The Rise of Skywalker - Initial Thoughts
Dec. 22nd, 2019 09:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiSpoiler Free:
It deserved more space. I agree with those who say it's jam-packed and ticks a lot of boxes. I liked it but wish it had more breathing room.
I also agree the trilogy, as a whole, is incoherent, with The Rise of Skywalker (TRoS) ignoring The Last Jedi (TLJ) as much as possible without (much) literal retconning. And it's fair to say TLJ ignored a lot of The Force Awakens (TFA). The result is two films that sort of track and a middle film that doesn’t, with the final film trying to do two-film’s worth of storytelling. [1]
I also agree a saving grace, in all three, is the characters: the core actors are great, their performances excellent, their chemistry palpable, both among the younger crew and in their relationships with the older guard. This pleases me enormously as a character-oriented viewer—and, indeed, the core four from these movies are the most recent experience I've had in film/TV of falling in love with a new set of characters, the next most recent being Game of Thrones (starting 2011). All this is to say, it’s very hard for me to find characters I love, and that this trilogy accomplished it must stand for something real.
I also like the film's sociopolitical vantage point. Star Wars has always engaged with the real world. The original trilogy harkened back to the Nazis and arguably alluded to Vietnam with Endor. The prequels explicitly addressed the post-9/11 years, critiquing the erosion of democracy in the name of protection from external threat. This trilogy, and TRoS in particular, addresses our current moment of seeming helplessness, of the consolidation of power in the hands of ever fewer, the acceleration of climate devastation, and the mounting fear that those of us who don’t want these evils (they are evils) are simply too outgunned, literally and financially, to do anything. The basic message of TRoS is to keep hope alive; we have a chance. The way it executes the good guys' victory (is that a spoiler?) is not easy to relate to the real world, but the message of hope remains crucial. And perhaps on a real-world level, this makes the message of TRoS the most important of the Star Wars movies'.
Spoilers follow
Overall, I wish this movie could have been a TV series. Its subplots are more-or-less all good, and if it had five or ten hour-long episodes to explore them, it could have been astounding, packing several emotional bangs. I hope we may get an extended cut to allow more breathing room and story development. As it was, it blew by too fast. Even the Rey/Kylo Ren arc, which was well executed and the arc that tracked best across all three movies, fell a little flat for me based on pacing: they had no real moments to talk, no space to develop their relationship outside of fights and heroic actions.
(Big spoilers) I have mixed feelings about Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter. On the con side, it feels both obvious (it's been a common guess since TFA) and mostly unprepared (Palpatine appears out of nowhere this movie). It is also, I'd argue, a direct retcon of one of the most interesting arguments of TLJ: that you don't have to come from some epic lineage to be an epic person. I will give a partial pass to Kylo's "what I told you was true from a certain POV," because it is so very Star Warsian, but as a narrative turn from TLJ to TRoS, it felt inept.
On the pro side, it accomplished the single most important thing the movie needed to accomplish: it explained Rey's bizarre powers. It resolved why she's been so Mary-Sue-ish, and did it in an interesting way that put her front and center as protagonist with more conflict and meaningful choices than she's ever had before. (While I love putting Carrie Fisher first in the credits, it's weird that the protagonist got fourth billing.)
Overall, I liked Palpatine's presence. Ian McDiarmid always has complete command of the character. (I consider him to be the only person who put in a compelling performance in Revenge fo the Sith.) The explanation that Snoke was a clone, or almost literally a puppet, fit well with his sudden and unexplained ascendance and his aura of fakeness, right down to his being CGI. I agree that the choice to bring him back somewhat vitiates Darth Vader's sacrifice in RotJ, but on another level, it creates a nice nine-movie arc, from Palpatine's rise to his eventual defeat, with McDiarmid's signature performance as a through-line.
On Ben dying, it was written and acted well. Many have observed that he had to die in order to atone for his atrocities narratively. I accept that this is true as a convention, but it bothers me as an ethical stance. I won't go into philosophical detail here, but I generally dislike the idea that people have to die to "atone" for certain crimes. It is the logic of the death penalty, which, like most developed nations, I oppose. Nothing can truly atone for some crimes. The better response to me seems the Gawain and the Green Knight response of living with it, carrying the weight and doing what one can throughout life to do better, be better, and make amends where possible, while never forgetting. That is restorative justice.
