Star Wars: The Rise Of Questions?

The Force Comes Full Circle….Sort Of…

I know that I’m in the minority whenever I say that I liked Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I didn’t say that I loved it, because it was just a so-so film, but I’m definitely not one of those folks that completely hated the film for whatever reasons they have. If you didn’t like that film, good for you. I can definitely see why many people hated it.

With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, I found myself neither here nor there about the film or its success. I knew that I wanted to see it, but I wasn’t in that much of a rush to get to the theater. When I did see the film, I was left somewhat confused by what all went down and still felt as if I’d watched a pretty good movie. Not a great one, but a good one.

No Spoilers For Now!!!! That’ll Come Later In This Post!!!

The film’s plot is a tad all over the place. The Emperor has returned and has plans to once again take over the galaxy. Kylo Ren plans on maintaining control of the First Order and convincing Rey to join him as a co-ruler of the galaxy after the Emperor is eliminated from the picture. Rey has been training to become a better Jedi, but she keeps getting interrupted by the pesky connection that she has to Kylo Ren. Finn, Poe, Chewbacca, and everyone else are doing their best to end the First Order, but hope is beginning to die once again.

Including the Emperor, a few other old faces return in this film. The one that has already been spoiled, Lando Calrissian, has a small but key role in the movie. There are other cameos and flashes of other characters, but I won’t get into them here. Just keep an eye out for a few faces (and voices) that you might not even remember or expect to be in the film.

Much like The Last Jedi, this film bounces all over the place. Unlike The Last Jedi, the subplots are all a cohesive and necessary piece of the puzzle despite being difficult to keep up with at times. Parts of the film show amazing flashes of brilliance under J.J. Abrams’ direction and other parts remind us that he remade Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. In fact, a lot of things that happen in this film made me think of Star Wars IV: Return of the Jedi and, to a lesser degree, bits and pieces of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. Both of those films, at least in my opinion, are superior to The Rise of Skywalker.

The film spends too much time trying to tie up loose ends left in the wake of the events of The Last Jedi. It also wastes time trying to pull at the heartstrings of old fans and apologizing to them for the newest trilogy as a whole. Major liberties were taken with the Force, Sith and Jedi lore, and a few things happened that just had me scratching my head.

I will say that the film does a great job with Princess/General Leia Organa. The loss of Carrie Fisher definitely hurt this film more than anything else, and it appears as if a lot of things were rushed in order to somewhat neatly close out the saga. This made the entire film seemed rushed and a little too “lucky” with certain things that happen in the film.

Overall, though, this movie really isn’t that bad. It’s my least favorite film in the Disney trilogy but it also includes two of my favorite moments in the entire Star Wars film collection. It has extremely excellent performances from certain actors, especially Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), Joonas Suatomo (Chewbacca), and Keri Russell (I won’t name her character in this portion of the review).

The music, by John Williams, was as excellent as it always has been under his guidance. The special effects were solid, but there were a couple of times where the limits of the artists were glaringly revealed.

I do recommend this film, albeit with some reservations. It has almost as many misses as it does hits, and most of the hits are of the emotional kind. I do recommend seeing the film on the big screen if space battles are your thing. There’s also a brilliant battle between Kylo Ren and some of his old pals that will remain nameless, but the big lightsaber battle that occurs in the film is like a bizarro version of the battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker on Mustafar. It ended up being a tad wet in the end, just like the rest of this film. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great, either.

Spoilers Below!!!! Stop at Lando’s smile if you haven’t seen the film yet!!! You’ve been warned!!!

Spoilers ahead!!!!

For those of you still reading, thanks for checking out my post. I’m going to list some of the things that I loved and hated about the film and a few things that left me a bit confused after the film.

Things That I Loved (or really, really liked)

• The performance of Adam Driver across all of the films in this trilogy.
• The brilliant way that Joonas Suatomo portrayed Chewbacca. When he is told of Leia’s death, I started crying not because she was gone, but because Chewie was obviously in so much pain.
• Keri Russell as Zorii Bliss, one of two new characters in the film that I absolutely loved.
• Richard E. Grant as Allegiant General Pryde, the other new character that I loved. He’s the baddie that was sorely missing from this trilogy!
• The quick cameos of Wicket (Warwick Davis) and Wedge Antilles (Denis Lawson). I yelled out Wedge’s name, came out of my chair (thankfully no one was behind me), and gave two big thumbs up when he appeared on screen.
• The battle between Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren. Sure, they were absolutely useless in the rest of the film, but they died extremely well.
• The “death” of C-3PO. That scene hit me harder than I ever expected.
• The sandsled vehicles on Pasaana with the trooper launchers on the back. When they appeared on the screen, I immediately wanted to be nine years old again so that I could get the toy version.

Things That I Hated (or really, really disliked)

• The Knights of Ren were completely useless in this film.
• The Emperor (Ian McDiarmid) and Rey (Daisy Ridley) were entirely too overpowered.
• The death of Hux (Domhnall Gleeson). He deserved to die at the hands of Kylo Ren in a blaze of glory.
• The way that the Force was used to bring so many people back to life.
• The big reveal of Rey being a Palpatine wasn’t really a surprise.
• The way that we were sort of forced to feel bad when Snap Wexley (Greg Grunberg) dies in the final battle. J.J., we get it, Greg’s your buddy and you’re throwing him a bone. It doesn’t mean that his character is that important to anyone but you.
• The wretched CGI on young Leia during her training session flashback with Luke. The graphics team nailed young Luke, but Leia looked like she was peeled from an animated series.
• The multiple nods, apologies, and winks to the angry members of the fanbase that hated The Last Jedi. These felt unnecessary and only added to the rushed feel of the film. It also reduced characters like Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) to window dressing.

Things That Left Me A Tad Confused And Other Questions

• Why did this film feel like a repeat of Return of the Jedi?
• Where has Pryde been all of this time? Wouldn’t Kylo Ren have had him replace Hux sooner? It was hard to ignore that dude.
• Where were all of those folks willing to help in the end of TROS whenever the call was sent out for assistance in TLJ?
• How much money did Harrison Ford make for his cameo????
• When was it ever established that the Sith could take on the spirits or souls of previous Sith? That bit sounded a tad too convenient to throw into the film. It reminded me of the “There can be only one” law from the Highlander films and television series.
• Was it just me or was that battle between Kylo Ren and Rey on Kef Bir nothing more than a wet version of the Kenobi/Skywalker battle on Mustafar?
• What was the point of throwing Dominic Monaghan into this film? Nothing against him personally, but couldn’t all of his lines been said by Rose instead?
• With the Emperor apparently gone for good, who will be the next great enemy in the Star Wars saga?

That’s all, folks. I hope that you liked my review and I also hope that you leave me a few comments about this film. There are tons of other things that I want to talk about, but this post is already too long-winded to continue.

I’ll be announcing a few conventions that I’ll be attending in 2020, so if you go to any of them, be sure to hit me up about TROS or any other topic!