Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Falls Under the Weight of Its Own Franchising

Disney shelled out several hundred million bucks producing, shooting and marketing Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. All they got was a lousy mixtape of the series’ greatest hits because money, contrary to popular belief, can’t buy everything, especially ingenuity. The movie’s journey to the screen hasn’t been smooth: Fan reaction to Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi could be disgruntled and toxic, while Johnson’s successor, Colin Trevorrow, unwisely butted heads with Kathleen Kennedy and lost, which led to J.J. Abrams’ return to the director’s chair four years after The Force Awakens. The ups and downs left The Rise of Skywalker a project in need of repair. Abrams obliged, but forgot to bring the scaffolding.
The Rise of Skywalker is a stew of ideas in need of an overarching recipe because apparently having an idea is insufficient compared to having all of them. Some are his own. Some are clear responses to Johnson’s take on the Star Wars mythos, as if Abrams thinks appeasing Johnson’s critics equates to making a fully formed movie. But none of his designs enjoy thorough development. They’re presented, then left hanging over the scenes and set pieces to follow. The parentage of Rey (Daisy Ridley), seemingly put to rest in The Last Jedi but hinted at anew in promotional material, supplies the driving plot. The battle for the soul of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)—the struggle to turn him to the light or lose him forever to the dark—continues. Finn (John Boyega), Poe (Oscar Isaac), Chewie (Joonas Suatomo) and BB-8 (puppeteer Brian Herring) bumble about and trade sitcom banter while looking for purpose in Star Wars’ grand scheme. So it goes.
The Resistance, those scrappy ragtag rebels, continue fighting the good but hopeless fight against the First Order, now characterized with 100% more Nazi energy. As they wage their respective campaigns against one another, Rey searches her spirit and looks for answers about her past, and in her search is joined by the rest of the primary cast. “I really want to see all the friends together,” Abrams recently opined. He does just that before separating them, as Star Wars movies have done since 1977. Whatever schemes he has for salvaging the wreck left in the wake of Trevorrow’s departure, he never commits to any one of them. Instead, Abrams ping pongs from the first to the last while superimposing that indecision on a blueprint of Star Wars’ past.