Remember when Star Wars ‘Big End Battles’ were good? And made sense?
I missed The Rise of Skywalker on its cinema release. You know how it is: Life got in the way. With my Disney+ ticking over to where I was actually now paying for it, I was happy that I would finally get to watch the culmination of the latest trilogy.
That happiness did not last long, resulting in this Twitter exchange:
I’ve now had a few day to reflect on it, and yes, the word ‘Average’ was doing spectacular levels of heavy lifting there. The Rise of Skywalker just isn’t a good film. It’s a mess. I’m not sure what it is trying to be. It seems to fail at everything.
Look, there are many, many reviews that go into this better than I can. I’d particularly like to single out Red Letter Media who do a great 70 minute take on it. It is more entertaining than anything in the film.
I’m going to focus on just one thing: When those big finale battles in Star Wars used to be good.
When they actually made sense in some way.
Remember A New Hope? Remember what happened in the end? Could you explain it easily to a young child? I bet you could.
“The Death Star is going to destroy the rebel hide-out! They need to get in there and fire torpedoes down the exhaust port, but it’s well defended!”
This is also effectively done with show, not tell.
More than that: The film has been building up to this briefing. It all links to Leia’s stolen plans! The strings of the plot come together. There’s no sudden surprise, like “Wait, how do they know there is a weakness in the first place?”
Then, the “We’re running out of time!” threat is succinctly demonstrated with this imagery:
Of course, you need suspension of disbelief with regard to the fact that we have LASERS IN SPAAAAAACE and all that stuff, but that’s sci-fi. Any good film will keep you in that zone of credibility.
Any good film.
Remember: The Rise Of Skywalker is not a good film.
How would you explain the final battle to a child? Let me try.
“OK, it’s the final battle on the Sith home world! There is a huge enemy fleet there! They need to destroy the navigational tower so that the fleet can’t take off! p.s. Yes, they are all Death Stars now as well!
Wait… what? You see, this comes as a surprise. Since when did any of these space ships (in any Star Wars film) need navigational towers? It’s just thrown in there as an excuse to add more stuff to the film. There’s no link to anything that has happened previously. It’s another hoop that needs to be jumped through.
OK, so if we go along with that, it gets worse when for no credible reason, the navigational tower has to be destroyed from the ground.
The Rebels are attacking with lots of ships with pew-pew lasers that are able to destroy pretty much everything else. But the tower is special somehow.
Well, not that special. As it turns out the navigational stuff can be done from somewhere else. It’s just there as a vehicle to divide up the cast so that everyone has stuff to do.
Like, you know, RIDE SPACE HORSES IN SPAAAAAAAAACE.
Someone decided this was a good thing to put into the film. There was a meeting of script-writers, and this made it. Can you imagine what didn’t make it? I am shuddering.
Of course, Finn ‘just knows’ that they now need to destroy the command ship. Was this some sort of way of cramming in that Finn might secretly become a Jedi one day? You know, just toss it in for giggles? Luke’s journey to turning off his targeting computer in a New Hope (ICONIC SCENE) was foreshadowed by, well, pretty much his entire journey through the film. You don’t watch that scene and think, “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE, IT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL!”. That’s because it does make sense. It has context.
Now, surprises being thrown in are great for adding drama to a Good Final Battle. Here are some good examples:
- A New Hope – Darth Vader & crew appearing and taking out Luke’s allies.
- Return of the Jedi – The rebels being captured just before destroying the shield generator… and, of course, “Witness the power of this fully operational battle station!”
What does The Rise of Skywalker offer us?
- “Mario, the Navigational Tower is in another castle!”
- “Help isn’t coming…” – but there’s no tension, it is obvious help is coming: The film has already removed consequences for anything. Chewie is dead! No, he isn’t. C-3PO has lost his memory and can’t get it back! Oh, wait, yes he can. Kylo Ren is dead! No, wait, we’ll heal him within 15 seconds of being stabbed.
- “I can use my space magic to destroy the entire fleet” – Cringe, cringe, cringe, CRINGE, CRIIIIIIINGE.
While on the subject of cringe, how about this?
This one image is iconic, in that it sums up the entire film: An exercise in excess. Just throw in as much as possible, don’t worry about any of it making sense, just add more things! Nothing has to link up with anything else, just spit it out, and move onto the next shiny thing. MORE SHINY THINGS!
Oh, and toss Harrison Ford in. I mean, why not? Nothing has consequences any more.
After all, Force Ghosts can hold objects now, so I’m genuinely surprised they didn’t have Luke and, well, every dead Jedi, pitching in on the final battle as another big JJ ABRAMS SURPRISE!
I’m done. This is a lukewarm mess of a film. It fails at the basics of telling a coherent and interesting story. It screws up suspension in disbelief as a result. It tries to be grander than those in charge are able to control.
It’s the polar opposite of The Mandalorian. Which is bloody brilliant. It even has character arcs and story lines which make sense. Imagine that in a Star Wars film nowadays?
