Roundtable: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Part 2
Second Impressions
Anton: Okay, you’ve each seen The Rise of Skywalker two times now, am I correct?
Anders: Yes. Opening night and with the family on Boxing Day.
Aren: Yup. Opening night in IMAX 3D and once in regular digital projection over the Christmas break.
Anton: I’ve still only seen the movie once, with Anders on opening night. Why don’t we start with your second impressions? Did a second viewing improve or impair the movie for you?
Aren: I think that the film was not as overwhelming the second time around, but what it loses in some of the surprises and emotional catharsis, it makes up for with coherence. Despite its furious pace, I don’t think it’s nearly as makeshift as people are saying. And it’s also not all that different from The Last Jedi in terms of the characters of Rey and Kylo Ren. All three films taken together create a pretty compelling arc for these two characters.
I also don’t understand the idea that this is a movie written by studio mandate. It’s too strange in some of its visual preoccupations and emotional detours to reek of studio overmanagement. Those kinds of films generally have a tighter narrative construction—in terms of plot holes and character motivations being clearly drawn out for general audiences—but they lack any distinct style or risks or gambles on the part of the filmmakers. Marvel movies are the ultimate example of this studio filmmaking. You’d be a fool for saying that Avengers: Endgame is poorly made—there’s too much craftsmanship that went into it across all levels of filmmaking—but it is indistinct and workmanlike in a way that closing franchise statements shouldn’t be.
Whatever its faults, The Rise of Skywalker is not a paint-by-numbers film and it doesn’t simply placate audiences at every turn. It’s genuinely weird, perhaps not narratively, but visually and thematically. Everything to do with Exegol is absolutely bonkers
Anton: Rise of Skywalker versus Endgame is an interesting comparison. I finally caught up with Endgame the other night. It’s more coherent and sturdy but it’s also kind of bland in its visual style and boring story-wise. It doesn’t do anything unexpected or risky. The battle scenes are pedestrian, if huge in terms of scale.
Rise isn’t the work of pure placation it’s being made out to be by some. It has plenty of fan service, certainly, but those parts are grafted onto a strange, feverish vision of the end times of Star Wars. Palpatine’s hidden fleet is the most apocalyptic, and least realistic, threat to ever face the galaxy. Which is why it doesn’t quite fit with the earlier trilogies but also isn’t bland or boring.
Anders: My second viewing clarified things on a plot level a great deal for me. It seemed less frenzied and easier to follow. The things I liked the most—Ben Solo’s turn to the Light, the desert festival, etc.—played as well or better, but at the same time some of the loose ends seem more glaring—for instance, I’m still unclear what Finn wants to tell Rey. That he loves her?
The film holds emotional resonance. It’s a film that generates great affective force, but I’m still not convinced it’s as coherent a bit of worldbuilding as the Original or Prequel Trilogies are. To be fair, that’s a criticism I can level at all the Disney films and something we can get into more during our Disney trilogy roundtable.
I don’t think that the film is paint by numbers. It’s certainly not a film by committee in the way that the Marvel movies are. I think what people are suggesting is that the film feels too reactive to responding to the criticisms of The Last Jedi. The film feels compelled to provide answers to the mysteries and loose ends raised in The Force Awakens and left dangling by the subsequent film.
Links to the Original Trilogy
Anders: A second viewing also clarified how The Rise of Skywalker feels the most different from the Original Trilogy of any of the new films in a lot of ways.
Just on the level of filmmaking, which I think is important when talking about Star Wars, J.J. Abrams radically abandons Lucas’s filmmaking style in this film, even as he paid some heedance to them in The Force Awakens. Here, for the first time, we get montages. The cuts back and forth between locations and scenes are quicker. In my review of The Phantom Menace I talked about how despite the quick moving plot, scenes often run on longer than one would expect. It breathes as a film in a way this one, and to a lesser extent the earlier Disney films, don’t. The editing is very fast paced. I eventually want to take a look at the screenplay and see how the editing and scene construction is shaping the work on the page.
Narratively, we get an amplification of the crazy Force powers introduced in The Last Jedi, such as Rey and Kylo Ren’s Force link, and space travel as Anton has noted, abandons any last vestige of spatial realism it had after the last two films. What exactly is “hyperspace skipping.” It really does play as expansive fanfic on a big budget scale. Nonetheless, I’ll admit it mostly plays as a ton of fun. It’s like a kid going nuts in the toybox with their Star Wars action figures. That said, I do wish they had explored some of this stuff earlier and let the film breathe more.
