Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

The Rise of Skywalker, the end of a beloved multi-generation saga of folks who love the Skywalkers in a galaxy far, far away, is a muddied mess of fan service and forced nostalgia that sacrifices the joy and ingenuity that makes Star Wars great. It is often blatantly reactionary, repeatedly attempting to comment on and even undo the magnificent strides of its game-changing predecessor, The Last Jedi. Instead of allowing artistic integrity or even quality storytelling to rule the day, Episode IX retreats to a sense of cringeworthy sentimentality and often downright sloppy craft to produce a film that means well but ultimately reveals dangerous ideological impulses.

The plot is pretty bewildering, and all amounts to just about nothing. We begin with the opening scrawl, telling us that a broadcast message has announced the return of Emperor Palpatine. To determine the truth, Kylo Ren mows down soldiers on Mustafar and retrieves a Sith artifact called a Wayfinder. Guess what it does? He finds his way, then, to a mysterious planet called Exegol, where he encounters the decrepit old man. Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid doing wonderful things again) reveals that he is the architect of everything that has happened, including creating Snoke and initiating the First Order. Fittingly, he unleashes the Final Order, a legion of new Star Destroyers each with the power to destroy planets (Death Star tech again, because we clearly haven't had enough of all that).

Then we get tossed into a chase as we follow our heroes Poe and Finn on their mission to deliver new intel to the Resistance: the same damn info we've already got twice by this point. Rey, honing her Jedi skills under Leia's guidance, joins them and they embark to yet another new desert planet to find Lando, who supposedly can help them. After a mini-adventure, they discover a Sith dagger that tells the location of -- guess what? -- another Wayfinder to help them find their way. But then they go to a snowy planet to get a mechanical device from apparently the only person in the galaxy with one, then they use that device to crack the Sith dagger code and travel to another moon of Endor where the wreckage from the second Death Star fell. In the ruins, Rey finds her way. Excuse me, I meant she finds another Wayfinder to help her find her way.

The whole affair is laughably bizarre and confusing at this point, and they still planet-hop at least three more times before the movie ends. Though some may have criticized The Last Jedi for having such a straightforward "chase in space" and an odd but thematically crucial side-plot to Canto Bight, I would take that any day over this nonsense. The Wayfinders are MacGuffins by definition, and would be interesting as such if we had other things going on like character development, world-building, or even fun action. Consider for comparison Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which plotwise is very similar to this: we didn't mind the weirdness of needing a drawing of a key to get the key to open a chest we had to find in order to stab the thump-thump and save the oceans because there was so much quality character development, humor, drama, mythmaking, and generally awesome storytelling.

Instead of those things, we often get the opposite. Much like in Lucas's original trilogy, we get very little -- if any -- understanding of secondary characters or locations. Keri Russell appears (sort of, we only hear her voice and see her eyes) for a hot second, as does Naomi Ackie. Dominic Monaghan shows up in a couple scenes for some reason. Richard E. Grant plays a new First Order (Final Order? Who knows) commander, which is thankfully about all we need to know. All these folks and more are suddenly introduced and just as suddenly ignored. As if the cast wasn't big enough.

Rose Tico, the most exciting new character since Poe, is basically unwritten in this movie. Two new female characters are put in for the sole purpose -- I defy you to give me one shred of evidence to the contrary -- of proving there is absolutely "no homo" between Finn and Poe. Finn doesn't even get a fitting arc, after all his amazing development in the previous two episodes, and he is here relegated to being a stock action hero. There's a truly baffling twist from General Hux. And while seeing Billy Dee Williams again as Lando is fun, he does so unbelievably little in this movie I'd have preferred him to not even show up. Maz Kanata shows up for like three scenes, and yet we still have absolutely no idea who or what she is, what she does, why she's important, or really anything interesting at all.

Most cruelly, Rey is here revealed to be as flat and boring a character as ever I suspected. Just when things were getting really cool in The Last Jedi, when we learn she is completely self-made, even in the Force, and that she came from unremarkable parents, The Rise of Skywalker has to screw it all up. Lo and behold, the granddaughter of Palpatine. Don't get me wrong, I think that's freakin' awesome. But when the main character has been set up as a pretty great feminist icon (remember the way she took control of every situation in The Force Awakens?), it should be artistically criminal to suddenly pull back the curtain and reveal that she is only what men make her to be. In this movie especially, she is stripped of any agency. Her story, her actions, even her identity are forced on her time and again by men. Even in her rare moments of strength, she is seeking answers, advice, and labels for herself from men.

And then there's Leia, whose presence in this film is just unfortunate from top to bottom. Granted, the filmmakers had an impossibly hard job on their hands after Carrie Fisher's untimely death, especially since it seems clear that Leia was supposed to be the last O.G. hero standing. But I can't help but wonder if they should have just killed her off in the opening crawl of this new movie, because her scenes are so deeply uncomfortable. Her presence makes me think of the uncanny valley, and her image is often drenched in so many aggressively drawn visual effects that she doesn't always look real. The scenes in which she's featured -- sometimes made up of deleted scenes from the other films, sometimes simply shot behind her and using a body double -- are disjointed at best, often with dialogue so vague it makes no sense.

Apart from the plot and characters, I can't help but shake what I read as the film's core ideological problem. The film essentially suggests that, if we put this into context, Hitler survived and resurfaced 30+ years later to join forces with the Soviets and turn the Cold War into an apocalypse. That's fine, I guess, except that this film attempts to cultivate nostalgia from the original generation of fans, which is annoying even if it makes sense from a business perspective. The problem is that it's a generation that has twice allowed a Palpatine-like war criminal and egomaniac to take control (George W. Bush and Donald Trump, respectively) and, each time, failed to rise up and challenge him. How about instead of stroking those egos and making that generation feel so safe, we try confronting them with the realities of their sociopolitical choices and its fallout for subsequent generations?

