Overall I liked ‘The Rise of Skywalker’. There are a lot of plot holes that I’ll have to fill in the blanks for to keep my sanity, but it was still entertaining to watch.
That said, here is a list of pros and cons. They’re personal opinions, so you have no obligation to agree. I’ve also included a whole essay on that redemption arc, because I have a lot of feelings on the matter.
Have at it.
Pros (no particular order):
– I’m a sucker for nostalgia, so all the little throwbacks! Like the chess game and the ewoks (don’t hate).
– C-3PO played a pivotal part and I’m so proud of my favourite droid. You annoying, gold genius!
– BEN SOLO! The best part of the entire film. I’m glad we got to meet that sassy space boy/man, no matter how brief the time was. It was validating to witness that he had heart like his mother and charm like his father. And just Adam Driver, ya know? He played two characters and the differences were strong yet subtle enough that you felt like he was someone else for that last part of the film without being pummelled by drastic costume changes or overacting. Though I thought he looked better as Ben? Personal opinion, but even my mom leaned over to tell me: “Ok, HERE he looks attractive”. My sister would disagree, but she’s also part of the First Order and cannot be trusted. Either way, you can tell me you hated Kylo Ren, but you can’t sit there and whine that Adam Driver is a bad actor. That guy can act circles around you and everyone in the cast with the lamest script ever and literally ONE LINE CONSISTING OF ONE TWO LETTER WORD. This movie was proof.
– Leia training to be a Jedi! It didn’t look the greatest, but it was the thought.
– “I am the spy” and just Hux being Hux. An overgrown toddler. All “I don’t care if ya’ll good guys win or not I just want Kylo to lose”. Okay, General Hugs.
– That dyad Jedi, Force magic trick Rey and Ben did with the lightsaber. Badass. And then Ben kinda grins and unleashes his chaotic fighting style on his knights. He literally flies over one of them and stabs them through the back??? YAAAASSSSS!
– Han freakin’ Solo. Amiright?! So happy Harrison Ford agreed to it. I feel like Kylo reconnecting with Han was originally supposed to be Kylo reconnecting with Leia, but under the circumstances it had to be altered.
– All the typical corny Star Wars type jokes. Like basically anytime C-3PO talked or Poe went off on a rant.
– Lando! What a guy.
– I still would have preferred Rey and Ben to have been platonic cousins, but the smile after their kiss before he dropped dead was cute, and I didn’t dislike the pairing as much as I assumed I would, so I won’t stomp on any Reylo shippers’ feelings too much. I would still argue that he loved her but she didn’t love him back in the same way. Her choice to kiss him could easily have been because she was so relieved and thankful. She could have chosen to really pull a Rose Dawson at the end by choosing SOLO as her last name, right? She didn’t.
– C-3PO taking “one last look” at his friends. I knew he wasn’t going to die, but that still had me tearing up! And when he says something like: “You didn’t say my name, sir, but I’m alright” after falling through the quicksand stuff. Ahahaha. Seriously! Who doesn’t love C-3PO???
– Anytime Finn and Poe bicker with each other.
– The cinematography! Especially the fight on the Death Star wreckage.
– When help shows up to save the Resistance’s arse at the last second in true Star Wars fashion, set to the iconic theme song. Predictable but I still got excited!
– Rey hears all the Jedi voices pumping her up to take Grandpappy Palpatine down!
– When Ben predictably didn’t die (yet) and climbs back up to limp over and save Rey.
– When Rey, Poe and Finn hug at the end.
– The new droid who says “No thank you” to being touched because he has a traumatic background! My heart! L
– Babu Frik! “Hey Heyyyyyy”! One of C-3PO’s oldest friends. I probably laughed way too hard at that part.
– When Rey is fighting evil-Rey and Kylo shows up out of nowhere (because he wants Rey to carpool with him to hell…Exegol, whatever) with this look that just says “Jesus f*bleep* Christ, kid, be careful.” – an Adam Sackler quote.
– When the music combines Rey and Kylo’s theme songs. John Williams, you musical wizard.
– Ben: “Dad…” Han: “I know.” (If you’re not well-versed in Star Wars, this was a throwback to Leia telling Han she loves him and him answering with “I know”). All the feels.
– Rey burying the twin lightsabers to signify the end of the original trio’s story and to put Luke and Leia to rest. It would have been nicer if she chose a different last name for herself after doing so. The moment felt like it lost its sentiment a little when she decided to be Rey Skywalker.
Cons (in no particular order):
– The film made zero sense, I can totally admit that. Did I still love it? Yes. If you throw all logic to the space vacuum and accept the fact that it’s poorly written then you might find it easier to enjoy too.
– We have NO idea HOW Palpatine’s creepy butt managed to survive and clone and regenerate? What was that random contraption he was hooked up to like a marionette? We literally find out he’s back in the crawl and then boom! Kylo surfing the Milky Way into space hell to meet him.
