The Overlong Ramblings of a Lifelong Star Wars Nerd:

A Review of The Rise of Skywalker, An Impassioned Defense of The Last Jedi, and The Troubling History of Star Wars Fandom

The Rise of Skywalker was tasked with something that probably couldn’t ever be done satisfyingly enough for everyone. It’s the end of a forty-two year movie saga, the ninth installment in a series that includes two spin-off films, several television shows, countless novels, comic books, and video games, and one has-to-be-seen-to-be-believed holiday special. On top of all that, Star Wars has been a franchise constantly (pardon the pun) at war with itself. The movies have remained forever popular, but fans have been arguing amongst each other since 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. In Empire, our heroes are separated, make mistakes, and lose. The end is hopeful, but not exactly happy. And of course, a major connection between the protagonist and the antagonist is revealed. That film is still regarded by many to be the best Star Wars film to date, but believe it not, some fans actively disliked it at the time, disagreeing with the decisions that director Irvin Kersher and screenwriters Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan made. Yes, there actually were people who hated the twist of Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker’s father. 1983’s Return of the Jedi was met with mixed reactions from dedicated fans as well, a pattern that continues to this day.

When George Lucas returned in 1999 with The Phantom Menace, the first of a new trilogy of prequels, fan backlash officially turned toxic. Lucas was faced with constant harassment, and distasteful rallying cries of “George Lucas (tw) Raped My Childhood” spread far and wide. Actor Ahmed Best, who played the much-maligned Jar Jar Binks in his first ever major film role, was pushed to considering suicide after the harsh reception to him and his character. Child actor Jake Lloyd, who played the young Anakin Skywalker, was met with similar criticism. Only two years after the release of The Phantom Menace, the 12 year-old quit acting for good due to the intense bullying he experienced at school and elsewhere. Lloyd, who loved Star Wars like any other kid his age, ended up destroying all of his Star Wars memorabilia. In 2015, he was arrested and diagnosed with schizophrenia. The following year, the once promising young actor was transferred from jail to a psychiatric facility.

Why does any of this matter? Because two years ago, Star Wars fandom revealed its ugly side once again, and The Rise of Skywalker is a response to that, one that I find to be the wrong one. J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens had its fair share of complaints, from the story just being a retread of A New Hope to weak and sexist accusations of Rey being a Mary Sue. But for the most part, fans were just happy to have Star Wars back. Backlash for 2017’s The Last Jedi, written and directed by Rian Johnson, was a different beast entirely.

Barney the Dinosaur and Online Nazis

Like most kids, I grew up with this franchise. My dad introduced me to the original trilogy, and many of my birthday parties, Halloween costumes, and Christmas presents were inspired by the prequels. I read the books, I played the video games, I watched both animated Clone Wars series, and I had lightsaber battles with friends. I watched the trailer for Revenge of the Sith every single day up until the movie came out, and to this day it remains the one I’ve rewatched the most. I wasn’t aware of any negativity aimed at these movies that I loved. The internet has changed all of that. Nowadays, it seems like you can’t talk about Star Wars anywhere without it turning into an argument.

As I got older, and as the internet grew to be a bigger and bigger part of everyday life, I naturally began to view the films with a more skeptical eye. The original trilogy has parts that show its age, and the prequels are plagued by poor direction and awkward dialogue. Still, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are the only two that I consider to be “bad movies”, and even then I still very much enjoy watching them, so can I even call them that? I read online think pieces and watched videos explaining all of the ways in which the prequels were terrible films, most of which I agreed with, but like everyone else, it still didn’t stop my love for them. I laughed at the endless barrage of jokes aimed at Jar Jar Binks, even when most were about harming and killing him. Problematic, to be sure, but I found these things funny in the same way jokes about killing Barney, the friendly purple dinosaur, were funny in a dumb, kid way. I had no real ill feelings towards Barney or Jar Jar, they were just characters for a younger audience that I, at the wise old age of 11 or 12, wanted to prove I had outgrown.

By the time of the Disney trilogy, times had changed tremendously. The arrival of social media gave people two lives, one online and one in the real world, and the two now often bleed into each other. We have instant and continuous access to information and opinions that we never had before, for better and for worse. When The Last Jedi hit theaters, its bold choices challenged audiences, subverted their expectations, and demolished many fan theories of what the next chapter of the Skywalker saga would be. I find it to be the best Star Wars movie to date. Deeply moving, thematically rich, visually striking, and a beautiful, respectful tribute to all that came before it, The Last Jedi expanded my imagination of what a Star Wars movie could be, and helped me understand its importance within culture itself. I understand that there are many that don’t share my feelings, but whether you like the movie or not is hardly the point.

