Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Review

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Review 

In 2015, I wrote extensive lists in anticipation of The Force Awakens. The hype was real. I did a huge spoiler-filled review as well as a spoiler-free one, expressing my utmost love for the film. In 2017, I wrote a brief anticipatory article on The Last Jedi, and an equally pared-down review a few days later. Again, mainly high praise, but lacking that same raw excitement. 

Now here I am in 2019, presenting a strictly spoiler-free review for the conclusion to this Star Wars sequel trilogy. No anticipation, no big debut of reaction. I was not really looking forward to The Rise of Skywalker at all, and guess what? 

I enjoyed it. 

I re-watched Force Awakens and Last Jedi with some friends back-to-back the night before seeing Rise of Skywalker. I hadn’t seen either one in two years, and was prepared to be disappointed. I was sure the memory of both being so fun and entertaining would give way to the reality that so many fans and online communities have brought to light: these movies actually suck. Yes, the fandom that started so strong with Force Awakens crumbled with the decisive Last Jedi and left many of us no longer looking forward to the final installment. Even though I liked Last Jedi, it felt like there was nowhere else to go from there that would be worth going. But as Force Awakens and Last Jedi played and we laughed and reminisced about scenes and characters and moments we’d forgotten, I found myself genuinely enjoying both movies all over again. 

Opinions change, people change. I have changed, and my opinion on the Star Wars sequel trilogy has softened. I wouldn’t heap any amount of praise on it any longer, but I don’t think they are terrible, worthless endeavors, despite it being abundantly clear they exist purely to make money and there was never any plan to tell a coherent three-part story.

Rise of Skywalker has once again split critics and audiences—some hate it, some love it. But whereas Last Jedi subverted expectations and didn’t give the answers many fans wanted or expected, Rise of Skywalker crams so much in to appease those unsatisfied with the previous installment while still wrapping the story up in a way that’s dramatic and surprising and nostalgic, it has ignited an even more ferocious backlash. 

I knew going into this thing that fans were already divided and many were extremely negative. Rise of Skywalker is definitely a mixed bag. Certain key story choices are made for very specific reasons, and the execution of these ideas, plus the fallout from them, isn’t always satisfactory or even logical. I took issue with several story decisions that were made, but at the end of the day, they had to do something. We get answers to questions that have been hanging since Episode VII, and we even get new answers to things we thought were explained in Episode VIII, all with finality brought to the very thing this franchise is named for: the actual war. 

I had fun watching this movie. It’s very flawed, often frustrating, and reliant on nostalgia (though perhaps not quite as much as Force Awakens), but the other two movies were all of those things as well, and this one came up with enough interesting character developments, action scenes, and dramatic moments that I was able to sit back and enjoy. I certainly didn’t love it, I think it’s inferior to the previous two in multiple ways, but hate it, as so many seem to? No way. 

If it isn’t already abundantly clear, I’m not a huge Star Wars fan. Even back when it was announced there would be new Star Wars movies back in 2012, I knew before anything had even developed that there would never be a Star Wars movie as good as the first two. Star Wars (Episode IV) and The Empire Strikes Back are too good. This franchise literally blasted out of the gate dialled up to 11. There’s no way to improve when something is already perfect. So no, the sequel trilogy, for as unexpectedly thoughtful and entertaining as it has been, is still of significantly lower quality in comparison.  

Rise of Skywalker is choppy to begin, and it wastes no time re-establishing Emperor Palpatine, the previously-deceased main villain from the original trilogy. I didn’t really like the idea of him coming back, and with no reasonable explanation given, but once again, they had to do something, and to establish a completely new villain in the last movie of a trilogy just wouldn’t have worked, either, so I hesitantly reduced my dislike for it when they at least started making him interesting again, with a zombie-like appearance and horror-movie lighting and set design. Then once the main heroes embark on their adventure, it started to get fun. It even has more of the serialized adventure feel from the original than Last Jedi did, by skipping over a bunch of the story and thrusting us into a manic chase for a couple random MacGuffins. 

Going into it, I was only really looking forward to seeing Kylo Ren’s story continue and conclude. I’m not a big fan of Rey as the main hero, but I don’t really have any reason to actively dislike her either. I found Kylo’s scenes excellent and his progression interesting, but Rey is also given significant development here, though without spoiling it, I didn’t buy into all of the twists and turns they threw at us. C3PO was a huge surprise, being one of the funniest and most-consistently-entertaining parts of the whole thing. Many of the new random minor alien characters were great (especially Babu Frik) and the effects were perhaps the best in this one out of all three. 

As for negatives without spoiling anything specific, it irked me how there seemed to be a desire to “fix” the issues people had with Last Jedi by placing some very specific lines of dialogue, actions, and story beats without many of them being necessary or earned. It was also blatantly clear they were trying to one-up the epic conclusion of Avengers: Endgame (or at least match it) but basically failed in the attempt. It’s not really a spoiler to say there are a comical number of star destroyers in this movie, and the way they come about is just about the dumbest thing to ever to be featured in a Star Wars movie. 

For fans who are incredibly passionate about the original trilogy (and even prequel trilogy) then yes, I can completely understand how they could and are hating this conclusive movie so much. It goes in directions that are contrarian to the other films and tries really hard to please everyone, which we know is an impossibility. So I guess for those who have been on the fence about seeing this or thinking it won’t be worth it, take this review with the caveat that I am not a diehard, hard-core, feral-minded Star Wars fan. I can forgive plenty of the missteps and bad writing decisions (though not all of them or even most of them) because it still turned out to be a brisk, fun, and somewhat surprising space adventure that brought finality to this fairly wacky story and didn’t have me pulling my hair out to the degree I anticipated. There's heart and humour and fun to be had. 

As I said, people change and opinions change. Maybe (likely) in the future I’ll think back on Rise of Skywalker and the sequel trilogy as a whole and think, “no, they really aren’t good” and see all the flaws and no longer enjoy them. But for now, I enjoyed Rise of Skywalker, more than I thought I would, and that’s good enough for me.