Review of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) by Corroded — 20 Dec 2019

This film is an absolute disaster. The pacing is an absolute mess, with hard, what feels like almost smash cuts between scenes at times. The editing is super jarring. That's before we even get to the plot. It's about two movies worth of plot, smashed into one. Every scene is rushed, it moves at a thousand miles an hour, and not only dialled up to eleven, but maybe fifteen. There are literally thousands (maybe even tens of thousands) of new Sith Star Destroyers, each with a planet destroying laser, which is also the achilles heel of the entire design. Also they decided to build all these ships on a planet which left them entirely vulnerable to a surprise attack, where the ships can't leave without being guided, or use their shields. So they built ships with a massively exploitable flaw, on a planet where they can't use shields or leave without being guided away by a command ship. I'm sure this is just because they are arrogant or something. Tactical genius.

I've not even really got into the super bad bits. Leia is retconned to being a Jedi, because someone needs to train Rey now. Even though Luke can now affect the world as a force ghost, given he lifts a sunken X-Wing from the sea, and catches a Lightsaber. I imagine it'd be pretty useful to be a totally impervious force ghost Jedi. So we've got one pretty serious retcon, and then a canon issue (though we can thank Rian for establishing that one).

Then we have force healing (and actually, force resurrection). Ben resurrects Rey, using his life force. I vaguely remember in Episode III that the ability to bring people back to life was regarded as a Sith power. But Ben uses it anyway, and the force ghosts his way out of there. We've got force healing now established at the very last stage of nine films, which now kinda makes Obi-Wan look a bit heartless watching his master die when apparently this is a common technique, or we're lead to believe the Jedi never bothered to train anyone this before now. I guess they were arrogant and assumed they'd never be hurt. I guess force not let people die wasn't seen as super important.

Historically, the prequels and cartoons all set before the original trilogy have been able to add new abilities and powers. We have a lot of brand new abilities on show here that somehow weren't available to the countless generations of Jedis before. The license to create new abilities isn't really here, because it just raises questions about why these things weren't used before. Both the Jedi and the Sith are seriously limited in power. It's the end of a war.

Palpatine force lightnings a fleet. What. The. Hell.

Every Skywalker in this goes out like a chump. Luke did in TLJ. Leia manages to get her son shanked, then dying trying to communicate with him. Then Ben gives his life and flat lines. Skywalker legacy is gone. Literally completely dead. You can call a Palpatine a Skywalker if you want but it doesn't make it so. This is the total fall of Skywalker, not a rise. Luke says he's wrong about staying on the island, and he did so out of fear. Fear. I vaguely remember Yoda saying something about fear once. Luke exiles himself, on an island, when his force ghosty friends are around for potentially decades, out of fear. You know, the path to the dark side. Right-o.

This is Star Wars by people who do not understand Star Wars.