Roundtable: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Part 1

First Impressions on the Final Film of the Skywalker Saga

Anders: So, J.J. Abrams likes Dark Empire, eh? 

I joke, but The Rise of Skywalker is a film that is indebted to a much larger concept of Star Wars than just the George Lucas movies. 

Anton: On one level, it seems like J.J. Abrams is responding to criticisms of The Force Awakens as being overly beholden to A New Hope, for example, in that film’s use of just X-wings for the Resistance. Now, for The Rise of Skywalker, Abrams has throw in references to not only other Star Wars movies but also the galaxy of books, comics, and video games beyond the films, including, in that delirious opening sequence, Palpatine’s (Ian McDiarmid) rumoured cloning facilities and the ancient Sith homeworld. 

Anders: It feels like a bit of everything is thrown in. It’s overwhelming just on the level of information and visual stimulation. The reality is that this could easily have been two movies and it feels like it.

Anton: Maybe even its own trilogy.

Aren: I could quibble. I could try to look professional and talk about the film in an intellectual manner, but I’m not going to lie about my experience. The Rise of Skywalker wrecked me emotionally. I had a lot of trepidation going into it, and the furious and borderline-incoherent pacing of the first 30 minutes destabilized me and made me worry about where this was all going. But once it reached the desert planet of Pasaana, the film found its groove and the relationship between Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Rey (Daisy Ridley) deepened, and everything got into place for an epic finale that would chart largely the same course as Return of the Jedi in wild new ways. I lost control during the final 45 minutes and much of my experience watching the film was simply trying to keep my emotions in check while letting the wave of satisfaction and catharsis wash over me.

Anton: You always were the biggest Reylo fan of us, Aren.

Anders: Kylo and Rey are the most satisfying part of the film for me. How much I ended up liking The Rise of Skywalker was ultimately going to depend to a great deal on how they dealt with Kylo Ren and his redemption or not. Seeing Ben Solo reject the Dark Side and battle with his grandfather’s blue saber was probably my favourite scene in the film.

That said, it wasn’t perfect: we can talk more later about how I feel about Ben’s and Rey’s final fates.

Anton: I’m finding it difficult to settle my thoughts on the movie, and a good part of that is the over-stimulation it induces. I love aspects of The Rise of Skywalker, like the delirious opening with Kylo searching for Palpatine in a frenzy, and how wild and fun so much of the movie was, particularly the climax. But Abrams does go a little too crazy and indulges in some of his worst tendencies, as he did with Star Trek. Like, he’s gone berserk with Force powers and hyperspace—what did they call it? Hyper-skipping? And Force projection, which I was already super skeptical of in The Last Jedi, now allows for teleportation?

Aren: I think you’re blending the Force projection that Luke did in The Last Jedi and the Force connection that Snoke (and I guess Palpatine) establishes between Rey and Kylo in that film. It definitely extends that power beyond anything we’ve seen before, but it’s also something that Abrams simply expands upon here. He wasn’t the one who introduced the power in the first place, so I didn’t find the crazed extension of that power as jarring the second time round.

Anton: What I liked the most was finally getting to watch all three heroes—Rey, Poe (Oscar Isaac), and Finn (John Boyega)—going on a mission together. I like the Dark Empire vibe, which also suggests we enjoy this more as fan fiction or an Expanded Universe story than definitive Star Wars text. Perhaps my favourite sequence was in the desert on Pasaana, with Rey and Kylo facing off, which featured heavily in the advertising, but which works very nicely when it plays out as part of the story. 

But the delirious quality means that I can’t clearly make up my mind after one viewing, and I think my mixed feelings are reflected in the public reaction. Critics are mixed to negative. IMDb has the usual crazed anger plus defenders. Twitter has lots of “Hey, it was great. Here’s me with my cat and Star Wars t-shirt.” 

Anders: I’m really trying to figure out what I think. I’m not negative. I liked it, but it feels like the whole film is aiming for something that was ultimately unnecessary. We already had an ending in Return of the Jedi that brought the Skywalker Saga to a close in a satisfying and emotional manner. This film is trying to bring to a close an intentionally created destabilization of that story closure. It’s what I said in my The Force Awakens review: J.J. Abrams, Kennedy, and Johnson as well, were forced to break something so they could put it back together and make us feel it all again. Now it seems it worked like magic on you, Aren, and while I enjoyed it, it doesn’t seem to have affected me to quite the same level it did you. I never shed a tear during this film, but I did feel emotional whiplash. It goes pretty hard on making us question “everything we thought we knew.”