– The Knights of Ren should have played a much bigger part, considering how much they were alluded to in The Force Awakens.
– I understand that the writers probably wanted to give Leia a proper send off, but using the leftover footage of Carrie Fisher felt so choppy and the entire thing didn’t feel right. (I still cried when Chewie found out though). What even happened to her? Did she use up all her energy saying hi to Ben? Why didn’t she become a Force ghost immediately? Why did she become a Force ghost only after Ben died? Was that like unfinished business? So much was left unanswered.
– There was not enough Hux in this film. Then we brought in a replacement for him? I just don’t understand. Why couldn’t Hux play the replacement guy’s part? This was not the film to be introducing a whole new slew of characters in! Unnecessary!
– Anakin’s (at least I’m pretty sure it was Anakin’s… I could be wrong, die-hard Star Wars fans) lightsaber was literally ripped apart in ‘The Last Jedi’ by Kylo and Rey having a pissing contest with the Force over it. Uh, how did that get fixed? Where did it magically come back from? EDIT: Upon watching ‘The Last Jedi’ again, it is shown that Rey is holding the broken lightsaber. Leia tells her that she has all that she needs for future fights. Someone patched it up for her in ‘The Rise of Skywalker’.
– I’d like to know exactly why they thought it was a good idea to nearly cut Rose out of the film entirely? The answers we have received so far are unacceptable. So what if Rose was supposed to be with Leia majority of the time. Nothing else really adds up in the film, you could have written her a whole other part.
– I think there were enough clues in the film for you to figure out that Finn was Force sensitive but that could have been explored more! I kept waiting for him to pull some Jedi moves and save the day.
– This movie should have been two movies.
– It’s revealed that all Storm Troopers are kidnapped children who are raised to kill and yet we don’t give that enough attention at all. That’s a cliff-hanger, so Disney better have something in the works to address that as a film because that’s some heavy content to just throw out there and leave. Addressing the problem properly could shed light on a lot of real world issues!
– No Phasma. I’m not gonna lie, I was hoping she somehow survived. Like, make her the true villain over Palpatine! That would have been a great twist. Maybe Phasma should have been Palpatine’s granddaughter, huh?
– Instead Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter. Yawn. AND if that’s the case why didn’t we fully turn her to the dark side? That would have been interesting!
– Poe and his spice runner girlfriend? It just felt unnecessarily thrown in there and I found it boring.
– WHY. WASN’T. KYLO. THE. SPY? Do you even realize how great that could have been for the storyline? I’ve been saying that’s how the story should have gone since The Force Awakens! More viewers probably would have felt better about his redemption arc.
– There wasn’t enough time for Rey to even process who she was or struggle with her Sith anger… BECAUSE THIS MOVIE SHOULD HAVE BEEN TWO MOVIES!
– My sister’s boyfriend also pointed out to me how many fake deaths there were throughout the entire film. He’s right, it is kind of annoying.
– At first I really liked that Rey said her name was Skywalker, but I’m taking that back. I don’t like it. This was supposed to signify the END of the Skywalkers. I guess they meant the Skywalker bloodline, because here we are and Rey is out there being Rey SKYWALKER. Ugh.
The Redemption
With the pros and cons out of the way I’m going to address the redemption arc separately, because I have a lot of words about Kylo Ren’s ending/beginning. I’ve been all for the redemption arc since The Force Awakens but I can also see others’ points of view on the matter. He killed so many people! He was redeemed too quickly! He’s such a cry baby and doesn’t deserve it! What he did to be redeemed was not enough! He shouldn’t be a Force ghost!
Valid points.
Here’s how I feel:
I wasn’t born when The Return of the Jedi was released, but ya’ll seem pretty accepting of Anakin’s redemption today and based on the prequels (which are obviously canon) it seems to me that Kylo was the updated version of Anakin in many ways. Right down to being whiny and all woe is me. The differences come down to the crimes they committed and how they dealt with the dark side.
Kylo did kill a lot of people, that’s true. He:
– killed Lor San Tekka and ordered the village on Jakku to be wiped out.
– killed Han Solo (this is clearly unforgiveable, I agree, but if Han was willing to forgive his son I guess we kind of have to as well).
– leads the First Order to the Resistance in The Last Jedi and almost murders his mother. Almost, because after seeing The Rise of Skywalker, you are given some insight that Ben was a mama’s boy. He doesn’t kill Leia, but the First Order nearly does.
– killed Snoke…but, I mean, it was SNOKE. Everyone in my theatre cheered.
– killed many or all of the Alazmec on Mustafar to get to the Wayfinder. To be fair, the Alazmec are a Sith cult, so is this really all that sad? Meh.
– attempted to kill Luke. Waking up to your uncle about to murder you probably stirs up a lot of revenge in your blood.