As for the “filmmaking by committee” I mentioned above, what I feel is that the playful attitude really starts to show the seams in the worldbuilding. It’s not that it’s bland and studio mandated, but it is reactive in moments to fan complaints and in the process attempts to wrap up loose ends that never seemed to have a planned resolution. That means that it’s less polished, rather than careful and thoughtful, worldbuilding.
Aren: They obviously mildly course-corrected for some decisions made in the previous films—not just The Last Jedi, but The Force Awakens too.
Anton: I’m not sure “mildly” is the right word. I’m not saying they undid most of The Last Jedi, but some important moments in Johnson’s film are either challenged or altered. I’m thinking of how Abrams chides Johnson having Luke throw Anakin’s lightsaber away at the start of The Last Jedi with, in Rise of Skywalker, Luke’s line about holding onto your weapon. And, more significantly, Rey’s parentage, which is the largest scale alteration, since you got a sense from the moment in The Last Jedi that Kylo isn’t lying about Rey being a nobody. That seems to have been Rey’s parentage when The Last Jedi was made, since the theme of a nobody becoming the hero is confirmed with the little stable boy being Force-sensitive at the end of the film.
Anders: Yes, Luke’s ghostly appearance catching Anakin’s lightsaber in the wreck of Kylo Ren’s TIE fighter and his injunction that “A Jedi’s weapon deserves more respect” is the most obvious rejoinder to Johnson’s film. I can’t read that as anything other than a reverse course and reaction to Luke’s tossing away of the saber in The Last Jedi. I’m not even saying which one I think is more appropriate. Just that it’s the kind of thing that none of the Lucas-produced films bothered with. It means that these films kind of feel like they are ping-ponging back and forth narratively and thematically. As we’ve noted, it’s not that the Original Trilogy was mapped out exactly with some kind of grand plan, but the ping-ponging elements point to the lack of communication between the filmmakers.
Aren: I still think we should never have assumed that Kylo Ren had all the necessary information in The Last Jedi. The idea that we should always take him at his word, or assume that he knows more than Rey about what is going on between them, is proven wrong time and again in these films. The lightsaber line is a more accurate correction, but also, Luke grows over the course of The Last Jedi. He is a cranky exile at the beginning, but by film’s end, he realizes that he was wrong. So it’s not just Abrams rebuking Luke’s actions in the previous film, but Luke demonstrating his growth since that moment at the beginning of The Last Jedi.
Anton: I don’t think we should “always” take Kylo at his word. But I think, in that moment of The Last Jedi, Kylo’s assertion about Rey’s parentage gels with the film’s themes in a way that didn’t seem necessarily deceptive to me. I was always open to the possibility that he is lying. However, when I watched The Last Jedi, Kylo’s claim also made sense. I was never offended by Johnson’s choice as some fans were. Furthermore, the idea of Rey being a nobody with no special origins seemed confirmed by her vision of herself in the infinite mirrors. She is just Rey. Remember, in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke’s vision in the Dark cave isn’t literal, but it does contain a truth. I don’t know how to reconcile Rey’s vision in the cave in Last Jedi with her parentage as revealed in Rise.
Aren: Anders, you made a comment in your review of The Force Awakens that the very nature of these films existing meant that they had to undo the perfect ending of Return of the Jedi. And that the entire nostalgic approach of this new trilogy was to undo the old and put it back together again in much the same way. It breaks the series to recreate the series and attempt to make us feel the things we did when we experienced the Star Wars series for the first time. It is a truly nostalgic trilogy: it tries to recreate the past and feel that old pain. And however much I know that such an approach can never truly succeed, I do think that there is something to the quest in the first place. The Rise of Skywalker didn’t achieve the satisfaction and moral profundity of Return of the Jedi, but it does achieve something in its vein, which is immensely moving.
Anders: I think it’s genuinely affecting, but I’m not convinced that all of the emotional beats of this film are earned. But man, what a ride!
Anton: It is a great ride! I found a lot of it dizzyingly fun. I really liked the interactions between the characters, the genuinely impressive visuals (which aren’t always present in big blockbusters), and the legitimately thrilling action scenes, such as the supreme build up to Rey and Kylo’s encounter in the desert or the final big space battle.
