203 - Star Wars Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

The Star Wars saga ends - for the third time - with The Rise of Skywalker, a return to J. J. Abrams' whimsical ways, following Rian Johnson's creative and dramatic work in The Last Jedi. Disney and Abrams have clearly taken the vocal response of the franchise's self-appointed guardians seriously, overwriting everything we liked about Johnson's film, offering us mild, defanged plot developments and characterisations, but once we accept that, we find a lot of fun in this closing chapter's sense of adventure and melodrama. It's clear from five minutes in, having been told three times that Rey's parents, revealed to be nobodies in The Last Jedi, are actually hiding a secret that makes them very important indeed, that The Rise of Skywalker intends to do away with everything that made the last film so interesting and challenging. It's a disappointment, but in declaring its intention to simply continue the soap opera and gallivant around the galaxy, the film needs to at least do a good job of that. And it does, José remarking upon how pleasurable it is to see a film of such high production values, and Mike finding that Abrams manages here to really capture the adventurous spirit of the original trilogy that he succeeded only in imitating in The Force Awakens, those core ideas of quests and gangs and brand new planets all working smoothly here. It's an arguably surprisingly beautiful film too, light and dark dramatically interacting in geometrically precise shots that emphasise scale and power. And that melodrama between Kylo and Rey that we so loved in The Last Jedi, returns and develops here, the bond between them creating shared, tangible, intimate spaces just for them. On the negative side, not only does the sense of corporate damage control never go away in the film's refusal to make anything of The Last Jedi's developments, but weak, insulting attempts at inclusivity and representation also rankle, a gay kiss especially conspicuous for just how momentary it is, a shot of two extras crudely implanted within the film's celebratory denouement simply drawing attention to its own tokenism. José suggests that the return of Billy Dee Williams as Lando is a similarly insincere and lazy effort at racial representation, as his is a minor character in the original trilogy, undemanding of the send-off given here to Luke, Leia and Han, but as the only non-white character in Star Wars of any significance whatsoever, he's brought along for the ride. And underneath it all, a real character, a big part of the gang in Episodes VII and VIII, Rose, has her role reduced to almost nothing here, an obvious response to the truly vile behaviour of the fans towards actor Kelly Marie Tran. It's a mixed bag overall, a film to watch with one eye earnest and one cynical, but we're thrilled with its action, adventure and spectacle, and its central melodrama is evocative and rewarding. A good conclusion to the saga... until Episode XII, of course. Recorded on 23rd December 2019.