I don’t care if this dates me, but my claim to fame is, I’ve watched all Star Wars films at the cinema! The atmosphere in the cinema for the original trilogy, especially for ‘Return of the Jedi’, was amazing. I still remember with the final assault on the Death Star, when the Millennium Falcon shot out of the flames, the whole cinema cheered. Good times…

When I introduced my boys to the films, I was so happy they enjoyed them as much as me. We watched the prequel trilogy together. And – they’re in their 20s but we still enjoy going to the cinema together, for which I’m so grateful – we’ve watched the sequel trilogies together too. Bonus – we enjoy in-depth discussions about all of them.

After that little digress, back to the topic at hand… Only realised as I started this, despite loving the Star Wars films, this is the first review I’ve done for any of them!

Star Wars - The Rise of Skywalker poster.jpg

To discuss it fully, this is obviously going to be full of SPOILERS. So, if you haven’t watched the film and are planning to, you know what to do 😉 But, maybe come back later and compare notes.

‘The Rise of Skywalker’ opens with the obligatory crawl, which immediately lets us know of the presence of Emperor Palpatine. But is he real or a ghost?

Instead of seeking him out to pledge his loyalty, Kylo Ren, now the Supreme Leader, is seeking the Emperor to destroy him.

The first couple of scenes are totally devoid of dialogue as Kylo decimates his opponents on what looks to be Mustafar. He’s after a Sith Wayfinder, a device that shows the way to a planet in the Unknown Regions – Exegol, the ancient lost world of the Sith.

Once he has it, he speeds to Exegol. It is, literally, a very dark world. As he makes his way through a huge structure, we hear a sickeningly familiar voice.

Kylo doesn’t hide the fact he’s there to kill Palpatine. But Palpatine tells him he’s the one responsible for everything that’s led Kylo to the dark side. He wants his young apprentice to kill the last Jedi, to kill Rey. In return, he promises to cement Kylo’s power by ‘gifting’ him with a super-sized fleet of star destroyers, which have already been built.

I thought the Emperor looked bad before. But, here, he literally looks like one of the undead, and not in a good way! To all intents and purposes, he should be dead. But as he says, “The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities, some consider to be… unnatural.”

He wasn’t being kept ‘alive’ by mystical means alone; he was hooked up via various tubes to bottles on some device, which gave it a bit of a science-y feel.

Thanks to a spy in the First Order, the rebels, led by General Leia Organa, gain information about a large fleet being readied on Exegol. Leia, who’s taken on Rey’s training, sends her on a mission to find the way to Exegol.

This mission is what drives the film to its conclusion, pitting the heroes – Rey, Finn, Poe and Chewbacca, with C3-PO – against Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren, and, ultimately, against the Emperor, who’s made his presence known by broadcasting across the galaxy.

The film powers along to its conclusion and that of the Skywalker Saga; there are few, if any, moments of calm.

So, what did I think of the film?

I wasn’t sure about Palpatine being brought back as the ‘big bad’, but I guess it provided a coherent linking thread, which started in ‘The Phantom Menace’.

I was surprised to discover Kylo wanted to kill Palpatine, that he saw the Emperor as a rival. He made it clear he did not want to bow to him or relinquish his power.

I’m glad JJ Abrams and his team managed to work the footage they had of Carrie Fisher to include Leia in the film. I admit to a few tears.

Carrie Fisher as Leia (Lucasfilm/Disney)

There’s a brief scene in the film, showing Luke training Leia as a Jedi when they were younger, so it made sense that we see Leia continuing with Rey’s training. Also, being a mother, I understood her still wanting to try and connect with her son, to try and bring him back to the ‘light’.

The big reveal of who Rey’s parents were, floored me! I was definitely not expecting that. In the previous two films, I liked the idea of Rey being a ‘nobody’, that the Force had simply picked some random person and imbued her with so much power. I did not want her to be related to the Skywalkers in any way, which is what some theories had posited. But to find out she’s a Palpatine…

This film introduced a new concept – the dyad. A dyad in the Force, as explained by Screenrant, is “a phenomenon that occurs when two Force-sensitive individuals share a unique Force-bond, connecting their minds across space and time…” The article, well worth a read, also explains how a dyad is similar to the Sith Rule of Two.

On to the characters… not all of them, just the ones we see the most of. Though there were a couple of new ones I particularly liked – Jannah, a First Order defector, and Zorii Bliss.

And my favourite, Babu Frik, the teeniest droidsmith, delightfully voiced by Shirley Henderson.

From the moment he ‘helped’ rescue Poe in ‘The Force Awakens’, Finn quickly became a firm favourite. His ineptness was hilarious and his attempts to portray himself as something he clearly wasn’t was endearingly cringey. But his single-minded loyalty to Rey was heart-warming.

I particularly enjoyed the interaction between Rey and Finn in all the films – there was genuine character development with both of them.

This film did a good job of showing a more confident Finn, someone comfortable in his own skin. Though I wish more had been shown with regards to his Force sensitivity, and it’s a shame we didn’t see more of him.

