Analyzing the shortcomings of Rise of Skywalker in the Star Wars saga

This is the moment that's commonly thought of as souring the fan base on the Star Wars franchise. However, despite this uproarious backlash to The Last Jedi, this was not the nail in the coffin for the sequel trilogy's legacy. That would be the Rise of Skywalker. A compromised effort from the start, the production of the film, behind the scenes drama, and real world tragedy caused the third installment of the sequel trilogy to stumble so hard that its creative failure has informed almost every decision Disney has made since. Somehow Palpatine returned. Cast your mind back to an era not that long ago, when the Star Wars fandom was both hungry for new material and yet deeply fractured in the afterglow of the prequel trilogy. You had older fans who rejected the glossier aesthetic of the prequels and complained of wooden acting, poorly structured storytelling, and a lack of a central protagonist. And then you also had a new generation of fans who loved the prequels for their humor and the epic tragedy of Anakin's fall to the dark side. It was in the context of this divided fan base that Disney bought Lucasfilm and started the highly anticipated process of making the long-awaited sequel trilogy. Kathleen Kennedy, the longtime Lucas and Spielberg producing partner, was named as the new head of Lucasfilm, and plans were set in motion to restore Star Wars to the top of Tinseltown. Kennedy and the other Lucasfilm producers selected director J.J. Abrams to take on the task of jump-starting a new era of the Star Wars franchise with Episode VII. He and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan decided things needed to be taken back to the basics for the first installment of this proposed epic, restore a status quo that everyone was familiar with, and then create an arc over three films that would do something bold, new, and exciting. I very purposely wanted to sort of revisit the old in order to start and tell the new. And that's largely what Force Awakens accomplished. Is the movie perfect? Frankly, no. It's a franchise soft reboot that has some basic character setup and some universe building that's sloppy. Where'd you get that? A good question for another time. That all being said, the film expertly sets up Rey, Finn, Kylo, and a new dynamic for the franchise going forward. Practical effects, lightsaber battles, and iconic good-versus-evil storytelling that we've all come to expect from a Star Wars movie. While some fans levied criticism that the film was too narratively similar to the iconic 1977 forebearer, others were enraptured by the repositioning of Joseph Campbell's heroic archetype. Who was Rey related to? Why did her parents abandon her? Audiences across the globe wanted answers, and the box office receipts showed it. Episode 7 pulled in over $2 billion worldwide. However, when it came time to create the second film in the trilogy, things started to go off the rails. Originally, before the Disney sale, there had been a plan by George Lucas for a sequel trilogy that was drastically different from what Kathleen Kennedy had elected to pursue. In the early stages of development, the powers that be even paid J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan to come up with a rough overview of what the arc of the trilogy was going to be. But they really wanted the individual directors that were hired to make these films to be in control of their stories. This is a great idea, in theory. But when it comes time to actually execute, giving the directors too much freedom led to a game of creative telephone. Simply put, they didn't have a concrete plan, and that led to some substantial problems. After the resounding success of Force Awakens, many directors were approached, but ultimately, Rian Johnson, director of indie darling Brick and Looper, was selected. Johnson's initial pitch to Kathleen Kennedy was that he wanted to do something creatively uncompromised. His entire goal was to make a Star Wars movie unlike anyone had ever made before, to interrogate the old myths and deconstruct them and then rebuild them for a new generation. This bold swing was exactly what everyone thought was required to replicate a similar feeling to being in the theater in 1980 and seeing the finale of The Empire Strikes Back, though many fans suggest that this is the linchpin idea that sank the entire sequel trilogy. They suggest that Luke Skywalker's characterization is completely off-base, and that the structure of the movie alienates the core fans of Star Wars. Taking Luke, boiling him down to a cynical old loner, and then ultimately killing him, making this the final Skywalker story, just didn't sit well with a specific component of the audience. It's time for the Jedi to end. Additionally, the way that Last Jedi handles the Rey-Chosen-One arc, similarly replicating the Luke-I-Am-Your-Father moment, turned a lot of heads. When Kylo Ren tells Rey that she's not special, not genetically related to a character we know and isn't important, that actually starts a new paradigm narratively. Sure, some audience members didn't like it because they wanted her to be connected to an established lineage, as is tradition in the Star Wars universe. But this idea of expanding the Chosen One archetype and deconstructing it is good. Really interrogating why it is that we need it as a culture and what service it performs is a great new evolution for the franchise. The Last Jedi obviously set up an arc where Rey was going to have to come to terms with these ideas and move towards the middle. She was going to have to be the first Grey Jedi, and the first non-Chosen One protagonist of the universe, but that would not come to pass. Because after the fan backlash against Last Jedi, Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm got cold feet. Despite Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow working on a third film, titled Duel of the Fates, Lucasfilm decided to pivot and reconceptualize the film. Gone was the Rey as a Grey Jedi idea, out was the structure of the whole story. They needed another course correct. They had to win everyone back over the seal and deal of a fan-beloved third entry. They wanted a controversial second installment, but the reaction they got was well beyond what they were expecting. So how did they attempt to save Star Wars for a second time. Bring back J.J. Abrams. The goal