Anton: The galaxy showing up to finally help the Resistance worked for me emotionally, as did the sacrifices Rey and Kylo perform for each other, which were very operatic and very Star Wars.

Thematically, the most interesting thing about the Disney Trilogy is each film’s meta-textualuality, and the times where subtext becomes text. “The dead speak!” It’s like the Original Trilogy was crying out and this film had to respond. Also, the opening line of the crawl seems to play on the viewer’s experience of the marketing, in which we all heard Palpatine laugh and wondered what they were going to do. So the dead Emperor spoke to us, the viewer, in a manner similar to the mysterious broadcast to the galaxy in the film. And of course the ruins of the Second Death Star echo the fallen Star Destroyers on Jakku. It’s another movie playing in the remains of the Original Trilogy.

Aren: That’s a great point. Abrams is best when he’s playing around in the literal ruins of the Original Trilogy, making us feel what the characters are feeling in relation to the old stories and conflicts.

Anton: On a different note, is Snoke a Sith then? Palpatine’s new apprentice after Vader?

Aren: I think Snoke is technically a clone or some kind of Sith vessel based off those visuals at the beginning of the film, with all those Snokes growing in the vat on Exegol. 

Anton: Some people are criticizing Palpatine coming back into the story, but, even if I think the story could have gone in other significant directions, I think Palpatine makes sense. Any fan conditioned by the Expanded Universe of the 1990s shouldn’t have a problem. Palpatine was always expected. The issue is whether the new trilogy makes the tragedy and redemption of Anakin Skywalker moot. In fact, they weirdly talk about Vader but never mention the name Anakin in these new movies.

Anders: For sure. In fact, if anything they needed to bring Palpatine explicitly into the story earlier. 

Anton: Absolutely. They should have had him instead of Snoke. Or at least let us know that his shadow is still in control of the First Order and Snoke. All they needed is one hologram. Like in Attack of the Clones, when Sideous shows up for all of one scene. As it stands, it’s very unclear whether the filmmakers imagined Snoke working for Palpatine all along or simply used Palpatine as a means to tie things up just in this last film.

Aren: You sum it up correctly. Snoke is fine as a character, but the series should’ve made it clear that he was Palpatine’s puppet at some point in The Force Awakens. In the trilogy we got, he’s clearly a patsy, but the details are unclear and he appears to be just a clone or some Sith worshipper who was bred by Palpatine.

Anton: Maybe all those guys in cloaks are Snokes? I mean all those guys in black robes in the stadium on Exegol. 

Aren: Yeah, that’s definitely possible. It’s also possible that Snoke is an actual “Sith,” as in the Sith race.

Thematic Emphasis on the Balance of the Force

Aren: We noted it in our reviews of the Disney films, but I think this entire new trilogy is really about making subtext text, for good and ill. For example, it literalizes the Balance of the Force as two individuals: Kylo Ren/Ben Solo and Rey Palpatine. However, it adds texture to this by reversing our usual understanding of the Balance of the Force and making the hereditary Jedi (Ben) a champion of the Dark Side and the hereditary Sith (Rey) a champion of the Light Side. Some people may quibble about the reveal, but there is a lot to like about the thematic avenues brought to light by the reveal that Rey is the Emperor’s granddaughter. It adds a balance to the character focus between Rey and Kylo Ren and is satisfying on a basic story level, since Rey’s identity as a nobody or a Skywalker or some other kind of reveal would’ve been hugely anticlimactic or not scanned with the rules of the Star Wars world. 

Anders: I’m not so sure that either of those other endings wouldn’t have scanned with the rules of the world. Rey’s origin raises some other questions even as it satisfies others.

Anton: Like who was Palpatine’s son, and how come we never heard of him before? Did he have him back when he looked like a regular man, in The Phantom Menace?

Aren: As always, Abrams brings up more questions along with providing answers. I know a lot of people online are gnashing teeth over the reveal, since they think it takes away the supposedly-democratic progressive messaging of The Last Jedi, but this is a story built on the hero’s journey and in the hero’s journey, the central hero is almost always revealed to be someone special: someone with royal or magical blood and with some link to the overarching power structures of the world: Arthur, Jesus, Harry Potter—whomever you want to choose. Also, let’s be very clear: the popular idea among critics and fans of The Last Jedi that its reveal that Rey is a “nobody” subverts the rules of this storyworld and makes it so that anyone can become a Jedi is plain wrong, even if she had turned out to be no one with royal blood. 

