By TREVIN BRANDT
Staff Writer
The Skywalker saga has officially come to an end with the release of Star Wars Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker. In 2017, Disney released a controversial take on the Star Wars Universe with The Last Jedi, the second film in the “Sequel Trilogy.“ The Last Jedi successfully revealed to audiences that Disney did not set a roadmap for this trilogy before making the films, and this new film just about confirms this. Rise of Skywalker was given a mess and was told to “clean it up“ and “make a good movie.“ For what this film was given, I think it was alright, but still a complete mess. The rest of this review contains spoilers.
The biggest problem this film faces is just how much it tries to be. It tries to be a conclusion for not only the “Sequel Trilogy,“ but also the entire Skywalker Saga while cleaning up the problems that The Last Jedi threw at the universe. A single film cannot do all of this, especially when it feels as if the story is just getting started since The Last Jedi felt like a brand new beginning. And this film throws in another brand new beginning by revealing that Emperor Palpatine is still alive, and has been pulling the strings all along. From a saga standpoint, this makes sense because he was the main villain for the past two trilogies, but there is no indication anywhere in The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi that Palpatine is even needed anymore. It seems as if director JJ Abrams fell to Palpatine purely for the purpose of retconning the problems of The Last Jedi to give us satisfying explanations.
The explanations we got for The Last Jedi’s existence in the Star Wars Universe make sense and in my opinion are satisfying. Snoke died because Palpatine let Kylo kill him, and most importantly Rey is powerful with the force because she is the granddaughter of Palpatine. Sure it doesn’t feel necessarily planned. I’m sure that nobody knew how the trilogy would end when they released The Force Awakens in 2015, but at least this film cleans up the problems with the last one. It’s important that this film does this because it puts a stop to the ongoing uncomfortableness and questioning that one may feel while watching The Last Jedi knowing the rules of the Star Wars Universe. If this had not been done, and we were still in confusion about how Rey has her powers, then the film would have failed to comply with the Universe’s rules. The fact that this film puts a cap on the ongoing debate brings me at peace with the Sequel Trilogy for the most part.
However, by doing this, the film forces a messy structure jam-packed with things that get lost halfway through the film. Whatever happened to what Finn was going to tell Rey? It was mentioned at the beginning and the middle of the film and is implied to be revealed by the end. What was with the Ben Solo and Rey kiss at the end of the film? It has been quite obvious since The Force Awakens that Rey and Finn were destined to be together, in fact, it is implied that what Finn wanted to tell Rey was “I love you.“ Why would Abrams even bring this up if Kylo and Rey were going to end up in a romantic state by the end? I think all of these discontinuities are a good representation of the entire trilogy: Important things are brought up and then abandoned with no apparent explanation, and surprising things are brought up with no buildup or logical sense within the Star Wars Universe.
My hope for future Star Wars films (that is if they make any) is that Disney takes a couple of meetings to sit down and discuss what is going to happen throughout the entire trilogy. It shocks me that they didn’t do this considering how well they were able to pull off this kind of planning with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Overall I found the film entertaining and left the theater satisfied with the explanations, but slightly on edge about the entire trilogy. 6/10.