The internet has given rise to easier communication between people, and in the wake of fans attempting to make sense of The Last Jedi’s story decisions, a small but very vocal and very coordinated group of people swooped in to take advantage. Complaints about the movie, some perfectly valid, were morphed into right-wing, bad faith arguments. Countless Youtube videos flooded the internet about how the film, and in turn Disney themselves, were promoting nothing but liberal and social justice warrior propaganda. These people bombarded the film’s Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb scores, sinking its audience ratings. Petitions called for it to be stricken from the Star Wars canon entirely. An edited version of the film was released online that removed all of the women. Rian Johnson faced constant online harassment and death threats, which continue to this day.

Kelly Marie Tran, like Ahmed Best before her, had just landed her first major film role, in a Star Wars movie no less. She became the first Asian woman to have a prominent role in the franchise’s forty year history, and her character, Rose Tico, captures the spirit of what the franchise and its stories have always been about. Rose is an anticapitalist freedom fighter and a true believer in the cause, despite being a lowly mechanic who works in the bowels of a Resistance ship. When destiny knocks on her door, she answers the call without hesitation. Her journey with Finn helps him overcome his cowardly and selfish ways, and turns him into a believer as well. He learns that this war isn’t about making the other side hurt, it’s about saving and protecting the ones you love. Their detour to Canto Bight also inadvertently sparks hope for the impoverished and downtrodden children that live there, leading to one of the best final shots of any Star Wars movie.

Again, there were some that didn’t share my feelings. Rose was lambasted by fans for reasons that I didn’t understand, at least not until those criticisms once again morphed into something sinister. Kelly Marie Tran became a focus of targeted hate, and was subjected to endless sexist and racist attacks online. Tran, a struggling actress who had considered quitting the profession altogether before she got the part, was forced to flee social media entirely - yet another victim of the toxicity of Star Wars fandom.

“Rey who?”

*Spoilers ahead for The Rise of Skywalker*

Which, finally, brings us to The Rise of Skywalker. This movie was always going to act as some sort of response to the vicious backlash of The Last Jedi; I knew that much going in. I fully expected some sort of retconning. What I did not expect, in my naivety, was what I consider to be cowardly, disrespectful, and just plain uninspired backtracking. The Rise of Skywalker seems downright ashamed of its previous installment, in ways both big and small. It’s a waving of the white flag - an admittance of defeat to the series’ worst fans, as if Disney finally rolled over and told them “alright, you win”. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and made me worry not just about the future of this franchise but the future of blockbuster franchises as a whole. I’m being dramatic, definitely - these are pretty silly movies about space wizards at the end of the day - but allow me to explain.

Let’s start with the big story choice: Rey is revealed to be the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine. It’s a cool idea on a surface level, and adds to her struggle against the pull of the Dark Side, something that’s been a part of her journey since The Force Awakens. But this reveal, and the fact that Palpatine is alive and back in action, raises far more questions than it answers. How is Palpatine alive? Who was his son? Did he have Force powers? Did he have any sort of relationship with his father? What should serve as a shocking revelation instead just makes the story far more convoluted, and it falls flat. Think of the obvious parallel between this surprise and that of Luke Skywalker being told Darth Vader is his father. When Luke hears this news, he’s visibly anguished and heartbroken; it’s a devastating reveal because Luke has a pretty firm idea of who Darth Vader is. The two have a relationship beforehand. This is a gutting reveal, not just because Luke wishes it’s not true, but because he knows in his heart that it is true. Rey finding out that Palpatine is her grandfather may be surprising to us, because we have two previous trilogies’ worth of knowledge that Palps is a bad man. But Rey doesn’t have that history. Whatever reaction you may muster to this surprise, it’s a twist that plays on your awareness, not the characters’.

Rey doesn’t react much to this news at all, how can she? What little she knows about Palpatine would probably only be through vague legend; the former emperor is never talked about in the sequels aside from a quick line from Luke in The Last Jedi, and even then he refers to him as Darth Sidious. The name Palpatine is never once used in the original trilogy, he’s simply called “the emperor”. While the sight of Rey, like Luke before her, taking on the evil mastermind of the Star Wars universe can certainly be thrilling for some, there’s little emotional context within the story to go with it. Rey has no prior relationship to Palpatine, so what’s going through her head during this confrontation besides this just being a bad guy who needs to be defeated? Luke doesn’t really know Palpatine either in Return of the Jedi, but that scene is more about the conflict between him and Vader more than the emperor, and in the end it is Vader, not Luke, who defeats him. Rey besting her grandfather doesn’t have the emotional weight that it should. The two barely know each other, so it’s difficult to ascertain what the higher purpose of them being family is.