for this movie, the job was to end not just this trilogy, but to end, you know, nine films. Rise of Skywalker is a truly compromised product. Everything about the movie is backtracking on the progress that Last Jedi set up, and it's basically a film equivalent of someone saying, hey, I'm sorry I forgot your birthday. The film stops just short of fully bringing Luke back to life, but, you know, does feature a hefty Force Ghost Luke pep talk. The Jedi's weapon deserves more respect. Episode 9 was dealing with real-world production hindrances, as well as trying to pull off the impossible feat of landing a satisfying ending, all on top of the tragic news that Carrie Fisher had passed away in between filming the second and third films. So, despite the third sequel being planned to initially be her spotlight vehicle, they had to pivot away from that as well. While they did use outtakes and deleted scenes with her from Force Awakens and Last Jedi to have her character in the movie, nothing about it felt grounded or genuine. Which is why you get so much of the previously mentioned Force Ghost Luke and Dream Daddy Han Solo. Look, I didn't write this, don't blame me. The main issue with Rise of Skywalker isn't the production issues, or the poor behind-the-scenes decisions, or the complete fumbling of Finn's character. No, it's not even the preposterous idea that fans would be excited by a grand finale that features voice cameo team-ups from beloved characters from across the franchise. Are you kidding me? We're supposed to get excited about hearing Ewan McGregor and Samuel Jackson? Hearing them? It's not any of that. It's how they chose to resolve the main issue of Rey's lineage. Chris Terrio, screenwriter for a bunch of the Zack Snyder DCEU projects and co-writer of Argo, was brought on to co-write the script with J.J. Abrams. You know what he did? He went onto Reddit and came up with the top five possibilities that the fans were clamoring for, and the two of them eventually decided the best way to walk back Rian Johnson's idea that Rey wasn't related to anyone special was to make her related to Palpatine. Somehow Palpatine returned. Yeah, they really did that. They just hand-waved the best idea in the whole trilogy away by having Kylo Ren say, You're his granddaughter. You are a palpatine. It's so incredibly clear that this was not the plan. This does not feel like a natural outgrowth of the story up until this point. A successful story is when something feels surprising yet inevitable. And this, this doesn't feel inevitable at all. This feels like you can see the marionette strings dangling off all the actors as JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio are desperately trying to make everyone happy. This film is so creatively bankrupt that they kill Chewbacca in one scene and then immediately bring him back the following scene because, even though the character is highly beloved, he has nothing to do narratively and serves no storytelling purpose. But we can't kill him. That would make people sad. This level of unimaginative thinking is rarely seen on filmmaking of this scale. None of the arcs in Rise of Skywalker work. So much of the movie is dedicated to the Rey-Lo pairing that there's almost no room for anyone else. Finn, Poe, and the rest of the cast basically just tread water. There's so little thought put into Finn, He doesn't even get a payoff for the scene where he's about to die screaming, Ray, I have something to tell you. And that's to say nothing of how Kelly Marie Tran's Rose was treated. They just basically didn't include her in the movie at all. They made her an extra standing in the background, completely reprehensible to capitulate to a very vocal minority of so-called fans this way. Rise of Skywalker, in many ways, is the Rosetta Stone for the Star Wars fandom we have today. This isn't dunking on Star Wars fans. I am one. But objectively, I think it's pretty clear that the fandom has a toxicity problem. Some of that is the polarization and political discourse that's just naturally happening in the world today. And an additional component, one that's pretty tricky to discuss without stepping on a cultural landmine, is the fact that Disney and Lucasfilm, they aren't making quality content, and they're expecting us to react like they are. And a lot of these issues go back to the rise of Skywalker. Instead of committing to a creative vision, one made by creatives with authorial intent, they pivoted because the fanbase was too incensed. I'm not even saying The Duel of Fates would have been that much better than Rise of Skywalker, but at least it would have been a creative vision built off its own momentum. It would have been a story that would have concluded under its own steam, as opposed to Rise of Skywalker, which is just compromise after compromise after compromise, which leaves no one happy. Look at the way the actors have all talked about the experience of filming Star Wars as a whole. Oscar Isaac flippantly said he'd only return to the role of Poe if he needed another house or something. Similarly, John Boyega has been very vocal about how he felt repeatedly betrayed by Disney, and when asked if he'd return, said the iconic line, You ain't gonna Disney Plus me. I ain't getting no Disney Plus. Are Rise of Skywalker's problems directly J.J. Abrams' fault? No. He was put in between a rock and a hard place and asked to perform a magic trick that was literally not going to make everyone happy. The confluence of Carrie Fisher's death, Lucasfilm feeling like they had to pivot away from the threads established by Last Jedi, and just the normal difficulty of tying up a trilogy, it's a miracle the film even remotely works. But you can see how the fallout from this project has impacted him, both as a person and as a director. Since Rise of Skywalker, Abrams has mostly stayed quiet behind the scenes. He's been producing mostly forgettable projects, but hasn't directed a major motion picture since. Abrams' quote about revisiting the old before starting to tell the new is actually a pretty smart way to re-jumpstart a fanbase. The only problem is that when the new actually was told, the people in positions of power got nervous, backed out, and desperately tried to claw back to something more familiar. Only problem being, the past is dead. We can't revisit it. It died to give birth to the present, and a denial of that is what killed Star Wars.