Did you ever hear the tragedy of The Rise of Skywalker? I wish I hadn’t.

(MAJOR SPOILERS INCOMING)

The Rise of Skywalker is a failure on a galactic scale. It is an overturned, smoldering heap of scrap at the bottom of Tatooine’s sarlacc pit, riddled with corporate blaster holes, and torn apart by the iron-clad tendrils of two directors who, like a pair of petulant children, refused to share their toys. The source of the issue? A perfect storm set into motion a long long time ago…

Star Wars is an saga that has endured for over four decades. People were awed when the Original Trilogy came out in 1977. With its never-before-seen visuals, tense story, and iconic characters, one can easily see why it was such a massive hit. Then the dark times came in 1999 when the Prequel Trilogy’s The Phantom Menace revealed itself with all the momentum of a Nerf bullet. Nigh universally ridiculed by both critics and audiences alike for its stunted dialogue, unlikable characters, and overreliance on CGI, the Prequels would go on stain the franchise–a stain only somewhat mitigated by the subsequent comics and TV shows meant to flesh out the thin characters and plot. Still even then, the movies definitely had a clear vision and while they fumbled hard executing it, George Lucas and those involved were clearly attempting to innovate.

Director George Lucas’ thoughts on the The Phantom Menace from behind-the-scene footage Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm

When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, they knew they had to win the fans back and, as a result, The Sequel Trilogy’s The Force Awakens is genius. Not necessarily from a filmmaking or storytelling perspective, (as it is most certainly not) but in the sense that it was practically designed to sell itself. The Force Awakens weaponized familiar Star Wars iconography, story beats, and character archetypes, proceeding to repackage them into a mystery box with more than enough action-adventure to distract from the blatant manipulation at play.

Ah, the mystery box. The term synonymous with director of both The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker, J.J. Abrams. Known for his work on the show, Lost, Abrams was a writer who knew exactly how to set up a great mystery…and had absolutely no idea how to resolve them. This was yet to be problem of course and The Force Awakens received favorable reviews and made bank at the box office. And while the Mouse had its hands full of gold, there was no one to steer the ship.

Our corporate overlord Photo courtesy of Street Fight Radio

The funny thing is, while there were certainly big questions posed such as, “Who are Rey’s parents?” or, “Where did Snoke come from?” the truth is that there was little in the way of a general roadmap or an overarching story structure; a definite failure on the part of Disney. In fact, the writers had near total creative autonomy when it came to each new installment, something that may have worked in the trilogy’s favor if specific writers had stayed for the entire process. They did not.

Then next director/writer Rian Johnson did the unthinkable. Something that would shatter the community into a million fragments. He had the sheer audacity to answer the questions. Now granted, a fair few were seen as an anticlimax or subversion of expectation for the sake of it but it’s simply undeniable that his answers were bold, decisive, and had the potential take Star Wars where it had never been before. “To Hell with Snoke and Rey’s parents, they were irrelevant,” The Last Jedi proudly proclaimed. Now without proper setup and purpose, this would be entirely foolhardy but, to Rian’s credit, he did the legwork. Rey being from a family of nobodies solidified the series’ themes that anyone could be a hero and Kylo Ren killing Snoke off early strengthened his ties to his own personal beliefs. Furthermore, both serve to free the primary pro and antagonists from acting as a result of outside forces. They were free to pursue a character driven path and weren’t doomed to repeat the events of Return of the Jedi in the next movie, whatever it might be about…

…or they could just bring Palpatine back outta nowhere…sure, why not. The sheer plot contrivances needed to pull something this significant off in the finale of all things would be utterly ridiculous. Not to mention it would practically invalidate Anakin’s journey across 6 whole movies and 7 lengthy seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Oh well, so much for tHe ChOsEn OnE.

An apt summary of the Sequel Trilogy Photo courtesy of u/CaptainA789 via Reddit

While The Last Jedi did leave the franchise with very limited tools to build its successor, had the storylines and themes from TLJ carried over, the trilogy would have felt cohesive at the absolute least. The Mouse though, saw the backlash that the film had earned and recoiled in terror at the prospect of a slightly lower profit margin. While never explicitly stated, based on his choices in The Rise of Skywalker, it’s clear that Abrams too had a bone to pick with Rian for taking his toys away. Any hope for a satisfying finale was lost: Rey’s family? Palpatine. Snoke? Well, Palpatine was in charge. Kylo becoming the primary antagonist? Nah, Palpy’s got that mate. All this even though there was borderline nothing to hint towards it in the prior films? Yup.

Logic would dictate that a character so central to the plot AND given the degree of exposition that he did would be a relatively rounded one. Take Thanos from Avengers: Infinity War. While completely forgettable and one-dimensional until his appearance in Infinity War, Thanos was given substantial time to emote and convey enough depth to endear himself to the audience, even take his side after all the terrible things he does. All in one film. While the parallel isn’t quite one to one given that Thanos was hinted at incessantly up until his debut, it remains close enough for the point to be made. Palpatine has more than enough time in The Rise of Skywalker to establish a better motive than the equivalent of “Because I’m evil” or perhaps a better plan than the one rife with coincidences and conflicting goals that he acts upon. At the very least, Palpatine could have done the courtesy of explaining how he so brazenly defied death after exploding not once, but twice on the Second Death Star and presumably being launched into the icy vacuum of space immediately afterwards more than 20 years prior. Apparently, “the dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural” an oft memed line from the aforementioned Prequels, recited again by Palpatine was sufficient enough an explanation for Abrams to consider his work done on that front.

The explanation we received Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm

In his desperate attempt to channel the Original Trilogy to save his “film,” Abrams neglected to give real closure to any of the supporting characters that were supposed to be the focus of this chapter of the saga. Poe and Finn have absolutely no growth, and General Hux is unceremoniously killed off in the first 30 minutes. Meanwhile, actor Kelly Marie’s Tran’s character, Rose (introduced in The Last Jedi), essentially ceases to exist. In their stead, audiences received a frankly impressive list of fresh McGuffins, a new roster of characters to serve a purpose the old ones could have easily filled, and likely crippling depression as well. If that wasn’t bad enough, the pandering is incessant. First, Lando appears for no reason, then Chewbacca is presumed dead to pull at the heartstrings (but not to worry, he’s fine of course), afterwards C3PO is presumed “dead” (also fine), thereafter the cast visits the ruins of the Second Death Star for reasons that would immediately be circumvented after the obligatory action set piece there, and finally Rey travels to Tatooine to conclude her “arc” despite the place having zero emotional connection to her character.

Ironically enough, there exists an early draft of episode 9’s script entitled Duel of the Fates. While still imperfect, it was written when Colin Trevorrow was still slated to be director of 9 and it actually attempts to build upon The Last Jedi instead of hacking it to pieces. As a result, it ended up addressing many of the flaws present in the dumpster fire that is The Rise of Skywalker and provided a better alternative before Abrams ever set foot on set.

Was the trade-off really worth it?

No. No it was not.

Featured Image–A misleading promotional poster that fails to convey the utter magnitude of Palpatine’s importance

Courtesy of Disney

by Alexander Chu