Franchise Necrophlia: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (2019)
This article contains spoilers.
When I walked out of Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi on opening night in December of 2017, I was elated. The film had not just been a refurbished Empire Strikes Back in the same way that The Force Awakens, despite its merits, had been a refurbished A New Hope. It was a cathartic reimagining of what Star Wars had meant and, more importantly, it cleared the road for what Star Wars could mean. What excited me most was the thought that the then distant and untitled Episode IX could not simply be Re-Return Of The Jedi.
Those card had been played. That path had been blocked. The galaxy had a new and dangerously unstable Emperor in the form of Kylo Ren. Unlike his Grandfather, he wouldn’t be taking the path of redemption. He had made up his twisted mind to pursue absolute power — even it inevitably destroyed him absolutely.
Despite the The Last Jedi’s many detractors, I thought that was a great set-up for this the grand finale of this trilogy. All of the other decisions in The Last Jedi, killing off Phasma, Snoke, and Luke, the Rey ‘Nobody’ reveal, and the Resistance being beaten to the edge of extinction, all set up a final act where the the focus can be on where I thought it ought to: a victorious Kylo Ren. I imagined a truly original Star Wars film that could focus on its most interesting remaining villain. A villain who is punished by getting exactly what he thought he wanted (call me crazy, reader, but I still think Episode IX could have been the space opera Macbeth).
But I was wrong, reader. I was very wrong. I was, in retrospect, laughably wrong. JJ Abrams’ Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker was everything I didn’t want from this trilogy and the realization of everything I had feared might happen when Disney originally purchased the franchise. Yes, it is true that Hollywood has been looting itself for years and rebooting and repurposing anything it possibly can. I would list a few examples but you could probably name ten right now yourself without even trying. But Rise takes this will-to-remake to a new and unmatched level. The film crosses the line from “fan service” into what I can only describe as franchise necrophilia.
THE DEAD SPEAK!
This film’s relationship to death is its most frustrating quality. In fact, I could sum up the entire film and everything surrounding its production with the first three words of the opening crawl: The Dead Speak!
And boy, do they! As we learn in the jarring opening crawl, Emperor Palpatine who has un-incinerated himself and is back to rule the galaxy. We have a disgraceful CG animated Carrie Fisher that reminds us of the late actresses’ passing in every scene ‘she’ is in. We have a fake-out death when our heroes are sucked into a bed of quicksand only to inexplicably land in some underground tunnels unscathed. We have a fake-out Chewbacca death when we are simply fooled into thinking a transport Chewie is on is exploded by Rey’s suddenly ‘awakened’ force lightning…but then it turns out he was actually on a different transport.
We have the unexplained introduction of force-healing which effectively turns the writing of this film into that of a videogame. Rey actually does something properly Jedi and heals the wound of an angry cave-phallus which allows our heroes to escape.
This scene is mirrored by a duel between Rey and Kylo in which she brutally impales Kylo in the side but then force-heals him. Our resurrected, Ben Solo then has a vision of his father. Somehow a 77 year old Harrison Ford standing in dim light is even more disturbing to me than CG Leia.
All of this sets up the climax of the film in which Rey and “redeemed” Ben Solo have to confront Emperor Palpatine. Palpatine originally wanted Kylo Ren to kill Rey, but it turns out that he actually wanted Rey to stay alive so that she could kill him so that his Sith-essence could possess her. But then Palpatine realizes that Rey and Ben are actually a diad in the force so he absorbs some of their essence with what I assume is his own force healing ability.
Then the Emperor throws Kylo to his death. But then Rey, determined not to give in to anger, gets really amped by the ghosts of all the dead Jedi and uses a LV.1000 force blast to re-incinerate Emperor Palpatine who was trying to use all of the ghosts of the dead Sith to kill her. Rey then falls dead, having used all of her HP in the force blast because (because Jedi ghosts increase your attack power they also cause attrition damage so it’s kind of a trade-off). But then Ben Solo, in what is revealed to be yet another fake-out death, inexplicably rises from the abyss. He then uses his force-heal to resurrect Rey by giving her all of his HP but this causes him to die and vanish ala your standard immaculate Jedi death.
Yes, that’s right, after three movies of mind-reading, force-fingering, and domestic violence, Ben Solo finishes this saga by literally force-ghosting Rey — without even speaking a single word.
This is all the cinematic version of playing peekaboo with your audience. And it breaks the film because with death made completely meaningless the story has no tension.
The audience understands, if only unconsciously, that if Palpatine could survive being incinerated once why couldn’t he survive being incinerated a second time? What would stop him, or anyone else for that matter, from coming back? Or is that precisely the point? That we are stuck in this zombified nostalgia universe forever in the pop-cultural equivalent of eternal return.
I could go on further in a typical fan-rage screed about all the other things I didn’t like. Such as the abusive editing or the introduction of new characters who mirror old characters for for no apparent reason, or that this movie wastes almost half its bloated runtime trying to apologize for its predecessor. But all of that would be beside the point.
The real point I want to make is that Rise is simply not a movie. There is so much wrong with this film, even on a technical level, that it is obvious that the well-funded professionals who made it simply didn’t care about making an actual movie. At best Episode IX is a Disney ride: a visual rollercoaster through a Star Wars-inspired theme park, a glossy advert for the actual park Disney is currently building, replete with as many references to new merchandise and potential spin-offs as possible.
At worst, it is a digitally reanimated corpse that is being twisted and contorted to appease a dark, fetishistic and unhealthy nostalgia that cannot be satisfied no matter how many millions of dollars are thrown at it.
You know how much I hate to have to get all meta on you reader, but it was through a combination of evil magic and technology that Emperor Palpatine was able to conquer the galaxy. It was Anakin’s inability to accept death and loss that made him susceptible to the Emperors temptations. What is The Rise of Skywalker if not such a terrifying undead machine? Every wheel and gear of which tries to manipulate and tempt you into calling it Master.
Bottom Line:
Let the past die. Relative to its budget, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.
I give The Rise Of Skywalker my lowest rating of DOA: for Dead On Arrival
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Afterthoughts:
>>> Babu Frik, the droid scrapping alien has overwhelmingly been one thing fans and detractors of this film have been able to agree on. I find the fact that in the 21st century special effects still can’t compete with one tiny practical Muppet to be deeply life-affirming.
>>> Poe Dameron was originally scripted to die in The Force Awakens. It is fortunate for JJ that he decided to keep him alive because he is the single best human part of this movie. It may be unfortunate for Oscar Issac who now probably wishes he didn’t have to be in these movies.
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