Anders: This is true. Ultimately, anyone is special if they have powers like this.

Anton: People are reading these things wrong. The hero’s journey typically involves a nobody who turns out to be a somebody. Like Luke Skywalker on his farm, or Anakin the slave, or Harry Potter living under the stairs, or Jesus some capententer in nowhere Galilea, or Arthur as just a servant before he pulls the sword from the stone. Thematically, the point isn’t that only royals get special powers, but rather that anybody might turn out to be somebody—somebody special—if they make the right choices and realize their potential. 

Aren: Exactly. The Force always chooses people indiscriminately. In the prequels, the Jedi are not all royals or what-have-you, but a kind of religious sect comprised of people who have high Midichlorian counts and who are Force Sensitive. If they find a child that fits the bill, the Jedi take that child and raise them, no matter who they are or where they come from. The Force never discriminated! But in becoming a Jedi, that person becomes special.

However, it is also true that the Force is especially strong in the Skywalker family and in Palpatine, since Palpatine likely created Anakin Skywalker and Anakin starts a lineage that includes Luke, Leia, and Ben, who are all immensely powerful Force users since their line was literally conceived through Force powers. 

Anton: Hey, I’m not a full-believer in the Palpatine created Anakin interpretation. I think it’s an intriguing possibility, but if Lucas wanted to make the point clear and definite, he would have, as he does with everything. Maybe the Force willed Anakin into life. 

Aren: Well, I’m pretty sure Lucas said as much in past interviews, and the original version of the script for Episode III apparently had a much more explicit line where Palpatine tells Anakin that he can basically refer to him as his father, since he manipulated the Midichlorians in Shmi. As well, that scene at the opera in Revenge of the Sith is a masterclass of suggestion and subtext that leans in that direction, so I feel like all the information you need is in the scene.

Anton: When did Lucas say this? As well all know, Lucas says a lot of things in interviews, and only about half of them completely line-up. Also, I think you could just as easily argue that Palpatine is using a story that works upon Anakin’s desire to save his wife from the death he fears for her. That that is Palpatine’s main reason for telling the story, rather than suggesting he created Anakin. But anyways, it’s still a possibility.

Aren: It’s both/and, not either/or. That’s why that scene is so brilliant. However, you can be satisfied that Lucasfilm has officially commented that Palpatine did not create Anakin, since they don’t want to erase the ambiguity of his origins. But remember that this is Disney, not Lucas, making the clarification and Lucas doesn’t really comment on this kind of stuff anymore.

But back to my point, Palpatine is the most powerful Force user in the entire franchise. Rey has always shown too much power to be simply another run-of-the-mill Jedi. And the franchise has teased that she is linked to the central powers of the Force, even before she was revealed to be a Palpatine. Just think about the moment in The Force Awakens when Kylo Ren freaks out when he hears that BB-8 and Finn escaped Jakku with the help of a Scavenger girl. The First Order has been looking for her this entire time! She had to be someone important and linked to the power at the centre of it all. It’s insane how the chef J. Kenji Lopez-Alt predicted all this back in 2016 on a Medium post.

Anders: That is amazing that he predicted it. And his argument for why it works makes a lot of sense and actually helps me to appreciate this aspect of the film. I don’t think the desire to give us answers that tie the films together is a major fault of this film.

Anton: When I read Lopez-Alt’s post, I practically clapped out loud. He also offers a lot of good points that suggest maybe Rey was a Palpatine even when they wrote The Force Awakens. He makes good points, such as how she holds her lightsaber.

Aren: It balances the focus of this trilogy and offers a lot to unpack, which we’ll get to in the second part of our roundtable discussion.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019, USA)

Directed by J.J. Abrams; written by J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio, based on a story by Derek Connelly, Colin Trevorrow, J.J. Abrams, and Chris Terrio, based on Star Wars created by George Lucas; starring Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Anthony Daniels, Naomi Ackie, Domhnall Gleeson, Richard E. Grant, Lupita Nyong’o, Keri Russell, Joonas Suotamo, Kelly Marie Tran, Ian McDiarmid, Billy Dee Williams.