Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Pre-Review

Upon reading this the reader may be inspired to say something along the lines of “This review doesn’t align with my thoughts at all and is therefore terrible. Did the idiot who wrote it even watch the movie?!” To which the answer is no, I did not. I’ve been quite busy lately and do not know when I will find the time to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; however, I do not believe this small oversight prevents me from rendering an opinion on the subject. For those concerned that my having not seen the film will, in some way, colour my opinion on it worry not, for I have cobbled together enough of the story from foreign language twitter posts as well as my own wild speculation to come about with a pretty good understanding of the plot and characters.


Without further ado, on to the pre-review!


It may surprise some of my readers to find out that I did not enjoy Rise of Skywalker. On the other hand, it may not surprise my audience in the least. This is my first pre-review, so I actually have no idea what the expectations are for this thing. Still that doesn’t stop Rise of Skywalker from being a bad movie, I assume.


If I had to put into words why I found the experience lacking, and I don’t know why I would, I suppose I would say that the film I have not seen suffers from a lack of personality or ambition. The few notable instances of surprise are immediately undercut, presumably, by some unimaginative overlord of mediocrity. If there is one take away from this pre-review, its that you may just be better off watching the first six movies, which for all their faults at least attempted to present the audience with something new.


One may come into Rise of Skywalker thinking that Kylo Ren (played by a tired looking Adam Driver) would finally rise to power as the primary antagonist. And he very well may in the actual movie, but in the version of the movie I have currently envisioned for some reason the role of antagonist gets passed off to Emperor Palpatine, who was the villain in episode 6, had an entire prequel trilogy about his rise to power, and I briefly recall seeing in some trailer out of the corner of my eye. Ian McDiarmid reprises the role assuming Palpatine actually is in this movie and seems to be having a wonderful time hamming it up once more in this universe, but its disappointing to see squandered potential in the form of Adam Driver having virtually nothing to do in the third act as I have imagined it.


This is further exacerbated by the return of Supreme Leader Snoke, who I assume comes back as a clone or ghost or something. I don’t know why this character return only to be unceremoniously killed off again before the heroes fight Palpatine, but he does, probably. I can only presume that JJ Abrams forgot to delete his draft for episode 8 from the document, and no one noticed until it was too late. Still, if my crazy idea of what this movie is turns out to be true, it makes the two-and-a-half-hour movie feel all the more slow and bloated.


Daisy Ridley, who is also a Snoke-clone let’s say, get the majority of the action scenes performs the choreography well. Finn tags along and occasionally does something that one could imagine any other character doing just as well, but deuteragonists Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Rose (Kelley Marie-Tran) are mostly left to the sidelines. Poe has one very nice, though non-pivotal scene flying yet another x-wing (remarkably few new ship designs in this one), but Rose is relegated to spouting the occasional quip before being pushed off-screen near the end. Any loose love triangles are ignored entirely in this amazingly sexless adventure, though Adam Driver does appear shirtless again. With the amount of acting talent and long—long—runtime, the movie gives surprisingly little for the actors to do.

Anyways, just like the last movie the gang must kill Snoke while wrestling with their inner dark side, and just like Return of the Jedi they must disable a shield before the hero confronts Palpatine once and for all. Cameos from the ghosts of Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and whatever coverage they shot for Carrie Fisher last time around do little to uplift the experience, though Billie Dee Williams is a fun cameo for his sub-five minutes of screen time as I envision it.

I realize that Kylo Ren is the villain and the point of The Last Jedi was not this but given this most recent attempt at the franchise I do wish they had burnt it all down. There comes a time when a franchises legacy becomes a drag rather than a pedestal, especially in the hands of an unimaginative team. Even though I made every plot point up in real time as I wrote this review, I can’t help but think the franchise could be more.  There is an essence to this franchise that embodies the grandeur of science fiction and movie making as a whole, but it seems lost in this poorly paced cacophony of a movie. Still, Disney will keep making these films each year and I’ll continue to look forward to the occasional hits, even if I have to suffer through the total misses.