Poe Dameron was a favourite too, and I found his character development believable – from inhabiting the persona of ace pilot, to hot-headed mutineer, believing action to be the only way to solve any dilemma, to a more level-headed rebel soldier.

We’re given a little more of his past, which goes a long way in explaining why he reacts the way he does in certain situations. The scenes he shared with Finn were especially good; their ‘best-buds’ chemistry felt genuine.

Developing and adding to the characters of Finn and Poe brought them more to the forefront. Their actions felt like it carried genuine weight.

Kylo Ren – what a tortured soul. Wanting so much to be a worthy successor to his grandfather, constantly waging an inner battle between dark and light, at least that’s how it seemed to me. In ‘The Last Jedi’, when he ‘connected’ with Rey, she came across as all emotion, but he was cool and curious.

From the moment I saw her in ‘The Force Awakens’, I’ve liked Rey’s character.

To be clear, I’m one of those who does not believe she’s a ‘Mary Sue’ – more of that in next week’s post.

I found her portrayal believable and enjoyed her childlike curiosity and excitement.

Although she’s continued with her Jedi training and she’s more confident and competent in her use of it, her insecurities and fears are never far away.

What I found interesting was, Kylo was more willing to hold his hand out to Rey than she was to him. There were times it felt as if he was more ‘at home’ in his choice of inhabiting the dark side, than she was with her choice of staying in the light. It seemed to drive her to want to make the right choice, to do the right thing.

Yet, when he felt Leia reach out to him, Kylo responded straightaway. So, maybe he hadn’t embraced the dark side as completely as he thought he’d had.

In the climax with Rey facing Palpatine and his plan for her, to rule as he’d done, she didn’t come across as supremely confident in her abilities to defeat him, only knowing she had to for the alternative was too awful to contemplate.

Realising Rey and Kylo are both there to kill him, Palpatine decides to get rid of them using his Force lightning. And is pleasantly surprised.

Being a dyad, their combined lifeforce flow into Palpatine, reanimating him while draining them, leaving them weak and near-death.

The frantic battle with the star destroyers seems to leave the rebels with dwindling hope, Rey stares up at the heavy losses.

She gathers herself to look past the horrors, to get to a place of ‘quiet’ where she, again, tries to connect with the Jedi who have gone before her.

It’s only in the very last scene, with Rey on Tatooine, do we see she’s finally made her own lightsabre. And she’s taken the name ‘Skywalker’, which makes sense as she’d not only been trained by Skywalkers, Ben had also imparted his lifeforce to her. And she’s continuing as a Jedi, as a keeper of the sacred texts.

Before I list my ‘cons’ for the film, there are a couple of things I want to mention.

Some questioned why Palpatine broadcast his presence. Instead of a dumb move, I think it was more to do with psychological warfare… though boasting probably played a part too, I’m sure.

Also, why have the entire fleet of destroyers gathered in one place, on Exegol? I’ve always felt Palpatine’s great flaw is he underestimates his enemy. With only two Wayfinders in existence, which could reveal the location of Exegol, it didn’t surprise me that he had the fleet there. It probably never entered his mind that the rebels would find the planet or that they would have the resources to take out his fleet.

Now, the ‘cons’.

For starters, I wanted more of the Knights of Ren. They didn’t really do very much and only had one fight scene.

I felt cheated in the way we found out the Emperor was alive. I’d have preferred if we hadn’t been told in the opening crawl but had been shown Palpatine in his decrepit glory when Kylo arrives on Exegol.

There wasn’t much character development for Chewie and the droids, especially C3-PO, considering he was with Rey and the others on their mission. And I would have liked to have seen more of Lando.

Some of the humour, which we’ve come to expect in ‘Star Wars’ films, didn’t work. Especially concerning C3-PO. One of the scenes had quite an emotional build-up, which centred around the droid, only to be followed by jarring humour.

Even though he sometimes came across as a petulant child, I have to say I liked General Hux. I was so disappointed with how he was handled in this film, almost a throwaway character.

I’m not a science-minded person, but the idea that the star destroyers were each equipped with planet-killing super-lasers didn’t come across as believable. Especially after we’d had weapons like the Death Star and Starkiller Base. It would have been better if, instead of destroying the entire planet in one hit, the lasers targeted individual cities.

This last one is a bit weird; I didn’t feel the score was memorable at all even though John Williams was, once again, at the helm. Apart from a couple of themes, nothing stood out. It was especially lacking during the lightsabre duel between Kylo and Rey.

Having said that, personally, I enjoyed the film.

Was it perfect? Of course not.

Could some scenes have been done better? Definitely.

Did it feel rushed? Oh yes.

Despite all that, I feel it worked up to a point as a ‘Star Wars’ film, bringing us to the end of the Skywalker Saga.

By the way, if you like the character posters, there are more at nerdist.com

Film Review - 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker' - With SPOILERS!