Aren: There are individual moments that are definitely fan bait, but satisfying nonetheless. For instance, the moment with all the voices of the Jedi reaching out to Rey was really nice. I love that they got Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen to come back and do the voice work here. It’s a great touch and an example of Disney leveraging their resources to wrangle all these former actors together. It’s just too bad that they didn’t have Anakin and Ben as Force ghosts at the end of the film to stand alongside Luke and Leia on Tatooine. I wish we could’ve gotten the entire Skywalker clan back, since that line is ended and now lives on in Rey.
Anders: Personally, I really needed to see Hayden Christensen in there. I feel like the whole trilogy short shrifts Anakin, lessening his importance and the stakes of his redemption in Return of the Jedi. This is the crux of my issues with the film.
Aren: That’s because it slots Ben into the exact same role as Anakin: the fallen hero.
Anders: Sure, but that’s something that began with The Force Awakens and not just this movie. The Disney films were fundamentally misconceived from the get go, in part due to the fan reaction to the prequels. The idea of the Star Wars series as the “Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker” is really a construction of The Return of the Jedi and the Prequels, but it works! It organically grew and was actually compelling drama, politically and psychologically. From the moment in The Force Awakens when we learn that Kylo Ren is Ben Solo, Anakin’s entire turn in Return of the Jedi is cheapened. His sacrifice for Luke, and perhaps even more so Luke’s unwillingness to meet the Emperor and Vader in violence and his action in throwing down his weapon didn’t result in the next generation learning anything!
My interpretation of the whole “Balance of the Force” concept is that Anakin finally does fulfill the prophecy, but only in Return of the Jedi when he kills the Emperor and re-embraces the Light. This is something that he can only do with his son, which also means that his bringing balance to the Force rests not on individual might, but sacrificial love. Sure, the power of all Jedi live in Rey, but she doesn’t beat the resurrected Emperor by ultimately refusing the call, but by pulling some kind of Dragon Ball Z maneuver on him. It suggests that the Light wins because it is ultimately just stronger, not because it has an inherent value.
Anton: I also think that Anakin should be more important and more often mentioned in the Disney Trilogy. He’s so important, and not just his incarnation as Darth Vader. I also think Hayden Christensen should have been a Force ghost.
Aren: Other fan bait moments worked for me as well. I must be a complete loser because I enjoyed Wedge showing up.
Anders: Yeah. Oh I loved that. I turned to Anton and said “Wedge!”
Aren: We’re all pretty invested in Star Wars or we wouldn’t be as obsessed with these new films as we are. So of course there are a lot of superficial things I like here, such as Lando finally coming back (although he should’ve been in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi as well), and the Sith mythology and remnants of the Expanded Universe leaking into the “canon” of the new series. The film is less satisfying as a conclusion to the core three characters of the Original Trilogy. We’ve belaboured this point, but they should’ve had at least one scene of Han, Luke, and Leia in action together again. I would’ve taken it even in flashback to a time between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. And Carrie Fisher’s death in real life completely derailed their plans for this film. In the end, Harrison Ford’s Han Solo ends up with the most satisfying new trilogy arc—and he’s only in the first film!
Despite all that, the new characters are compelling and their arcs are satisfying. I do wish Finn got the girl, however.
Anders: Actually, one of my favourite scenes in The Rise of Skywalker is the flashback (again, something Lucas never employed) to Luke training Leia with the de-aged actors. That’s the closest we get to seeing the post-Return of the Jedi heroes we wanted to see.
That said, Ben Solo/Kylo Ren is the best character in the trilogy. Hands down. I wish we had the earlier version of the script that had more of Ren’s search for the Sith planet. Instead of cramming it into 5 minutes. Haha.
Aren: I actually wish that J.J. Abrams had done all three movies, since he could’ve stretched the plot out in the necessary ways. We wouldn’t have had both Johnson in The Last Jedi and Abrams in The Rise of Skywalker spending all this time kind of devoting attention to parts the individual filmmakers thought were neglected in the previous film.
Anton: The opening on Exegol and the entire approach in the beginning reminds me of the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring.
Aren: Oh well. The opening crawl always does so much heavy lifting in these Star Wars films.
Anton: I didn’t mean that as a knock. Anders mentioned how Abrams moves beyond Lucas’s visual and editing styles in this movie, and I thought the opening was a good sequence. I found it sweeping in that The Lord of the Rings way, in that it will reward repeat viewing and packs in so much that it seems rich in a way that the galaxy in The Force Awakens never does. I also like its driving momentum, with Kylo on a rage to find Palpatine.
