I didn’t rush to see The Rise of Skywalker, even though I’m a die-hard Star Wars fan. Through sources and leaks, I pretty much knew the entire storyline and it wasn’t a film I was too excited to see. I did not enter this movie with an unbiased attitude, I actually wanted to hate on it – bad.
But that didn’t happen.
I wanted to come out of the theater screaming, “J.J. Abrams is the worse director in the world next to Rian Johnson!”
But that didn’t happen.
I attended this movie with my good friend who was a Star Wars nerd who had read thirty plus Star Wars books. He wanted to hate on this movie.
And that didn’t happen.
If you think I came out of this movie, loving it, singing praises and thanking Kathleen Kennedy, I’ll tell you right now –
That didn’t happen either.
DIRECTION: J.J. ABRAMS
If there’s one thing I know J.J. Abrams does well is that he can take a boring or overdone premise, and turn it into something entertaining. Abrams has a long track record of creating successful shows for the televsions and silverscreen, and it looks as though he hasn’t lost his touch.
The Rise of Skywalker is a well made film. The runtime is just under three hours, and it really doesn’t feel like it. The lightsaber scenes are well choreographed, there’s no baton twirling thank god. The pacing has been interprative as fast, and I understand that, but it’s not bad.
If you’re not aware of the producton mess and the politics that were involved in making this film, I’m surprised it turned out this well. Episode IX went through a slew of writers and directors before finally settling on Abrams. George Lucas was broought on as a consultant, then forgotten. Writers quit. And then there was Kathleen Kennedy who had her agenda to make the Force Female. I would give Abrams my highest for direction for juts putting up with this crap:
GRADE: A
ACTING
I would have to say all of the actors did pretty much a great job at playing their role, even though the script was as weak as The Last Ledi. I feel bad for John Boyega. After awhile, his character, Finn, just began yelling Rey’s name every other minute. It was as though he began channeling Groot’s one word vocabulary midway though the 2nd Act.
Best Performance had to go to Adam Driver. To be completely blunt here, I thought casting Adam Driver as Kylo Ren was a rather horrible. I was wrong. He’s a great actor.
Everyone here gets a gold star.
GRADE: A
CHARACTER BREAKDOWN
The characters in the new Star War’s trilogy were pretty sad as they were, mostly, a different slice of the same personality, which is the Type Four “Invidualist.” Every character was in search for a purpose, their identity, their meaning. Which, by the way, is the way most real life artist think – so we are talking about some serious self-projecting going on here. Type Fours are always on the move, trying to “find themselves.” While these personalities can be extremely hopeful, and tend to view the world through rose colored glasses, at the core, they can get depressed quite easily.
As far as character development, we don’t get much in this movie. The most developed and interesting character is Kylo Ren (yes, also a Type Four), but for some reason, Kathleen Kennedy couldn’t make him the focus of the story.
The protagonist of the storyline, Rey, was perfect, which made her boring. Her flaw was to stop getting in the way of herself. If she did this, she could be all the Jedi she wanted, and perform all the Force powers that she wanted, from levitation to healing.
As for changes, not exactly rewrites –
There was one scene where Rey confronted her evil self, that reminded me of the time Evil Superman fought with Clark Kent. That would have been great if Rey confronted the dark side of her in a lightsaber duel, but – well, that didn’t happen. It really seemed as though there may be more there, and a good fight scene was left on the editing room floor. Maybe we’ll see that in an extended cut?
I also thought the redemption of Kylo Ren would have been better if it would have happened at the start of the 2nd Act. And then we could play with the audience to whether or not Kylo could be trusted or not – but that didn’t happen.
I can’t give the characters of The Rise of Skywalker a below average grade here. They are boring and undeveloped. It’s a fail.
GRADE: F
SCRIPT ANALYSIS
And this is where the movie epically falls off a clif. The script, unfortuantely, was complete trash. If Episode IX was a stand alone movie, it would probably be a great one, but because it is the final episode to a 40-year storytelling journey, it fails miserably.
There were so many plot holes, logical headaches, character motivation screwups, I don’t know where to start. If you just search youtube for Star Wars reviews, most reputable online critics will list them all. Things in this film, just don’t make sense if we take into account Episodes 1-8.
This throws a lot of fans off, because there is no doubt that Episode IX is entertaining, but if you really dive below the surface, almost everything doesn’t make any sense.
And by the way, there are a lot of great movies that have pretty crappy scripts, that make no sense.
Flashback to the movie movie “US,” where a group of clones overtake America, starting with Los Angeles – with sciccors. Scissors? US was a fun movie to watch, but then you start thinking – how in the hell does anyone take over Los Angeles with scissors? Come on, since when was Downtown LA a gun free zone? Have we gone full retard? I graded US an “A” because it entertained and was a standalone film. Unforunately, I can’t do the same for Rise of Skywalker because it’s not a standalone film. The Rise of Skywalker has a lore, a fictional bible to abide too.
With The Rise of Skywalker, Rey is all powerful, she’s the best pilot, best force user, best levitator, all without training by the way. In reality, even the best fighters in the world, such as Mike Tyson, needed coaches. Tom Brady, needed Bill Belicheck. Anakin was trained by Obi Wan. But Rey – she just needs to read a book and she figures out – everything? That just doesn’t make any sense. That’s not breaking any fictional canon, that’s pretty much breaking with reality.
And whatever happened to that prophecy that Anakin Skywalker would bring balance to the force? That 40-year-old narrative is dead. Don’t worry, you have a Trans-Jedi named Rey “Skywalker” to save the day.
Whoever wrote the script, and I doubt J.J. Abrams had much to do with it, took what was canon, and threw it out the window, so an agenda could be made. This is equivalent if I wrote a Superman script and turned the caped hero into an organic farmer who had no skills, other than the mighty power to point the finger at wealthy people. If I did this, I would be killing the story of Superman, to fulfill my social justice warrior goal as a producer. And that’s what happened here. Rise of Skywalker killed off the the original Star Wars trilogy, along with the sequels because Katheleen Kennedy had a mission.
My actual grade for the Star Wars script is below an F, but I don’t know what comes after F. Should I break canon and make up my own grade?
As a writer, producer, or even a director, you just shouldn’t do this to the fictional world.
“With great power, comes great responsibility”
But, I guess this is the norm for Hollwyood these days. They turned Joker into an unfunny depressed mentally ill mama’s boy. And they turned The Mandarin in Iron Man, from a magical evil dude, to a wimpy aspiring actor, so they wouldn’t piss off the Chinese. And don’t get me started on what Captain Marvel did to the MCU.
GRADE: F
OVERALL IMPRESSION
The Rise of the Skywalker ends a 40-year storyline by giving the middle finger to its canon.
Don’t get me wrong. The film was entertaining as hell. It was fun to watch. It even pulled at some of my heartstrings. But, this is not how you treat a historical franchise whose fandom is worldwide and older than most of its audience.
FINAL GRADE: D+
Steve Young