I don't want to belabor the point any longer, but I was just so utterly disappointed in The Rise of Skywalker. It spends too much time retconning the previous movie, which might be the only work of consummate art in the entire franchise. This tendency dissolves any cohesion in the sequel trilogy, making the episodes incoherent at best and conflicting at worst. These anti-developments in this final chapter result in denying the sequel trilogy its own artistic reasons for existence, unless you count the considerable interest in visual effects, which feels rather masturbatory for Disney at this point.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Score: 3 / 5

**Fair warning: I don't care about spoilers for myself, so I won't worry about censoring my thoughts here. If you haven't seen the film, and get violent when someone else reveals plot points, stop reading now. You should also probably just avoid the Internet until you've seen the movie.**

The most obnoxiously advertised movie event of the year, the new Star Wars regime opened with great fanfare and packed auditoriums. If you had the pleasure (?) of seeing it opening weekend, you no doubt shared with the enthusiasm of the multitudes as I did, and cheered aloud at appropriate points. It's undoubtedly a fierce spectacle, dazzling in its precision and flair, encouraged by the sentiment and nostalgia brought to it by both filmmakers and audiences.

There isn't much I can say specifically in praise of the movie, because technically it's pretty darn fabulous. The effects are killer, the score is lovely, the production design is interesting, and the camerawork is fine. There are some sizable holes in plot and characterizations, but as a part of a planned trilogy, I can't really fault the film for that; we can certainly expect to know more with the next installment. That said, I always prefer films (as sequels, prequels, and trilogies too!) to be able to stand on their own. I'm not so sure this one does. There's almost no exposition and new ideas pop up without preparation or, sometimes, merit. For example, early in the film, villain Kylo Ren uses the Force to stop a blaster's fire in midair. When has that ever been a thing? And apparently a renewed Empire (the obtusely named "First Order") has taken charge, led yet again by a mysterious Sith, though we don't know anything about what happened after the fall of the Empire in Return of the Jedi. I guess time will tell. But in most of these respects, The Force Awakens is very reminiscent of A New Hope.

Of course, it's also reminiscent of A New Hope in ways that aren't so admirable. In fact, a few times I wondered if I wasn't just watching a remake of that iconic first film. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I felt thoroughly disappointed at least half a dozen times in this movie. I mean, where's the creativity? If I wanted to see a poor orphan on a desert planet looking for adventure, a masked magic man with a sinister artificial voice, a superweapon the size of a planet, or a mysterious alien whose short stature belies supernatural knowledge, I could have watched the originals.

And before you start saying, "Well, it's better than the prequels," think again. I've never had a serious problem with the prequels, and I've not heard many sound arguments against them, other than personal preference. Sure, Jar Jar Binks is the worst, but so were the Ewoks. Sure, Darth Maul dies in the first movie, but so did Alec Guinness. No, I think the real reason people like the prequels less is because the script and its themes are far more complex and aloof; in having to rapidly expand the galaxy and its denizens, the prequels have precious little of the raw humor and "realistic" sense that defined the originals. Which is fine in my books, but not so with everybody. But that humor and grounded awareness is what J. J. Abrams's new film has in abundance, thereby winning over so many original fans. For example, when one tough pilot is dropped before the intimidating figure of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), he glances up and asks who speaks first. It's the little moments like this that present us with a believable sense of humor, one that sparkles with wit amidst operatic galactic warfare.

In any case, it's not this film's (lack of) creativity that's winning anybody over. For all their editing faults and effects-heavy spectacle, the prequels matched the originals in sheer imagination and creative output. The Force Awakens just looks like Abrams's scrapbook of images and sensations from the original movies, recycled in order to win over doubters. I might add that, as a fan of the original expanded universe, there were extensive plotlines established before, after, and during the films' plotlines, written in both novels and graphic novels. I love reading the books, so it's a little hard for me to swallow that virtually all of them are suddenly irrelevant. That's a barrier I'll have to overcome on my own, but it certainly made me bitter while watching this new movie. Of all the brilliant stories and characters in the expanded universe, to have the filmmakers here just pirate plot points and images from an old movie is pretty irritating. But I suppose that's just a matter of personal preference, not unlike the disdain some feel toward the prequels.

Maybe I'm harping on something that doesn't matter much. Maybe the new Empire (Disney?) is planning on making the second and third films (plus more, apparently? God, I hope it's not overkill) wildly novel and imaginative, so they had to make this one familiar. I guess we'll have to wait for episode eight. For now, it's a nice excursion, and one that promises even more boons in the coming years. And speaking of boons, let's praise the amazing cast ( and casting director) here for a moment. Yay, the movie isn't only full of white people! Yay, we have a badass female protagonist! Yay, Oscar Isaac is my favorite! But seriously, the cast is great and their work is great, especially the newbies. I'll happily follow any mainstream sci-fi adventure with a cast that can impress me this much this quickly. Focal point: My favorite scene in the film is when Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John Boyega) are attempting to fix the Falcon, and BB-8 is withholding the location of the Rebel base. It's a fast and charming verbal dance between the three, and one that had me giggling for minutes afterward. It's scenes like that that won me over. Let's hope Abrams has more of those up his sleeve.

Here's a list of other objections some have had with this new film. Some are far more problematic than others, but generally I felt most of these ideas while watching the picture. Check it out: http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/274463/episode-vii-sucks/.

IMDb: The Force Awakens