Informal Movie Reviews: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Previously written movie commentary, excerpted from old forum posts. I guess these are basically flixster reviews, but without the hassle of actually going to flixster.
And yikes, this one needs a special disclaimer: I swear I am not normally like this.
This is legit the only insane media rant I’ve ever posted.
been thinking about this movie for a week.
I hate it.
It utterly fails as an individual movie and somehow gets much worse in the context of the rest of the series.
It's an incoherent mess. It just ping-pongs non stop between setpieces. It's like they knew that if any given new idea/scene was given too much room to breathe, the audience would realize that it didn't make sense.
And from big to small, almost nothing in the movie makes sense. How is Palpy alive? handwaved with a quote from a better movie. What does he actually want? At the end, it sure seems like he wanted Rey to come and confront him. Maybe he should've just included the location of ship-generating-mist planet in his unheard taunt message instead of waiting for Kylo Ren to solve the quest, ordering Kylo to kill her, and hoping he doesn't actually do it while she spends most of the movie solving the quest and finally getting there herself.
Why does Rey remember her parents leaving on the ship of the assassin that was hunting for them?
How/why the fuck does that puzzle dagger even exist?
Why does the Falcon, a ship that lands vertically, and can hover indefinitely, fly at full speed into the ground after "landing gear malfunction"?
Why do some random star destroyers explode on the other side of the galaxy when Palpy finally dies for super real this time? Was the entire first order was a projection he was maintaining?
Lets count all the things that are shoehorned into the movie to 'prove' that Finn and Poe are totally not gay:
-They are bickering a whole bunch throughout the movie. This is seemingly intended to show that there is (non-romantic) tension between them, but mostly comes off as nonsensical. Among them:
-Poe is retconned into having a shady past he is ashamed of. Except: 1. why would the other characters (or the audience) give a shit? Han was already a drug smuggler and everyone loves him. 2. I guess the movie doesn't actually care either, it gets swept away and forgotten in 2 lines of dialogue.
-Finn has a secret to tell Rey, but he won't tell Poe, no matter how many times he asks. Also, he never tells Rey either - guess it wasn't that important.
-Poe has an ex girlfriend. She even inexplicably survives the destruction of her planet so she can come back and get propositioned during the victory party for extra not gay points.
-And just for good measure, they give Finn a third potential female romantic interest. They definitely don't let her talk to any of the other main characters though, or really do anything besides stand next to Finn.
And speaking of Jannah, how about all those aborted half-plots they forgot to completely edit out of the movie? Sure seemed like there was more to do with her band of first order defectors, but there's no time for that I guess. Man, Lando sure is interested in her at the end of the movie. Actually kinda seems like he's hitting on her without the context of whatever they cut out earlier. Rose is researching the star destroyers to figure out the weak spot for the third act. Oh wait, I guess she forgot about it. Were the knights of ren supposed to do something? cause they sure were in a lot of scenes doing nothing.
This is more subjective, but I hated Hamill's performance. The lightsaber line should have been delivered with a wink, but he just flatly says it. "I was wrong" should've been presented like he learned that he was wrong, but he just flatly says it. Luke Skywalker wasn't on the screen, just Mark Hamill sneering at the previous movie. And then for some reason he gives a smug smile when he force floats the x-wing out of the water. Rey didn't see Empire, dude -- she doesn't get the reference.
And that scene is just a drop in the bucket of this movie shitting all over the characters and themes of the last 2 movies.
Rey nobody is inspirational. Rey struggling with her inner darkness is compelling because everyone struggles. "Anyone can be a hero" was exactly what star wars needed.
Rey Palpatine is an insult. It undercuts everything she did before. It's not even subtext -- characters in this movie explicitly talk about her having "his power" and handling "his darkness".
And for what, so they could rehash Luke's story from the OT? They didn't even do that. Literally nothing in this movie would change if she wasn't related to him.
And then.
AND THEN.
What they did to Kelly Tran was god damned shameful.
After she endured years of harassment from internet chuds, they fucking throw her under the bus.
Rose is in the movie for a minute, giving exposition.
A brand new white guy character, who isn't even named, gets more screen time and lines.
On the Falcon, Poe calls out for something to be repaired. The person he's talking to isn't the established character who's an engineer and would logically be there -- it's a penis monster that doesn't have arms or hands.
AND. THEN.
They made her do a full fucking press tour, where she had to smile and answer questions about her character's "arc" and "motivation" while knowing full well that she isn't even actually a character in the movie.
Fuck this movie, and fuck JJ Abrams
An addendum, to add some positivity:
But wait, there were actually a few good things in this movie:
-The droid with ptsd, and Rey's treatment of it was very good
-Rey force healing the snake monster was alright
-Most of the scene on Kijimi was pretty good
-There's a quick shot in the victory celebration of Rose hugging Chewie. I'll cherish that forever
Much later, a mini review of the leaked Colin Trevorrow script:
Trevorrow is a hack, and I’m not under any illusion that his movie would have been good as is, but his script doesn’t shit all over the characters, plots, and themes of the rest of the franchise like TROS does. It has some good ideas and set pieces that could be great with an editing pass and a competent director