For my eighth birthday, my father took me to see Star Wars — a movie that would define my tastes, and set me on the path to my eventual career. To say that it looms large in the development of my personality, my likes and dislikes, and even my politics (the Rebels were my first antifascist role models) would be to vastly understate it’s influence on me.
Now, 42 years later, The Rise of Skywalker has been released, intended as the culmination of the 9 films of what Lucasfilm is now calling “the Skywalker saga” (which, by itself, is astonishing — that there is such a thing as non-Skywalker Star Wars now).
Does it pull it off?
Mostly.
I really enjoyed it. I laughed more than once, I cried more than a few times, and for most of the running time, I sat there with a big dopey grin on my face. I can’t help it — it’s Star Wars.
That said, I have some issues with parts of it — which isn’t surprising, as I’ve had a few issues with every film in the cycle, even the originals (for example: Why is Lando wearing Han’s clothes at the end of The Empire Strikes Back? Still bugs me). Most of these are minor. (“Always two there are. No more, no less… except for Sith Stadium, which seats 20,000!”) One is not, and it’s a big one.
The revelation of Rey’s lineage bugged the ever-living shit out of me.
Making her Palpatine’s grandchild utterly erases the entire thesis of The Last Jedi, which said that bloodlines don’t matter — that anybody could be strong in the Force. That it was about one’s character, not one’s family. It could be a child slave with a broom.
The Rise of Skywalker pisses all over that, by making Rey the product of a Force-aristocracy. Ham-fisted, infuriating, and worse: utterly unnecessary.
Palpatine says that he “made Snoke”, and we see several other Snokes in what appears to be a Cloning apparatus. I thought this was cool… and I was waiting for the revelation that he’d also created Anakin (hence the “immaculate conception” riff from The Phantom Menace) and that he’d made Rey as well.
Nope.
Rey is his granddaughter. Never mind that the timing doesn’t really work out. I mean, sure, as a Senator, it’s possible, even likely, that Palpatine had a wife and kid, to complete his disguise. But Rey looks like she’s in her early 20s… and her father looked about the same. That barely gets you to Episode 4 on the timeline. You’re still 20 years shy of Senator Palpatine becoming the shriveled warlock Emperor. (And I’m sorry, but I can’t see the Emperor having kids.)
I mean, sure, it can be explained away — but honestly, in the culmination of a three-trilogy cycle? It shouldn’t HAVE to be.
I’ve come to the realization that whereas I like J.J. Abrams quite a bit as a director — he has a Spielbergian talent for orchestrating emotional responses — I don’t want him anywhere near the task of writing the screenplay. He has an over-reliance on MacGuffins, of not following through on questions he asks (What was the important thing that Finn needed to tell Rey? How does he sense her?), and generally hand-waving story-telling in favor of eliciting the responses he wants from the audience. Pair him with a better writer, and it results in a better film.
But again — I enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker. And now that Disney has proven that they can release Star Wars films and now streaming shows unrelated to the tale of the Skywalkers, I can rest assured in the knowledge that the journey I began at eight years old will continue for the rest of my life.
The Force will be with us. Always.
The Rise of Skywalker (Here be Spoilers)
