Margaret Brown, Senior
Photo Courtesy of: Lucasfilm/Disney
The Rise of Skywalker, directed by J.J. Abrams, is the final movie in the 9 part saga. It is a mediocre movie, deserving about 3 out of 5 stars. The Rise of Skywalker had a slower and easier to follow the plot, compared to The Last Jedi. The easy-to-follow, slower-paced plot is nice for viewers that like to not have to exert all of their brainpower to follow the plot. Even viewers that have not seen all of the most recent Star Wars movies are able to understand all of the important connections. The plot of the movie revolves around Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, and her quest to defeat Emperor Palpatine. To do so, she needs to obtain a Sith Wayfinder and learn how to become one with the force and gain access to the power and knowledge of a thousand generations of Jedi. The slower-paced plot and too much foreshadowing makes it way too easy to predict what is going to happen next. For example, it was obvious that Kylo Ren (Ben Solo), played by Adam Driver, would come in and prevent Rey from killing Emperor Palpatine and becoming the next emperor. Also, watching the trailer gave away a lot of the plot and made it easy to predict what would happen next.
Another issue with this movie is that there are unnecessary scenes that are used as shortcuts to get from plot A to B without the use of creative thinking on the part of the writers. For example, when Chewbacca, played by Joonas Suotamo, was kidnapped, Rey did not initially realize the Chewbacca was alive later, and she suddenly figures it out through her connection with the force. If she can sense Chewbacca through the force, she should have been able to tell that he was okay when the transport blew up. That scene was just used to get Rey alone in Kylo’s quarters on the star destroyer. Another inconsistency was when the Force ghost of Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill, lifted his X-Wing Starfighter from the water and gave it to Rey with a Sith Wayfinder in it. All of the rest of the movie prior to that scene made it seem like Luke never found a Sith Wayfinder. That scene was used to get Rey to Exegol to meet Palpatine.
It would have been nice to see more of the personality of the characters, especially because of the slower-paced plot. I could tell that Poe, played by Oscar Isaac, and Finn, played by John Boyega, had lots of personality, but in The Rise of Skywalker, their personalities were barely developed.
It also would have been cool to see more action from the droids and Chewbacca because they added comic relief and personality to prior Star Wars movies. In prior Star Wars movies, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and BB-8 were essential to the success of the mission, but in this movie, they barely had any role. Even C-3PO, played by Anthony Daniels, had only a minimal role of translating information on a sword to find a Sith Wayfinder, which could have easily been found without the droid almost completely sacrificing himself.
The actors all did a good job of making their characters come to life. The costumes were excellent, and the set design really brought the fictional planets to life. Overall, this movie tried to put a spectacular end to the saga, but fell short in many ways. However, it did manage to hold some viewers on the edge of their seats. It is incredible that J.J. Abrams managed to incorporate Leia, played by Carrie Fisher, even though Carrie Fisher died before the filming of The Rise of Skywalker.
Comments