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energy
What is energy?
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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, people would get excited for a new Star Wars film. Jump cut to present day – Rey, Finn and Poe are back for one final adventure. The stakes have never been higher, and our expectations have never been lower.
The film ends, credits role, and I can’t help but think to myself… please let this be the ACTUAL end.
The Rise of Skywalker is not only the conclusion to Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy, but the epic and poignant end to the entire saga, which has spanned nine feature films and 42 years. Or, at least, that’s what Disney wants you to believe it is. And they try very hard to convince you.
Even before John Williams’ thunderous score hits your ears and the famous golden text crawls across the screen, you’re treated to two mini documentaries that serve to remind the audience how culturally important Star Wars is. I can safely say this is only the second time I’ve felt guilt tripped before a film (the first was during a particularly disastrous date in the line to buy tickets, if you’re interested). These opening shorts are literally cobbled together photomontages of people and pets dressed as Star Wars characters which feel like Vistaprint commercials made with Windows Movie Maker. The intern was clearly very busy that week.
Unfortunately, all these reminders of how great Star Wars has been in the past make the mediocrity of The Rise of Skywalker even more obvious. And I use the word mediocre here because I didn’t hate the film. It’s kind of hard to hate something that leaves you feeling so unmoved. And that’s the biggest failing of the film, despite following Disney’s family-friendly, joke-filled formula which proved so successful for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Rise of Skywalker is a heartless mess of a movie. Let’s talk about why…
After the polarizing reactions to Ryan Johnson’s The Last Jedi, JJ Abrams is back in the director’s chair and he is hitting the reset button hard. As a result of pretending the previous movie doesn’t exist, (if by some miracle you were invested in Finn and Rose’s relationship you’ll be gutted to know her character is relegated to the sidelines for the entire film) The Rise of Skywalker feels like two films squeezed into one. The pacing at the beginning is faster than a speeder bike blasting through the forests of Endor if every tree that whizzes by is a piece of exposition and every blurred bush a character beat. It’s all so rushed that nothing has any effect.
For example (and a minor spoiler warning to the end of this paragraph) when we first catch up with Rey, she’s struggling with her Jedi training and gives Luke’s lightsaber back to a surprisingly realistic CGI Leia, claiming that she has to earn the weapon. Then literally 5 minutes later, after deciding to go on a treasure hunt with Finn and Poe, Leia gives her the lightsaber back. I guess she’ll have to earn it along the way.
On the light side (get it), our three main characters, Rey, Finn and Poe, and their relationships have all evolved. Unfortunately, their new dynamic developed offscreen and the audience has to play catch up. But don’t worry, to help us out the screenwriters have written a dot-to-dot script, filled with subtext-free dialogue and jam packed with exposition.
Fair play to the editor who had to pick up the pace. Literally pick up the pacing, as the script has a habit of jumping forward to get characters from A to B and skipping the bits in-between.
Though I’m a big fan of efficiency, these jumps come across as jarring… and lazy… and annoyingly necessary, because without them this film would be even loooooooonger.
But that’s not to say there’s nothing to be enjoyed in The Rise of Skywalker. Full disclosure, I was not a fan of the The Last Jedi, and the next installment is full of little digs at its predecessor. I particularly enjoyed the shot from the trailer where Kylo Ren solders his helmet back together. Let the past die indeed. But to be fair, he did a better job than I did with Imogen’s bracelet. These moments unfortunately do break what little immersion I could achieve in a film where all characters feel an overwhelming impulse to describe what’s happening in front of them.
(If you, like us, thought the dialogue in His Dark Materials was terrible, just wait till you see The Rise of Skywalker).
