Nolan James
Arts & Culture Editor
The new Star Wars trilogy started out seemingly strong with The Force Awakens, though it was a copy-and-paste job of the original movie, but after the extremely negative reception The Last Jedi received, the future for the trilogy did not look bright. Now that the final installment in the trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker, has been released, I can confirm that those fears were warranted. This is not a good movie.
It seems the director, J.J. Abrams, seemed to focus all his energy on re-writing the mistakes Rian Johnson had made with The Last Jedi instead of making an actual movie. Ironically, the writing comes across as even more inconsistent than The Last Jedi’s, and without that movie’s strong visual and thematic symbolism.
The Rise of Skywalker pretends to have interesting themes about family legacy and not being a hostage to your bloodline, but did not know how to deliver.
Rey, the protagonist of this trilogy, ultimately fails to develop at all with this new story, and almost seemingly takes a step back at the end. With one exception, however, she is sadly the character who gets the most characterization, and she does not get much.
That one exception is Kylo Ren, who was expertly portrayed once again by Adam Driver. He had all of the decent scenes in the movie to himself, as well as some strong development.
Abrams did not know what to do with the rest of the characters. Ex-Stormtrooper Finn has not received any sort of development since The Force Awakens, and more-or-less just kind of exists in this movie, without any sort of purpose.
Resistance fighter Poe Dameron has it even worse. Since The Last Jedi he has actively become a despicable, unlikable, annoying character who the audience is apparently supposed to root for.
This film went nowhere, although The Last Jedi admittedly did not leave it with much to go
off of. You just kind of have to accept where this movie goes with its story while it unfolds, but none of it is any good. It just happens, and then it’s over.