However, Kylo’s also getting undeserved dark side points for things he didn’t finish or things we aren’t really sure happened, either because we didn’t see them happen or it’s implied but never proven. Like:
– the deaths of Jedi students. Are we sure? Was that proven? We know he collapsed the room in on Luke. After that we know the place burned down and people died, but we don’t actually know how. Comic book ‘The Rise of Kylo Ren’ provides more answers. I haven’t seen or read it myself, but this is what I’ve heard via the “trusty” internet: After Kylo leaves Luke he gets angry (you know, temper tantrums galore. I can relate) the Temple erupts with lightning. Who likes lightning? Oh yeah, Palpatine. Anyway, there are explosions, Kylo tries to help/save his classmates but is knocked down. If this comic is considered canon DID Kylo kill Jedi students? Nope. You know who did murder younglings? Anakin.
– ALMOST killing Finn. I’m putting this here because Kylo should have easily been able to kill Finn, but didn’t? Why? I don’t know, it’s a stretch, but maybe because Finn is/was Rey’s friend and Kylo obviously had all the feels for Rey?
– repeatedly attacking Rey, but if you’ve read the novelization of The Force Awakens it is implied that Kylo never had intentions of killing her. In some cases during their battles (especially the fight on the Death Star wreckage) he’s not fighting back too hard. Instead he switches to defence and simply blocks her shots.
– destructing the Hosnian system. First of all, that was mainly a Hux thing using the Starkiller Base. Kylo did not give order for it and in the novelization is not too happy about it either. He saw it as pointless and a waste. That said, he also didn’t do anything to stop it so I can see why people would call this problematic.
– almost wiping out the Resistance on Crait in The Last Jedi. Again, almost. He’s distracted when Uncle Luke shows up to scold him. Would he have made orders to kill the remaining members of the Resistance? Probably? Then again, Leia was there too and he couldn’t kill her the first time. We might never get an answer for this so it can’t be proven what he would or wouldn’t have done.
Other points:
It’s probably important to note that Kylo Ren was also manipulated by Palpatine since he was a kid and I bet if you had voices hissing at you in your head constantly about being weak and needing to wipe out the light you’d be pretty emo too. I wouldn’t call him a cry baby, but I would say he throws really childish tantrums! I don’t know if spoiled is the right word for him, but I guess if you were the product of Princess Leia and Hans Solo – two of three of the main heroes that saved the entire galaxy, people probably would have been treating you like royalty since you crawled out of the womb.
He was redeemed too quickly, what he did to be redeemed was not enough and he doesn’t deserve to be a Force ghost. Okay, again, Darth Vader. Vader saved Luke from being killed and was redeemed. Ben Solo ran back into Exegol WITH A BLASTER gifted to him by Lando when he was a kid and no real plan (“Never tell me the odds”) other than to save Rey from making a huge mistake. He killed his own squad (Knights of Ren), joined Rey against Palpatine and then after all that he literally gave his “life” to her. I don’t understand the public’s hate for this one. I’d argue that what Ben did was more significant than what Anakin did. We also didn’t see Ben as a Force ghost. Therefore, we don’t know if he is or isn’t. I read somewhere that it could mean he’s holding off on it or that he’s stuck somewhere else. If Palpatine could return then what’s stopping Ben/Kylo? It leaves things open to possible spinoffs or even more films (would Adam Driver agree to reprise his role as Ben Solo? I doubt it).
On one hand, killing Ben off seems like the only practical solution, because who would actually accept him back into society after everything he did? It’s like releasing a mass murderer into the general public and telling everyone that they’re safe because the killer is medicated. What if they go off their meds again? It happened before.
On the other hand it was kind of heart-wrenching to read that supposedly one little boy in an audience was whispering “Please don’t die,” during THAT scene. For a new generation of Star Wars fans Ben Solo is their Skywalker. Ben was young, freshly redeemed and portrayed as a hero right before they killed him off. If that sticks with grown adults, it’s going to stick with young kids. Rey adopting the name doesn’t make the cut for them and I find it a bit unfair that she’s not going to have her own legacy because not only is she the granddaughter of an infamous sith lord, she also has the Skywalker name stamped onto her forehead for marketing purposes. It really backtracks on the message that The Last Jedi was trying to get across to its viewers; that anyone could be a Jedi. That said, this is Disney, folks. It’s also Star Wars and Star Wars never actually ends. We do, after all, have another “Skywalker” roaming the galaxy now. And, hey, for all we know, Ben might have accidentally knocked Rey up with that Force energy of his. Disney presents: ‘Baby Solo’. Not much else made sense in the film so why not? (Just to be clear, I’m joking).
Conclusion
The Rise of Skywalker was full of loose ends and illogical reasoning, but it was still entertaining. That’s really all I ever ask of a Star Wars film. Adam Driver had a great answer to address unexplained gaps in the storyline, so I’m going to end this post with the following clip below. I’ll just have to spend time filling in the blanks myself and attach meaning to certain scenes in my head.
Listen to Adam: