Ep. IX - The Rise of SkywalkerI loved this film. The pacing was breakneck, the quest at times didn't feel logical, and the entire thing supposedly playing out over 16 hours caused me some consternation. But as a whole, this was such a well-done, satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker Saga. The world-building was, by and large, fantastic. I loved the new places that were shown, and how they continued to build color and texture to the SW galaxy.
I loved how things built well from The Last Jedi and how the continuity was so cleverly established, even when on the surface, things seemed to subvert The Last Jedi. For example, the theme of learning from failures was HUGE in The Last Jedi. And they used Luke and Rey to hammer that home in ROS. The scene with Luke catching the lightsaber and talking about giving a Jedi weapon the proper respect as Rey attempted to throw it into the fire was brilliant in that regard.
Likewise, the themes about the force not
belonging to the Jedi, and how one's background/lineage did not give anyone a right to co-opt the force was given a nice twist with Rey being a Palpatine, but ultimately being the supreme source of the light side of the force in this film.
There were some minor things that bothered me a bit and took me out of the moment. Since I only saw it once, maybe I just didn't get how they better fit. But they seemed to be issues from my first viewing anyway, and took me a bit out of the moment of the film when I couldn't quite reconcile them. For example:
-There seemed to be continuity errors with the broken lightsaber and Kylo's helmet. The lightsaber could have been repaired, so that is less an issue, I suppose. A quick throwaway line to that effect would have made this a non-issue. But Kylo smashing his helmet to bits and leaving it in the elevator, and then the ship being blown up after that, made the odds of him somehow having it in ROS miniscule. And him having that same helmet wasn't even necessary in ROS, so I'm not sure why it needed to come back. If JJ wanted him to be helmeted, it would have made more sense to make a new one, or have Palpatine conjure it, or something.
-Silly serendipity has always been part of SW. That has been true since film #1 (or...er...IV). But Lando's appearance was
still really pushing the envelope, IMO. Yeah, he had to be worked in. And they hadn't come up with anything better. Overall, it's fine. But still.
-The Final Order fleet also had a handful of
issues surrounding it, such as how it broke through the ground, which was visually stunning, but left many of us scratching our heads, and how there was little explanation for the whole navigation tower and lack of shields while in atmosphere thing. Those both could have worked, but felt underbaked as presented simply because they seemed to present some big continuity issues that called for explanation, but ultimately weren't explained enough for a big enough chunk of the audience to not go, "Hey, wait just a minute..."
I could go on. But these are ultimately just little things, really. Again, overall, I think this was a fantastic film. After only one viewing, I hesitate to rank it. But as of right now, I feel like I would probably put it at #4 behind (in this order) Rogue One, Empire, and The Force Awakens.
Three things that worked:
1. Building on TLJ themes (see above)
2. The death star wreckage. Yeah, the explosion in ROTJ made it look like it was vaporized. But in reality, that much metal
wouldn't simply vaporize. If you want to call this a "continuity error," it is one I am willing to accept. But, man, the scenes around that wreckage were visually and emotionally stunning.
3. "I know." Perfect. Well...
almost perfect. It wasn't clear how much was Leia, how much was the force, and how much was in Kylo's mind. But then again, it doesn't really matter.
4. (bonus!!!) Rey training. I am so much more willing to accept Rey's ramping up in power when, unlike Luke between episodes V and VI, we actually got to see her doing bona fide hard Jedi training
and analyzing ancient Jedi texts.
Three things that didn't:
1. 16 hours. Come on! Just extend the friggin' timeline! This drove me bananas! And, coupled with it, instantaneous travel everywhere.
The only reason I don't ding the movie harder for this is just the simple fact that pretty much ALL the SW movies do the same thing, to one degree or another, so I can't be too hard on this one in comparison.
2. The "microwave problem," as I heard it described. This is
kind of related to point #1. It is the compressed timeline, coupled with the fact that there is SO MUCH crammed into this movie, that it made emotional payoffs during parts of the movie feel unearned. There were times where there was a supposed payoff, and rather than it feeling slow-baked and satisfying, it felt more like a dish cooked in the microwave. It still got you there, but was just a bit less satisfying and felt underbaked.
3. Eh...I can't really think of anything, other than maybe lumping my "minor gripes" above in here. EDIT: Okay, here's one: Lightspeed skipping. Remove this from the film, and we don't lose anything, but gain not being taken out of the moment going, "hey, wait...I thought...this shouldn't work, should it?"
Minor tweaks that could have made it better: Just a reminder before I get into this that this section in my little summaries isn't meant to decry "the movie we should have gotten." As I have said before, I think that is an incredibly silly, presumptuous, and counterproductive exercise. To me, either accept or reject
the movie we actually got. This is just meant to be a fun little imaginative bit where we pretend we could rewind the clock and be part of the creative team to suggest things that, in retrospect, could have maybe worked better.
To me, there are two
areas of tweaking. The first is the timeline issue, as mentioned above in issue #1. Just extend the timeline and show that things are happening over a longer timeframe rather than instantaneously. The second is a bit more complicated and macro. It has to do with both pacing and continuity with TLJ. One way to look at these two films, to me is: TLJ was too little plot crammed into too much movie, whereas ROS was too much plot crammed into too much movie. I am going to go back and do a "reboot" of my "minor tweaks" section for TLJ and propose a global "minor tweaks" for both of these films that addresses both of my issues above. Coming soon to a post near you...