INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Back in December, I called JJ Abrams' film reheated nostalgia and little more
Months later, I think of Episode 9 as a movie that haphazardly tried to please everyone, but ended up leaving a lot of people unsatisfied.It
lost me as soon as Palpatine appeared on screen and explained he was the big bad behind everything from the past two movies
It lost me again when Rey seemingly killed Chewbacca by using Force Lightning to bring down a spaceship, which was clearly a fake-out
in favor of her being Palpatine's granddaughter, forcing the audience to consider the idea that the wrinkly Emperor once had sex (it turns
elements of The Last Jedi didn't seem to make everyone happy, though
if you like it, that's cool
Our reviewer, Nick Pino, did enjoy the movie, and I thought his excellent piece offered some interesting observations about how the movie
bends the lore of Star Wars to clever effect.Most of my problems with The Rise of Skywalker come from the way it undermines The Last Jedi,
without having any better ideas of its own
Rey being related to Palpatine is one example of that, but it also comes in the way that the movie abandons the idea of Kylo Ren as the
main, irredeemable villain
gave Hux a boss in the form of Richard E Grant's General Pryde, which was pointless, and at odds with the clear Hux/Kylo power dynamic
established at the end of The Last Jedi
Star destroyers are powerful enough to blow up planets
egregious by Abrams' bizarre decision to introduce new characters of little consequence to a trilogy that already had enough of them: in
this film we got Keri Russell's Zorii Bliss, an unnecessary love interest for Poe Dameron, and Naomi Ackie's Jannah, neither of which needed
Why not spend more time focusing on the cast that's already there?(Image credit: Lucasfilm / Disney)I know The Last Jedi is a contentious
entire plot on the casino planet is usually on the receiving end of criticism)
But The Rise of Skywalker simply doesn't have the ambition of that film
Kylo is a non-threat in this movie
better?Anyway, without revisiting every problem the film has, I'll simply say that I hope you enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker more than I
did.What's changed in the intervening months is that more and more irritating details about Episode 9 have leaked out: that the Palpatine in
this film was actually a clone, and that his son was a failed clone
Finn was apparently Force sensitive, but everyone forgot to mention it in the movie
Some of Rose Tico's scenes were a casualty of the movie's attempts to use archive footage of Carrie Fisher, which was not an easy problem
for the filmmakers to solve, but they did choose to leave Rose out of the main plot and keep her on the Resistance base
I still don't know what the point of the Knights of Ren was.We've also heard about the abandoned version of Episode 9 in the last few
months, called Duel of the Fates, which filmmaker Colin Trevorrow was working on until he departed the project and JJ Abrams was brought in
this unproduced film to The Rise of the Skywalker
art looks incredible, because Lucasfilm employs some of the best artists in the world
Pick up the art of Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and you'll be blown away by the level of imagination on the page from artists like Doug
Fans have very polarized opinions of what these movies should be, probably because the nostalgia factor on them is so high.But that said,
the Disney Plus series The Mandalorian did seem to make everyone happy
And that might be because it has none of the baggage that comes with legacy characters or Jedi (Baby Yoda excepted)
It was ultimately very simple in the stories it chose to tell, perfect for 30-minute episodes
would've made the sequel films feel like they really had a purpose, to continue the story but have their own complete character arcs
The Last Jedi is a subversive look at the Jedi and the pitfalls of hero worship, as well as the importance of making your own legacy, rather
than being indebted to previous generations
The Rise of Skywalker continues that point with Rey in some ways, but the Palpatine element suffocates the individual greatness of that
conflict Star Wars has with itself: should we redefine the rules of what Star Wars can be, or are we just telling the same stories from four
