![]() ![]() Many viewers ( myself included) were enthralled with Johnson’s subversion of nostalgia and the primacy of legacy bloodlines in favor of a more egalitarian vision of the Force. Two years ago, writer-director Rian Johnson’s thematic reframing in The Last Jedi sparked a rabid and still-raging debate over the sanctity of this saga’s original elements. To understand the narrative and aesthetic decay at work in this Episode requires a brief recap. And by an hour in, the sloppiness starts to scan as contempt. The onslaught of warmed-over saga callbacks initially feels like a desperate plea to appease as many viewers as possible, especially those who disliked The Last Jedi. Cinematographer Daniel Mindel crafts rich images with shadow and bursts of red or blue light, but even he is relegated to quoting compositions from the original trilogy. The dogfights and lightsaber duels are larger than ever - but in the film’s unrelenting charge, they’ve never mattered less.ĭeaths are also distilled to mere fakeouts, as if the film is desperately afraid of having stakes. Abrams and editors Maryann Brandon and Stefan Grube can’t decide where to catch their breath the film moves at a steady, apathetic clip from the outset, rarely allowing what could be more affecting moments time to resonate. They navigate this fictional universe like dark rides on a rigid track, offering little more than brand recognition as they hurtle toward a predetermined finale.Įpisode IX feels like the most definitive and dispiriting example of Star Wars on autopilot. ![]() ![]() Those two “ Star Wars story” spin-offs feel less like feature films than video game playthroughs - or, to crib Martin Scorsese’s remarks about Marvel, they’re more like “theme parks” than movies. While I expected Abrams’ return to parallel his remix/copycat method in The Force Awakens, the movies that The Rise of Skywalker evokes for me are Rogue One and Solo. It’s a mournful mistake that leaves Episode IX as a whimper disguised as a bang. He riffs on both Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi in a needless effort to tie up threads from the entire series, believing that referencing everything that’s come before is the proper way to deliver narrative closure. In his refusal to let the dead rest, Abrams imbues the saga’s finale with the excitement of a funeral march. This confusing and lazy creative decision casts a sour aura that pervades the movie, so overburdened with retcons and retreads that it suffocates what should be a powerful conclusion to a 42-year-old story. ![]() His reemergence is unexplained in the film, announced via “a mysterious broadcast” to the galaxy in a cross-promotional event exclusive to the online video game Fortnite. As it happens, Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio have reanimated a corpse - that of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), canonically killed at the end of the original trilogy. The jarring, hastily disseminated context for this revelation evokes a fetid odor, like curdled blue milk or a rotting corpse. “The dead speak!” are the first words in director J.J. It’s clear from the opening crawl that something is rotten in The Rise of Skywalker. Note: This review includes minor spoilers for Episode IX. ![]()
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