, that isn’t shot natively. So, there’s that.
When Kylo finds Palpatine with a Sith wayfinder, I was hoping for some explanations as to:
a) How Palpatine is alive? Remember, at the end of Return of the Jedi, Palpatine gets thrown off a ledge and the DEATH STAR BLOWS UP! HE’S FUCKING DEAD!
b) Where was he all this time? What happened to him? And why is he back?
Welp, the explanation for both of these questions is a throwaway line from Episode III: “The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilites some consider to be unnatural”.
Well, shit, now we can resurrect every character with no explanation. Critic Mark Turi refutes that claim, saying “How is Maul alive in The Clone Wars?” Well, first, Maul’s “resurrection” makes tons more sense than Palpatine’s, as he only fell off a ledge without the building blowing up. Second, Maul’s arc deepens in The Clone Wars and Rebels and his underdeveloped character from The Phantom Menace actually has a developing arc and dies with more dignity in Rebels than in Menace. You actually invest yourself in the storyline of Maul and Savage Opress, compared to Palpatine being completely invincible and a God-like character in The Rise of Skywalker with literally NO EXPLANATION as to why is here or how the fuck did he survive TWO EXPLOSIONS?!?! Apparently the Dark Side HAS TOO MANY PATHWAYS AND ABILITIES TO EXPLAIN EVERYTHING AND IT’S TOO POWERFUL.
J.J. Abrams to Chris Terrio: “Wow, gee, you really got us out of that one Chris. Whew, for one second, I thought we were going to have to explain how Palpatine’s back.”
Hiring Chris Terrio as one of the writers was a HUGE mistake. Aside from Argo, Terrio has written two hackneyed DC Films, and some of the worst “plot twists” in contemporary cinema history. Don’t get me started on Martha in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, the single-worst moment in DCEU history. Terrio can’t write for lick, as the film progressively goes downhill and explains absolutely nothing. There are so many gaping plot-holes in The Rise of Skywalker, you can write an entire dissertation listing and explaining every single plot-hole in the movie. It’s as if Terrio scrolled through r/StarWars and found a fan theory on Palpatine coming back and said “Sounds good to me”, and then Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams said “Makes sense. But how do we bring him back?” Terrio would reply: “He’s Best Boi Palpatine. HE LIVES BITCH!” I guess that’s the best they could do. Palpatine’s return makes absolutely no sense plot-wise, but he’s presented as a literal God who can destroy ships using the combined power of Rey and Kylo’s force, which makes the villain inherently boring, compared to Adam Driver’s conflicted Kylo. If this movie was about Supreme Leader Kylo Ren taking over The First Order and the final battle in defeating the First Order while paying tribute to a 42-year old Legacy. But you HAD to bring back Palpatine? And for what?!?
The “twist” of the film equates to Batman v. Superman’s “Martha” scene, without the human emotion of it. They had to retcon the fact that Rey’s parents were nobodies…and for what?!? There isn’t anything wrong with Rey being a nobody. You can say the same thing for Ezra Bridger’s parents in Star Wars Rebels. Sure, they rebelled against the Empire, but they didn’t have any lineage to any “force-wielding character”. So, you can say that they’re technically nobodies. Rey doesn’t need to be attached to anyone. When Kylo Ren says to Rey that she is a Palpatine, I yelled out WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!? This is where the film goes from OK to atrociously terrible (and downright heartbreaking). If you loved The Last Jedi’s subversive twists and turns, be prepared for unnecessary retcons after unncessary retcons. There’s no excitement and/or “WHOA”-level of surprise when Rey is revealed to be a Palpatine and that Sheev is his grandfather. The real question is WHO THE FUCK WOULD WANT TO BANG THAT DUDE?!? DID YOU LOOK AT HIS FACE?!?!? AND WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?!?
“I love how half of this movie acts like it is answering questions but it really just asks more questions.”- Michael Mercuri, 2019.