Little Notes:
The film had too many new side characters, and cutting back here could have economized on storytelling without enraging TLJ haters or failing to complete the story.
This trilogy is too grand in scale: from the sudden ascendance of the First Order to Palpatine's massive fleet to the Dunkirkian arrival of an even more massive rebel fleet, it's too much with too little explanation. The trilogy would, I think, have been more compelling in broad plot strokes if its view of galactic politics (and even space battle logistics) had been scaled to be more plausible.
It's funny how with three major characters dying, I feel like no one died. This goes back to plausibility. We're given battle scenarios that would have been massacres and it seems scarcely a rebel extra actually dies. It didn't need to be Rogue One but some real casualties would have given a sense of stakes—and it could have been a valid use of a lot of those new secondary characters.
Along similar lines, it's funny how affecting it was to have Poe shot in the arm, because it felt real. (Side note: are Poe and Leia the only major SW characters to ever be hit by stormtroopers, and both in the arm?)
Speaking of Poe and Leia, I really like their relationship throughout all three movies. If it occasionally skimps on organic development, its bones are very strong. The mentor–protégé love between them feels real. And I think I like it most because it feels like a "found" relationship: it doesn't feel like he was written for her character. It just feels like they're two people who clicked, and that's the goal of good character relationships, I think.
I liked Finn's Force sensitivity. A shame it got dropped in TLJ, but it gotten taken up well here.
I join most everyone else in being impressed with how they worked Leia into the story: not an easy task and done with respect for Carrie Fisher, reverence for Leia's place in the SW universe, and more extensive, better executed storytelling than I had hoped for. The things you can do in editing!
Okay, that's it for now. I may have more thinky thoughts later, but this has gotten long enough.
Note:
[1] Fan toxicity is partly to blame for the incoherence. The original concept seems to have been lacking in a three-film outline (or enough of one), and that’s on the producers, but the TRoS team got put in an untenable position of doubtless facing death threats, albeit from a small subset of the fanbase, if they didn’t appease fans. Disney is immensely, terrifyingly powerful, but this film was made in fear, and that is not a sound basis for the authentic production of good art.
It deserved more space. I agree with those who say it's jam-packed and ticks a lot of boxes. I liked it but wish it had more breathing room.
I also agree the trilogy, as a whole, is incoherent, with The Rise of Skywalker (TRoS) ignoring The Last Jedi (TLJ) as much as possible without (much) literal retconning. And it's fair to say TLJ ignored a lot of The Force Awakens (TFA). The result is two films that sort of track and a middle film that doesn’t, with the final film trying to do two-film’s worth of storytelling. [1]
I also agree a saving grace, in all three, is the characters: the core actors are great, their performances excellent, their chemistry palpable, both among the younger crew and in their relationships with the older guard. This pleases me enormously as a character-oriented viewer—and, indeed, the core four from these movies are the most recent experience I've had in film/TV of falling in love with a new set of characters, the next most recent being Game of Thrones (starting 2011). All this is to say, it’s very hard for me to find characters I love, and that this trilogy accomplished it must stand for something real.
I also like the film's sociopolitical vantage point. Star Wars has always engaged with the real world. The original trilogy harkened back to the Nazis and arguably alluded to Vietnam with Endor. The prequels explicitly addressed the post-9/11 years, critiquing the erosion of democracy in the name of protection from external threat. This trilogy, and TRoS in particular, addresses our current moment of seeming helplessness, of the consolidation of power in the hands of ever fewer, the acceleration of climate devastation, and the mounting fear that those of us who don’t want these evils (they are evils) are simply too outgunned, literally and financially, to do anything. The basic message of TRoS is to keep hope alive; we have a chance. The way it executes the good guys' victory (is that a spoiler?) is not easy to relate to the real world, but the message of hope remains crucial. And perhaps on a real-world level, this makes the message of TRoS the most important of the Star Wars movies'.
Spoilers follow
Overall, I wish this movie could have been a TV series. Its subplots are more-or-less all good, and if it had five or ten hour-long episodes to explore them, it could have been astounding, packing several emotional bangs. I hope we may get an extended cut to allow more breathing room and story development. As it was, it blew by too fast. Even the Rey/Kylo Ren arc, which was well executed and the arc that tracked best across all three movies, fell a little flat for me based on pacing: they had no real moments to talk, no space to develop their relationship outside of fights and heroic actions.
