The best and worst of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Best: Character Moments

Fictional characters come alive because of little character moments. Far too often, films rely on exposition to tell us something about a character, and genre films especially suffer from this trait. The Rise of Skywalker certainly has the same flaws, but not always.

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Chewbacca’s anguish at Leia’s death – the way he pushed Poe away because his sorrow could not be contained – cemented the fact that his closest friends were all gone. The look on Lando Calrissian’s face when he’d won the war but lost his friends. Poe’s eyes tearing up when he recounted how no one came to the aid of the Resistance on Crait and later during the Exogal fight when Poe believed he’d led the Resistance to their doom. Lando inspiring Poe to carry on Leia’s fight. And of course, Finn’s restlessness when he wasn’t sure if Rey was coming back.

But two of the highlights were C-3PO’s goodbye to his friends, which left nary a dry eye in any of the theatres and the touching reunion between father and son on Kef Bir. After being resurrected by Rey, Kylo turns to his greatest regret, his father, Han. As Han caresses his son’s face, forgiving him for what he’d done, Kylo simply replies with “Dad”, instead of “Han Solo” as he was wont to do as a Sith. And then Han says “I know”, which viewers realize is his reply to Kylo’s unspoken “I love you”. The writers leverage our Star Wars knowledge to make an emotional impact.

Worst: No Originality

One would think that J.J. Abrams would take on board people’s criticisms about how unoriginal The Force Awakens was and attempt to do something different with his return to the franchise. But he didn’t. This entire new trilogy has leaned too heavily on the formula of the first trilogy to appear original.

We deserved a finale that did something different. Homage is one thing, but this film was practically a copy-paste job. The Rise of Skywalker introduces yet another Death Star weapon and follows several of the same beats as Return of the Jedi. The best parts of the film were the ones that felt new – Hux being the spy, Lando bringing the cavalry, Kijimi, C-3PO’s sacrifice, Rey and Ben Solo using their Force bond, Leia’s legacy, to name a few. Some of the homages, including the chase on Pasaana were great nods to franchise favourites, but most of the film is predictable because it doesn’t veer away from established franchise formulas.

The end result was a haphazard and disjointed product with plenty of plot holes – how were there two transports on Pasaana; what was Finn trying to tell Rey? Despite the many faults of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, there’s no denying it was a hopeful, happy film where the heroes weren’t catastrophic disasters. No one was belittled for having fun despite being a child soldier. No children were left enslaved while animals were freed. The main cast worked brilliantly together, and the old guard had their day in the sun.

The film celebrated love and family. It should have been less predictable and more original, and Disney needs to stop making excuses for not including queer representation and just acknowledge their bias towards the matter. Also, Hollywood needs to give diverse people a chance behind the scenes, then maybe the products on screen will be refreshingly different.