Mapping Out a Trilogy
Anton: It seems clear now that Abrams created a mystery box in The Force Awakens without fully knowing or having the answers to all the questions his mysteries were generated. The map to Luke Skywalker is a great MacGuffin. But nothing in Lucas’s Star Wars are MacGuffins in the true sense of the term. The objects being pursued, such as the Death Star plans, always actually impact the story-world. The map to Luke seems emblematic of how Abrams works though. He generates great hooks that don’t necessarily add up. Who made the map? Why would there be a map to someone who disappeared of his own volition? It seems to me that Abrams and company didn’t have the answers. They just had the mystery ideas.
Of course, I don’t know this for sure. But the effect of the new films seems to suggest this so strongly, and I’m waiting for hard evidence to disprove my intuitions.
Now that the Disney Trilogy is done, it seems bizarrely poorly conceived from the get go. It’s worse than just a few seams showing. It’s like watching TV shows that chart their course as they go. Frankly, maybe Abrams’ history in TV here is actually a flaw, a weakness in his abilities as a director. He’s not fully in control of the whole novel. He was thinking too much about how a single chapter would play. It just seems that way to me.
I’ve griped many times before about the wasted use of the three stars of the Original Trilogy. How they had a chance to give the audience Han, Luke, and Leia together again in an adventure onscreen and they didn’t do it. Now that the trilogy has concluded, the bigger flaw is that they were given the chance to make the most important trilogy follow up of all time and they didn’t precisely map it out. You get the sense that each director—originally there were three, mind you, before they fired Colin Trevorrow—was going to make his episode his own. What the hell?
Maybe Kathleen Kennedy turns out to have been a bad choice to control the fate of Star Wars. Us brothers often bash Marvel, but I think some props are due to Kevin Feige to quality control and precision planning.
Anders: Yeah. Almost everything that people dislike about all three of these films hinges to a great deal on that insane decision to just make it up as they went. It’s baffling.
Anton: I think Kennedy has made a lot of missteps under her belt now, and she barely pulled together a couple of movies that could have been disasters. Like Solo.
Anders: As a leader she has been too heavy-handed at times, firing directors, etc., and at other moments she’s been too free with the reins, letting the “Saga” directors basically make each film independently of the others as you note. I don’t want to pile on a single person, because I don’t really know the politics behind the decisions, but it might have been a good idea to have someone who was more invested in the material, and not just professionally connected to Lucas and Spielberg, in charge.
Anton: Especially on the creative end. The Original Trilogy had a different director for each film, but Lucas was still the author of all three movies.
Clearly Lucas deserves more credit for just the control side of his prequels. The Original Trilogy is unique, because they didn’t know they would make the next film while making each one. The first movie had to make enough money. And then Empire had to be a successful sequel before they for sure knew they were making Return.
Aren: Oh yeah. I agree. These films have a lot of holes in them. If they weren’t Star Wars I would not love them nearly as much. But that’s kind of beside the point. It needed a genuine grand plan from the get-go and no course correcting.
Anders: But the Original Trilogy didn’t have a genuine grand plan either. As I argued in our Roundtable and my Empire piece, many of the biggest choices in the films, including making Vader Luke’s father, were figured out on the fly. But Lucas and his collaborators were at least the same team for the most part from film to film and so they had a continuity, if only in creative flow, to guide their ideas.
Anton: I’m not saying Lucas had a perfect grad plan. But, whether in process or result, the Original Trilogy has a much stronger sense of cohesion, even if we can all point to, say, Obi-Wan’s dialogue with Luke in his hut and note how it doesn’t fully accord with events and information in the other episodes. We have to fudge the meaning of the lines to make it fit nicely. Even before the Special Editions, however, Episodes IV–VI work great together and like, well, episodes, telling one big story. And, in comparison to the Disney Trilogy, the Prequels actually accord with the Originals far better (Prequel high-five!). But by the end of IX, it all feels shaky and tenuous.
That said, your team idea is a good point in terms of the mechanics of production. Kennedy should have created one continuous creative team. Especially since they knew they were making all these stand-alone movies and TV projects.
It’s bewildering that no one thought that creative continuity was essential, given that the plan was always for a new trilogy. Like I said, Anders, the money constraints meant that Lucas had inklings of a direction but that it depended on each new movie being a success. The Empire Strikes Back could have been a dud and sunk it all. Disney could have been fairly confident they would make all three. Or they should have been.
Anders: It’s true, I think Lucas honestly doesn’t get enough credit from anyone.
Aren: Bow before the true emperor.
Anton: You gotta have “Power . . . Unlimited Power!” to get things done right.
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.