(Big spoilers) I have mixed feelings about Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter. On the con side, it feels both obvious (it's been a common guess since TFA) and mostly unprepared (Palpatine appears out of nowhere this movie). It is also, I'd argue, a direct retcon of one of the most interesting arguments of TLJ: that you don't have to come from some epic lineage to be an epic person. I will give a partial pass to Kylo's "what I told you was true from a certain POV," because it is so very Star Warsian, but as a narrative turn from TLJ to TRoS, it felt inept.
On the pro side, it accomplished the single most important thing the movie needed to accomplish: it explained Rey's bizarre powers. It resolved why she's been so Mary-Sue-ish, and did it in an interesting way that put her front and center as protagonist with more conflict and meaningful choices than she's ever had before. (While I love putting Carrie Fisher first in the credits, it's weird that the protagonist got fourth billing.)
Overall, I liked Palpatine's presence. Ian McDiarmid always has complete command of the character. (I consider him to be the only person who put in a compelling performance in Revenge fo the Sith.) The explanation that Snoke was a clone, or almost literally a puppet, fit well with his sudden and unexplained ascendance and his aura of fakeness, right down to his being CGI. I agree that the choice to bring him back somewhat vitiates Darth Vader's sacrifice in RotJ, but on another level, it creates a nice nine-movie arc, from Palpatine's rise to his eventual defeat, with McDiarmid's signature performance as a through-line.
On Ben dying, it was written and acted well. Many have observed that he had to die in order to atone for his atrocities narratively. I accept that this is true as a convention, but it bothers me as an ethical stance. I won't go into philosophical detail here, but I generally dislike the idea that people have to die to "atone" for certain crimes. It is the logic of the death penalty, which, like most developed nations, I oppose. Nothing can truly atone for some crimes. The better response to me seems the Gawain and the Green Knight response of living with it, carrying the weight and doing what one can throughout life to do better, be better, and make amends where possible, while never forgetting. That is restorative justice.
Little Notes:
The film had too many new side characters, and cutting back here could have economized on storytelling without enraging TLJ haters or failing to complete the story.
This trilogy is too grand in scale: from the sudden ascendance of the First Order to Palpatine's massive fleet to the Dunkirkian arrival of an even more massive rebel fleet, it's too much with too little explanation. The trilogy would, I think, have been more compelling in broad plot strokes if its view of galactic politics (and even space battle logistics) had been scaled to be more plausible.
It's funny how with three major characters dying, I feel like no one died. This goes back to plausibility. We're given battle scenarios that would have been massacres and it seems scarcely a rebel extra actually dies. It didn't need to be Rogue One but some real casualties would have given a sense of stakes—and it could have been a valid use of a lot of those new secondary characters.
Along similar lines, it's funny how affecting it was to have Poe shot in the arm, because it felt real. (Side note: are Poe and Leia the only major SW characters to ever be hit by stormtroopers, and both in the arm?)
Speaking of Poe and Leia, I really like their relationship throughout all three movies. If it occasionally skimps on organic development, its bones are very strong. The mentor–protégé love between them feels real. And I think I like it most because it feels like a "found" relationship: it doesn't feel like he was written for her character. It just feels like they're two people who clicked, and that's the goal of good character relationships, I think.
I liked Finn's Force sensitivity. A shame it got dropped in TLJ, but it gotten taken up well here.
I join most everyone else in being impressed with how they worked Leia into the story: not an easy task and done with respect for Carrie Fisher, reverence for Leia's place in the SW universe, and more extensive, better executed storytelling than I had hoped for. The things you can do in editing!
Okay, that's it for now. I may have more thinky thoughts later, but this has gotten long enough.
Note:
[1] Fan toxicity is partly to blame for the incoherence. The original concept seems to have been lacking in a three-film outline (or enough of one), and that’s on the producers, but the TRoS team got put in an untenable position of doubtless facing death threats, albeit from a small subset of the fanbase, if they didn’t appease fans. Disney is immensely, terrifyingly powerful, but this film was made in fear, and that is not a sound basis for the authentic production of good art.
