Vanilla Skywalker
It’s highly likely that how a viewer reacts to The Rise of Skywalker, the ninth (yes ninth) film in the Star Wars saga will largely depend on whether they have seen the original films and how fondly they look back on them. Those who are going in blind and have no association to the series may find a moderately captivating story that doesn’t ask too much from the audience, providing some large scale set pieces and special effects eye candy.
Those who have grown up with all things force related however, will likely be disappointed to put it mildly, and nerd raging to put it strongly.
True, a film of this scale is never going to please everyone, but The Rise of Skywalker fails at most of the basics, laser blasting itself in the foot in the process. Sometimes it does help to take off those rose tinted imperial visors and view things objectively without the loaded context of what has come before. However even as a standalone film, things are still left severely lacking.
The film is too big. It tries to do too much and despite this, strangely doesn’t achieve much at all. For starters the film is in a hell of a rush. The first ten minutes are jumpy, not least in a literal sense where at one point where the Millenium Falcon hyper drives several times in quick succession, but because it is laden with quick cut editing and off-putting, blurted dialogue. It’s hard to know just exactly what is going on. It’s not a good sign that there are Tik Tok productions with more measured exposition than the opener here.
Things do slow down thankfully towards the middle. Though once the sensory overload eases off, the main gripe that has plagued the whole trilogy again rears its head; that is that the film’s characters are very difficult to care much about. It shouldn’t really be a surprise for a franchise that is now owned by Disney, but the characters here are all too friendly. Any tension or conflict between them is resolved in a heartbeat. There is no edge or dimension. As such the interaction dynamics characters have seem artificial and stale, no matter how many times John Boyega and Oscar Isaac hug or call each other buddy. The actors do their best, but mainly just come across as wooden and ready to throw in the towel.
And who can blame them? The script is messy and scattershot. Kylo Ren and Rey, the characters that are meant to anchor the film, once again meet up, have a duel and a bit of a whinge then run off. Kylo goes through zero progression, save a short lived tacked on turn around towards the end. Rey, who is the emotional epicentre of the story has the most development, if you can actually call her identity crisis that, but even this crucial strand is executed in a clichéd and bland way.
This may be as much a factor of the next big problem, which is a distinct lack of a credible enemy. A hero can only be as heroic as their adversary requires them to be and here once again, there is no threat. No real palpable enemy. Sure planets can be blown up, a bazillion battle ships created, but this was the case in The Force Awakens and the goodies won then. By the end of The Rise of Skywalker it definitely feels like we’ve seen it all before.
Reports are that Disney had no concrete arc laid down from the beginning of this latest run, and it shows. There is a distinct feeling that we are subject to a script being made up on the fly. The reintroduction of an old character is flimsy and woefully apparent as a last minute way to cover the cracks. It’s almost something akin to an Ozzyman Reviews round-up: ‘Nah, yeah, nah, yeah..That guy who you thought was dead from the first films? Yeah he’s back and had a kid…Nah, yeah, nah yeah’. It’s a sad state of affairs when this trilogy makes the prequel series seem decent, Jar Jar and all. At the very least these films did have a unified direction in plot.
The score by John Williams is brilliant. There are some strikingly epic visuals too. However the impression is cartoonish, without any mood. Props are tacky and toy like, with one important item looking like it could be bought from Argos, not an ancient relic that can lead to an entity with the power to destroy the universe. With all that technical power at the current filmmaker’s disposal, it’s telling how the old analogue special effects of the original trilogy, based on models and ingenious camerawork have managed to be more memorable and provide greater artistic and cultural value.
By the end it’s obvious the producers are trying to tie everything up in a nice bow. The final shots do go some way to achieving this in a sense, but in a way that feels as if you have been cheated; like the film has had a story gastric bypass instead of getting off its wampa shaped behind and putting in the hard graft.
It’s a real shame because it doesn’t necessarily come down to the elements themselves, which could have worked, but just how they are executed. After all the original films were about misfits, laser swords and muppets, but still became one of the biggest franchises of all time. It ain’t what you do, Mr Disney, it's how it’s done. Because there’s nothing new under the sun.
And unfortunately that applies even more when there are two of them.
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