Had this reveal been the plan all along instead of being, let’s face it, the ass-pull that it is, it could’ve been a very interesting one. The sins of the father is a tried and true trope of storytelling, especially within the fantasy genre. Grappling with the knowledge that you come from a bloodline that’s only known for its cruelty and crimes, and having the courage and strength to rise above that, has the potential to an extremely cathartic character arc. But this wasn’t what Rey’s journey had been in the previous two films. Rey was a nobody that came from nowhere, whose strength came from within herself, not from anyone else. The Palpatine twist does away with all of that.

Rey from No Where

In The Last Jedi, Rey is searching for answers. She’s in the midst of a conflict that’s so infinite and that the most important people in the galaxy are involved with. As a scavenger from the lonely planet of Jakku, what is her place in this story? Kylo Ren tells her a terrible truth: Her parents were nothing but junk traders who sold their daughter off for drinking money. She is not the long-lost relative of any Jedi. Not Luke, not Obi-Wan Kenobi, not even Qui-Gon Jinn. Rey reacts to this just as Luke does in The Empire Strikes Back: She cries, anguished, because she knows in her heart that it’s the truth she’s always known. She has no place in this story. But she learns to forge her own.

In Women of the Galaxy, an official Star Wars book written by Amy Ratcliffe just last year, a notable passage reads: “Even beyond the trappings of the Star Wars saga - the First Order, the Resistance, the Force - Rey’s story is inspiring, familiar, and timeless. Just because you come from nothing doesn’t mean you’re not part of the story. You’re not no one, because anybody can save the Galaxy. Anybody.” It’s a perfect summary of this modern take on the Chosen One trope, one that both The Lego Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse championed as well. You don’t need to come from a special family or have special blood to be a hero; the hero. Choosing to have Rey come from nothing, but still become one of the greatest and most powerful beings in the Star Wars universe is an inspiring story indeed.

The Palpatine switch robs Rey of her own narrative, in favor of changing it into something else. Does this ruin her as a character? Certainly not. One of the things The Rise of Skywalker gets right is its intended message, which piggybacks off of Last Jedi’s: Anyone can be a hero no matter their past. A funny interaction between the three heroes, Rey, Finn, and Poe, as they go back and forth about how Poe was a spice runner, Finn was a Stormtrooper, and Rey was a scavenger, makes this clear. Rey’s grandfather being the most evil man the Galaxy has ever known only further solidifies this message, and it runs parallel with Kylo Ren’s story as well, his grandfather being Darth Vader. Each character has had a spotty past, whether it be from their own actions or the legacy of their ancestors, and in The Rise of Skywalker, each become heroes in their own right.

At the first sight of Rey in this film - deep in meditation, midair, levitating rocks around her - I found myself emotional, and reflected on two of Disney’s other female-empowering projects that came out this year: Captain Marvel and Frozen II. Scenes of Carol Danvers busting her way through spaceships, Elsa, long hair flowing behind her, galanty riding on the back of a mystical water horse to save her kingdom, and Rey mastering the spiritual teachings of the Jedi; all three heroines stand as beautiful representations of how far we’ve come with this stuff. Of course, these three and the majority of other women-led films are still almost exclusively dominated by whiteness, a reminder that as much as we celebrate these milestones, we still have a long way to go.

(Anyway…) So it could certainly be argued that Rey’s story is still largely intact by the end of The Rise of Skywalker. The Palpatine reveal, as needlessly confusing as it is (the wholly unnecessary mention that Leia has known Rey’s true parentage all along is so baffling that it’s laughable), doesn’t derail her journey enough to the point that it’s ruined. But then why make this change at all? Why not simply leave well enough alone?

The idea that Rey must be a descendant from a previously established character is one that I understand to an extent. Star Wars has always been a bit like a soap-opera at points - most characters are related to one another in some way, and the Skywalker saga has more or less been about a single family continuously mucking up and then saving the Galaxy - but the demand for Rey to have these familial ties stems from a problematic place: the need to explain how she, a woman, is so powerful with the Force. Surely she must come from an already strong, Force-using father, there’s no way she could be this gifted of her own volition. It’s interesting that Rey’s prowess has to be explained this way; you’ll find no such scrutiny over the parentage of a character like Poe, whose flying abilities border on the supernatural. He, like Rey, routinely defies odds and performs otherworldly maneuvers, yet I’ve never once seen anyone question how he’s able to do these things. Surely he must come from another ace pilot, like the Skywalkers, or even a minor character like Wedge Antilles?