At first, I thought it was a joke. But when Rey goes to Ach-to and meets Force Ghost Luke (Mark Hamill) and he says “Because you’re a Palpatine” and he and Leia (Carrie Fisher) knew all along, I gave up on the movie. Just….Rey Palpatine…it raises too many questions, and EVEN MORE questions are raised when Rey actually meets Palpatine, as he has a McGuffin that if she kills him, the power of the Sith will be transfered to her and she will become the True Emperor. Are you fucking kidding me?!? Why couldn’t this be “Rey vs. Kylo-Round 3”, instead of “OOOOOOH PALPATINE IS THERE OOOOOOOOOH BE AFRAID!” Why not keep it simple, as it was being properly built up? The Rey v. Kylo Round 3 fight is FINE, but gets ruined by a horribly staged “send-off” of Carrie Fisher’s character with a weird sounding “Ben” and her drifting off. Ben then sees a projection of his father (Harrison Ford), exactly like Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) saw his father (Kevin Costner) on top of a mountain for no reason in Batman v. Superman. Chris Terrio loves to recycle bad ideas from his previous bad films (and recycles lines as well: “I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” from The Force Awakens) and perpetuates laziness in the process.
And that’s the biggest problem with The Rise of Skywalker, it’s lazy. As it tries to cater to as many fans as possible with cramming every conceivable thing in a 142-minute feature, with an awkward Reylo kiss at the end of the movie that has LITERALLY NO PURPOSE in the movie other than creating even weirder fan art now from reddit users of r/reylo, C-3P0 (Anthony Daniels) having his memory erased to translate Sith, only to have it installed back by R2D2, Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo)’s faux-death, General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson) pulling an Agent Kallus from Star Wars Rebels and betraying the First Order for “Kylo Ren to Lose”, only to never have his “Fulcrum” moment and being killed by Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant), the most disappointing Richard E. Grant performance of all-time. What if Hux escaped like Kallus did and helped the Resistance win? Wouldn’t that have been more exciting than a pussy kill? Jesus. It also reduces Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran)’s role to cater to the people that hated her (seriously, what was the problem with her?), she does NOTHING and has very little lines. It introduces new characters like Zorri Bliss (Kerri Russell) and Jannah (Naomi Ackie). Both characters add absolutely NOTHING to the movie, and DO NOTHING. There could be some romantic hints with Jannah & Finn (John Boyega), but all he does during this entire movie is yell “REYYYYYYYYYY!” Another great character reduced to NOTHING. And don’t get me started on REY having AHSOKA TANO, KANAN JARRUS, MACE WINDU, LUMINARA UNDULI, AYALA SECURA, YODA, ADI GALLIA and motherfucking QUI GON-JINN’s spirit. Is it because she’s a Palpatine that she can now have a connection with every Jedi that ever existed? Bullshit.
Yes, it’s great to see Billy Dee Williams back as Lando Calrissian, and you can tell he has a lot of fun, but he’s barely in it. As the film tries to cram in as much as possible to cater to everyone, it gets lost in its fluff and forgets the core of what made Lucas’ Star Wars exciting: A SIMPLE story executed to a grand scale, with top-notch visual effects and an exciting plot. The Rise of Skywalker tries to do too much, and because of that, it fails miserably at a conclusion to a 42-Year old movie franchise. It’s a bad r/starwars fanfiction transposed to screen, and the WORST Star Wars movie ever made. I can’t believe how everything falls FLAT on its face and raises more questions than it’s supposed to answer. I can’t believe some people actually like this. I defended The Last Jedi for 2 years against people who thought it ruined Star Wars. Well, it certainly wasn’t Rian Johnson or J.J. Abrams that ruined Star Wars, it was Kathleen Kennedy who said it was OK that Rey could become a Palpatine and then IDENTIFY herself as a Skywalker, even though it was sooooooo much better when their parents were nobodies. I’ve been saying it for years, Kathleen Kennedy has GOT to go. Out. Get Deborah Chow, Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Rian Johnson, heck, even J.J. Abrams to supervise Lucasfilm from now on and never hire Chris Terrio as a screenwriter ever again. He cannot be trusted.
✯½
