Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Lets Go of the Past

I distinctly remember watching Star Wars: A New Hope from a blanket fort on the roof of my parents’ station wagon at a local drive-in theater. I think that’s remarkable, because I watched that film, in its entirety, around 30 times prior to the ready access to either analog or digital medium. Despite all the distractions of the drive-in crowd and the late hour, I was still completely absorbed into the Skywalker galaxy and all the magical things it offered. Even the things that were terrifying.

The heroes assemble. Walt Disney Studios

I know I am not alone in this, and I understand this is what fuels much of the online debates among legacy Star Wars fans. (I honestly don’t know what the prequel-era fanboys get all hot and bothered about, but they sure do, don’t they?) Star Wars means a lot to a lot of people, which is almost a ridiculous understatement considering some people have started a Force religion—I will discuss the time I tried to evangelize the Force at Bible camp another time, but Joseph Campbell would be proud. Needless to say, any filmmaker who would undertake telling stories that many people find sacred should take pause to consider this, or else fall to hubris of galactic proportions. Even more so if you are the director who has to tell the final story in a saga that spans generations and lifetimes, as J. J. Abrams is in The Rise of Skywalker. How can anyone ever do that right? The answer is typically Abrams: the answer is you don’t.

Much like the roguish heroes at the heart of all but the Clone Wars–era films, Abrams has decidedly dodged the matter of making the “final” film. Instead, he has delivered a capstone Star Wars film that resonates with our deepest intuitions and longing for story—that is to say when one story ends, another certainly begins. The power of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is not how it ends a plot line that has driven nine movies, but how it curves the story into an exciting and potentially infinite future. Star Wars has legitimately become the mythic universe that Lucas sought to create a long, long, time ago. This is no longer one story about a single man; it is a pantheon of adventures and stories that have grown far beyond one filmmaker, one fandom, or one family tree.

Who owns the Falcon, really? Walt Disney Studios

The Rise of Skywalker gets back to the heart of Star Wars in a way that neither The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi did, even if they came close on a scene-by-scene basis. The story engine that drives every scene of this film is the relations between friends, family, allies, and partners. The banter offers some of the funniest and natural dialogue yet, and C-3Po (Anthony Daniels) steals the scene at several times. Rey (Daisy Ridley), Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) have a stronger chemistry than ever, and new compatriots Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell) and Jannah (Naomi Ackie) round out the crew with new relationships, new dimensions, and likely plenty of new stories to follow. The film all but announces a new story line of some sort around Jannah’s history, and that is something to be excited about. Even the Millennium Falcon seems alive as a character in the strongest way yet, brought to life in a way all fans will appreciate. Even Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) is given story space to perform in a way that hearkens back to his howl on Bespin while shadowing it with an even deeper loss. We feel you, Chewie, we really do.

The wreckage of the Empire. Walt Disney Studios

You can’t have this movie without Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), of course. I’m pledged to avoid spoilers, so there is not much I can say about his role in The Rise of Skywalker. However, I will say he has delivered a nuanced performance that manages by turns to channel Han (Harrison Ford), Leia (Carrie Fisher), and Darth Vader/Anakin (David Prowse/Hayden Christensen) and achieves a Shakespearean level of range that insures the key final moments of the Skywalker Saga embody all they ought to. Likewise, Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is at his most fearsome, evil, and powerful. He is much more than Vader’s puppetmaster, and the depths of his Sith-powered evil are both chilling and well sized for the epic conclusion to what is as much as his story as it is that of the Skywalkers. Force lightning the likes of which you have never seen before or will ever see again, people.

The Rise of Skywalker is also a visual tour de force. There are few frames in this film that aren’t gorgeous or visually poetic in a way that has been essential to Star Wars’ most cinematic moments. Even shots that would be perfunctory in a lesser genre film are filled with details and thought that will no doubt reward viewing up to or including 30 times. I guarantee I will be seeing this one in the theaters again, in 3D, because of all of the spaceships and the Star Wars. There is a lot happening, and there is a lot to see. Hit the bathrooms before you go into the theater, because you will miss something if you have to take a break. This is damn fine filmmaking.

Keri Russell as Zorii Bliss. Walt Disney Studios

They don’t pay me the big bucks to fan-gush all over everything all of the time, so I need to get some hard-nosed film-critic stuff in here too. The Rise of Skywalker captures some of the best of Star Wars, but it also captures some of the worst. This won’t mean much to fans, really, but it will probably slide it out of Oscar consideration for all but the technical achievements with the possible exception of Adam Driver. There are parts of this story that just don’t hold up if you think too much about it, even though the breadth of interconnectedness with the rest of the canon universe is pretty much awesome. (Seriously, all of the canon material feeds into this one in no small way.) Do yourself a favor and don’t think too hard about all of the space wizards and their magical space physics. In space, no one can hear your “Well, actually.”

There is a little more than your average “on-the-nose” dialogue for younger viewers or those who may have missed something on a bathroom trip or senior moment. (We’re getting old, too.) I cringed a few times, but it was quickly swept away by something that was clever or amazing visually. Abrams has also leaned hard into his breathless, no-brakes style of filmmaking. That is fine for a film that has to cover as much intergalactic territory as this one, but having feasted on the long arcs of Star Wars:Rebels, the novel Star Wars: Thrawn, and the deliberate pace of The Mandalorian, it did feel a little rushed at times. Don’t expect to linger too long anywhere, because Abrams has places he needs to go and needs to get there now, even it means blowing out some space compressors.

Naomi Ackie as Jannah. Walt Disney Studios

Ultimately, many fans may find ways to quibble with The Rise of Skywalker. It’s Star Wars, and there still is an internet to bicker on. Is this the Star Wars film I would have made for Episode IX? Not really. Is it the film George Lucas would have made for Episode IX? We know it isn’t. While who or who isn’t making a Star Wars film lights up social media every week lately, this film also puts an end to the idea that there is only one Star Wars story. The last film in the Skywalker Saga tells us it is time to let go of one set of stories and allow ourselves to explore a much larger world. A larger galaxy, a larger universe. From now on, there is space in the galaxy for everyone, and that is just going to keep expanding as one story leads to another. Frankly, I am more excited by Star Wars now than I was four years ago. I might even watch this one again from the roof of my car.