STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
To be honest, I was over it before I walked into the theater.
The GOOD:
Let’s get the good out of the way. It was faced paced.
It had moments of humor and it had moments (although some for nothing) of sadness and emotion.
The actors did what they could and had to do. I have no complaints about any of the acting from all three films in the new trilogy. Let’s be honest the acting in these films was better than the empty emotionless acting in the Prequels. They auditioned for these parts, they earned them and they did what they had to do. It’s not there fault.
The visuals were good but, it’s a DISNEY movie. I mean does having good visuals and effects really make a difference in a film funded by a multi-billion dollar media corporation.
“Wow, the aliens looks real!”
“Of course, they do. The studio spent as much money as a third world country’s economy on five minutes of footage.”
What else can I say that’s good about it? Well, they did try to wrap everything up nicely. They did try to remind us of the magic and message of hope of the whole franchise.
The BAD:
They basically all sat in a writer’s room and shat in the same burlap sack and took turns throwing clumps of shit at a bulletin board of McGuffins and fan service and duct taped the plot holes with Band-aids.
I’ll summarize because, this is a movie where the less said is better.
If you enjoy fast paced action and events happening just to happening and plot devices being pulled out of asses. Then you’ll like this film. If you were young when The Force Awakens and you love these new characters, then you’ll like the film (nothing wrong with that).
Younger audience members with enjoy the film because these are movies made for younger audiences. And these young fans will grow up and defend these movies much like a lot of twenty-somethings now defend the prequels. But, not me – To me this saga concluded with Return of the Jedi. Everything that has come after has been WEEKEND AT BERNIES.
The film does a poor job of avoiding questions raised in The Force Awakens while failing at ignoring the events of the Last Jedi. The story is just a convoluted mess of nonsense dressed in tattered rags of nostalgia and fan-service. The emperor is back but how, how did he survive Return of the Jedi? They movie never answers that. Why did he make some many Snokes? The film doesn’t answer that. How did all those Star Destroyers get buried on the planet? We don’t know. Why is he suspended on a life support harness that is attached to the sky? I don’t know. He looks like the Doctor Cenebite from Hellraiser too. I guess the makers have never seen Hellraiser. I don’t even think they’ve seen Return of the Jedi.
Is Kylo Ren now a supporting character? Yes. People use the force and die, why? We don’t know?
Did Carrie Fisher deserve better? Yes. The emperor was wasted. Now that I mention it, how does the Emperor in his decayed state look fresher than he did in Return of the Jedi? If he revived himself from the lifeforce of Rey and Kylo, why does he look like his scared self from Revenge of the Sith? Shouldn’t he look like Palpatine again?
What was the point of the very emotional scene of 3PO saying goodbye to his friends when R2 was just going to reboot his memory at the end? A good scene wasted. How good was it? Well three seats down from me in the front row was a middle-aged man sunken into his seat sobbing his eyes out with rivers of tears cascading down his face onto his Championship NY Jets Jersey.
There were good moments in the film and some good action set pieces but, with no defined plot to thread them together it was all for nothing.
Basically, Rey is a Palpatine grandchild. Palpatine is offering Kylo the entire ‘LAST ORDER’ fleet of star destroyers to Ren if he can bring the girl to him. Yes, the ‘LAST ORDER’. A fleet of hundreds of star destroyers armed with planet killer cannons. You know, because we people are tired of ultimate weapons in their star wars films, you give them a hundred ultimate weapons. Rey, Fin, Po, BB, 3po and Chewie go on a treasure hunt for a sith-finder. The sith-finder that resembles a throwaway prop from an episode of DOCTOR WHO can give its owner the coordinates to the secret sith fleet and Emperor Palpatine. The movie takes off from there and it does move. All these events and shenanigans leading our heroes to a fairly decent space battle and ground fight on the planet bumblefuck until, the big showdown between the ying-yang couple and Emperor Frankenberry.
From then on, it’s drek. And I was the first one out the theater during the smattering of applause.
It’s not complete garbage but, it’s not great. It’s decent for an ugly date. Like I said, the cast did their thing and did a decent job. The fault of all of this falls on the hands of Disney and JJ. Rian Johnson too but, he said, “You don’t like it, fuck it” and bailed a long time ago and is doing well with his own projects like KNIVES OUT which is a great movie.
This new trilogy was not planned out well, not executed well, not written well and taken for granted. They relied too much of the blind undying devotion and in some cases fanatical support of the Star Wars fans to send them laughing to the bank. But, their arrogance made them into villains for a confused and divided fanbase to decide how to justify or how to make sense of it all.
Good luck in a galaxy far, far, away. Better luck on the next trilogy or film. And thank your lucky stars that the writers of Game of Thrones aren’t involved with the next Star Wars movies. Because, this new trilogy may have been bad but, it didn’t suck like Season 8 did.
But, hey, you got The Mandalorian.