And this is why the Palpatine reveal irks me so much. It’s the first sign that The Rise of Skywalker was bowing to the wishes of people whose complaints come from a place of bad faith. It’s an explanation (for something that didn’t need to be explained) that no doubt appeases those who couldn’t fathom how a woman could be so powerful without prior training or having come from an already powerful bloodline. So while it doesn’t completely undo what Rey stands for, it still takes away from it, and gives some of the worst people exactly what they asked for. In an interview with Daisy Ridley following the release of The Last Jedi, she remarked how “I do think it’s hilarious that there’s this great character and everyone’s trying to attribute it to another character”. If you wanted this kind of reveal for Rey’s parentage and enjoy it, does that make you a bad person? Of course not. But it still serves as a victory for a very malignant and openly hostile section of the fanbase, and for that, I take issue with it. I also find it to just be an uninspired and safe choice, and would obviously have preferred if they kept The Last Jedi’s bold and fresh trajectory, rather than backtrack.

Thank Goodness We Got Reylo

Maybe I could overlook this. The Rise of Skywalker still has plenty of greatness to offer, even to a grumpy critic like myself. It still manages to serve as a mostly satisfying finale to the saga and introduces some fun new concepts to the movies, such as Poe’s light speed skipping, the festival on the planet of Pasaana, and Force healing, previously seen in The Mandalorian. It also doesn’t abandon the ideas of the The Last Jedi completely. Moving forward with the Resistance being the sole spark of hope, Lando arriving at the final battle with reinforcements from across the entire galaxy is an exceptionally thrilling, if not overly predictable, moment. Ben Solo’s redemption, and his complicated, star-crossed romance with Rey, is given a solid conclusion (Reylo stans rejoice!). Abrams, by bringing the main cast back together, is able to recapture the fun that drives so much of The Force Awakens. On top of all that, The Rise of Skywalker also contains some of the series’ most striking imagery and cheer-inducing moments, and John Williams’ score, his very last for the Star Wars franchise, is as compelling as it’s ever been.

But as great as some of it is, the film still feels held back in many ways. Safe and predictable plotting aside, much of it just feels rushed and sloppy, to the point where some parts don’t have quite the emotional impact that they should. Not many scenes are given adequate time to breathe, and the movie often trips over itself. There’s a moment early on where Rey seems to have accidentally murdered Chewbacca, blowing up the transport he was on with Force lightning. It’s the first moment that really got my attention: Rey has not only just used a Dark Side power without meaning to, but it caused the death of a close friend. Shortly after, Chewie is shown to be alive, and Rey’s use of the Dark Side, and her guilt over killing a friend, is abandoned. The film’s pathetic explanation of “He must’ve been on a different transport!” will probably haunt me until my dying day. What was the point of all that?

More evidence of The Rise of Skywalker’s rushed storytelling is a side plot involving Finn attempting to tell Rey something important but never getting the chance to. The whole thing ends up just being dropped, never to be brought up again. And as cathartic as Ben Solo’s return to the Light is, the character still doesn’t feel like he’s given his full due. Once he decides to come to Rey’s aid, he doesn’t receive any more lines of dialogue. It’s frustrating - I feel that a conversation, even a brief one, between the two is necessary. J.J. Abrams is a good filmmaker and writer, but this film often comes across outright amateurish in its presentation. What happened here?

Much of The Rise of Skywalker’s problems can probably be attributed to its troubled production. Colin Trevorrow, the man in charge of the Jurassic World films, was originally slated to be the writer and director for this final installment of the Skywalker saga. Trevorrow worked on the film for two years before being fired by Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, citing creative differences and unhappiness with his script (trust me when I say that this was the right choice). Kennedy then flashed what was undoubtedly an obscene amount of money at J.J. Abrams, bringing him back to wrap up this new trilogy that he began. But production for Episode IX had already been well underway, so J.J. had to use what was there while still basically starting the story over from scratch, with a limited amount of time to do so. It was the shortest production for a Star Wars movie to date.

To help him with the screenplay, writers Derek Connolly (Jurassic World, Kong: Skull Island) and Chris Terrio (Batman v Superman, Justice League) were brought onboard. How you feel about those writers’ respective works probably helps determine whether you like The Rise of Skywalker or not. I find them to be too focused on plot and spectacle rather than character, something that I believe this film suffers from as well. If those writers’ films’ Rotten Tomatoes scores, including for this film, are any indication, many other critics tend to agree.

