Spoiler Free Review: Star Wars IX Rise of Skywalker

I will avoid most spoilers and focus on my overall impression. Next week I’ll probably do a more spoilery review because there is a lot to talk about. In particular, I know there are a lot of creative decisions about how Episode VIII and IX connect but aside from a broad point, I’m putting those aside.

Not unlike Episode VIII, I felt there was a shorter, better film here that could have been made. Star Wars films share a property with James Bond films in that plots often take a back seat to set pieces. If you think of the long speeder race in Episode I, which sits there on a minimal plot pretext, there’s a whole history of things that happen just so there can be a sequence were things happen. Episode IX is no different but much of what I feel is padding is at the start.

An obvious comparison is with the Tatooine segment at the start of Return of the Jedi. However, unlike the over-complicated rescue-Han segment, the first act of Rise of Skywalker serves an almost opposite purpose. Instead of a spill over of the plot from the previous film, there is a need to essentially re-start a plot and get the characters moving again. Consequently, amid the macguffin hunts, there is a sense of all the characters looking for what the film’s plot will be.

Luckily, they find the plot. I enjoyed the first 30-40 minutes of the film as silly space-opera planet-hopping spectacle but it felt disposable. However, I then clicked more into tune with the film, stopped analysing and comparing and really, really started loving the heck out of it.

I don’t think it is a spoiler to say that Kylo Ren continues to be a substantial character in the film. I suspect Adam Driver’s performance will be the thing that defines this third trilogy. His character doesn’t make a great deal of sense and like Vader and Anakin, a lot of character twists depend on the force and psychic manipulation. Daisy Ridley’s Rey gets a greater range to play with and the film fully commits to her being the heart of the film and also makes zero bones about her being a mega-powerful force user on a scale that hasn’t been demonstrated before. I’m not saying that either Ren or Rey’s dark side struggles are wholly convincing but both actors give it a good shot and do a much, much better job than has been achieved in any Star Wars film to date. If you can’t make the tension convincing and at least feel like the characters are at risk of succumbing to evil or finding a route to redemption (regardless of what we know or might guess about the eventual plot outcome) then it saps the film of tension.

With the focus on the battle for the souls of Rey and Kylo Ren taking centre stage, the film has some real heft. The supporting characters get less of a good deal as a consequence — I’ll talk more about that in a spoiler review.

Visually, this is everything I wanted. Lots of classic Star Wars big picture ideas and some novel takes. It is a banquet for the eyes and I gorged myself.

Flaws? So, so many. However, very much all of them revolve around spoilers and the issue of how to follow Episode XIII. There was an openness to Rian Johnson’s film that I feel really freed the franchise to head off in multiple directions. Putting directors and writers aside, inevitably that very freedom is a massive problem for a film that (at least for the time being) has to wrap up forty-years of previous films. Openness is not a great situation to be in plot-wise for the start of a conclusion. So the story takes a few easy ways out and honestly that’s probably for the best because it is clear from the first act that the writers were finding it hard to get the story focussed on something.

Flaws though? Show me a flawless Star Wars film. There isn’t one, not even The Empire Strikes Back or a New Hope. The Saturday morning serial that is a key influence on Star Wars and the often bitty nature of the films relied on the sudden reversal of cliffhangers and plot points to create temporary tension. Star Wars films work poorly as visual novels and the set of films that tried hardest for that quality were the prequels where it did not work out well.

I’m not going to do a ranking until I’ve rewatched it but overall it delivered and satisfied all my Star Wars cravings for another decade. Your experience will certainly vary (again, its Star Wars and love/hate it is part of the nature of the franchise). At the screening I watched, people applauded at the end but I suspect alcohol and full Christmas bellies may have played a part.