Again, maybe I could forgive all of this. I don’t think The Rise of Skywalker is a bad film. My personal preference of The Last Jedi’s bold new direction for the franchise, which sought to go beyond the series’ constraints and offer something more than just the constant back-and-forth between the Light and the Dark, over The Rise of Skywalker’s safe and familiar approach to a Star Wars story, doesn’t necessarily dictate whether one is a better movie than the other. I might even be able to get over the film’s cowardly rejection of one the fanbase’s (and Oscar Isaac’s) better requests: That Finn and Poe should enter into a romantic relationship. What I cannot forgive, what I refuse to look past and accept, is the treatment of Kelly Marie Tran.

Not Fighting What We Hate. Saving What We Love.

After the prominent and important role that Rose Tico played in The Last Jedi, many fans were excited to see where the character would go. What would become of her kiss with Finn, which wasn’t completely reciprocated? What would her relationship with Rey and other members of the Resistance higher-ups be? What part would she play in finally putting an end to the First Order, which took both her home and her sister from her? Tragically, whatever direction Rose’s story could’ve been taken in will probably never be known. With The Rise of Skywalker, the character, and in turn, Kelly Marie Tran, has been all but removed from Star Wars completely. In the movie’s two hour, twenty-two minute runtime, Rose is onscreen for a total of only one minute and sixteen seconds.

Out of everything - the retconning of some of The Last Jedi, the rushed story, the abandoned side plots - no error is more grievous than Rose being benched to such an enormous degree. If it wasn’t going to be done anywhere else, here was an opportunity to stand up to the sexist and racist trolls that continue to derail any and all conversations about Star Wars. Here was an easy way to promote something good and pure, a way to defy the worst of the fans and make it clear that they do not represent the fandom as a whole. Instead, this film surrenders and rolls over, giving those trolls another victory that they never should have received, all at the expense of a talented, inspiring, and kind actor that deserved far better. If her role was initially intended to be larger, I don't necessarily believe that Abrams and company would’ve shot scenes with Rose and then cut them to appease internet shitheads. But cutting them (as opposed to others) for time indicates they didn't give enough thought to not leaving that impression, which is also bad.

Whether intentional or not, The Rise of Skywalker reads as too much of an apology for the last installment, and a way of appeasing disgruntled fans via damage control. Listening to fans and indulging in a bit of fan service is one thing, but bending over backwards to give them what they think they want, no matter how much it muddles the story, is another. It’s a sign of a troubling trend that’s on the rise. Look at the similar, albeit much more innocent, reaction to the initial trailer for next year’s Sonic the Hedgehog movie.

“Uh...meow?”

Outcry over Sonic’s truthfully hideous design resulted in the studio pushing the film back by four months in order to redesign him. This put the film around five million dollars over its original budget, not to mention countless hours put in by overworked, underpaid visual effects artists. Earlier this month, Moving Picture Company, the visual effects studio that worked on Sonic and other blockbusters such as The Lion King and Guardians of the Galaxy, officially shut down. A last-second massive overhaul of redesigning and reanimating the main character of a feature-length film is no easy feat, and this was likely a factor in MTC’s inability to continue doing business. Was giving in to fan demands worth the loss? How might public reactions to trailers, other promotional material, or even fully completed movies alter how studios cater to them? The landscape of Hollywood movies is constantly changing. Look at how this year’s Cats, a critically-panned, box office bomb, was immediately given a visual effects upgrade only a couple of days after being released. Movies can now be altered and improved while still in theaters. The future is now, old man.

There was a point to this overlong thing somewhere. If you’ve managed to make it all the way to the end here, congratulations, and thank you. No, seriously. If you’ve been reading this all the way through, you’ve probably read my reviews before, and I can’t thank you enough for that. I’m still new to this whole thing, but I feel very good about this past year, my first one spent attempting to do this full-time. Learning how to view movies critically has made me appreciate them more and more, and I can’t help but to want them to continue to find ways to surprise and challenge me. This is why I prefer The Last Jedi to The Rise of Skywalker, because I view one as something with a foot in the future, and the other I view as stubbornly stuck in the past. Very few movies are perfect; almost all of them have their own problems. But I hope I’ve been able to articulate just why this movie’s problems bother so much. Context has become a vital part of my movie experience, and while I can do my best to attempt to view The Rise of Skywalker as objectively as possible, as a lifelong, deeply emotionally-invested fan of the Star Wars movies and the people who make them, I just can’t in this case. The deeper issues at the root of this franchise’s issues are far too troubling.

#GiveRoseADisney+Series

#LongLiveTheRianJohnsonTrilogy

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