My Review of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker [SPOILERS]

So I’ve been asked by quite a few people to write up my thoughts on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I accept.

Hasn’t there been enough time since the movie came out that I don’t need to warn about spoilers? I mean, if you haven’t seen the movie you probably shouldn’t have wanted to click on this. xD Well, I’ll do it anyway.

[MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. THE HIGH COUNCIL INC. DOES NOT BEAR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY COMPUTERS SMASHED, KEYBOARDS BROKEN, OR DOCTOR VISITS MADE AS A RESULT OF READING UNWANTED SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.]

But if you have seen it, great! It’s okay that you’re here!

Alright. Let’s go.

     So, this is the final movie in the sequel trilogy, and the final movie in the entire Skywalker saga. It’s a big deal, and J.J. Abrams had the pressure of creating a movie that would properly close this entire story. Did he do it well?

     The Rise of Skywalker also followed The Last Jedi, which was a total mess. I would go so far as to say that I don’t really consider The Last Jedi to be part of the trilogy. It accomplished nothing for the story, treated Luke terribly, had a rather poorly done cast of characters, humor in the wrong places, etc. etc. I could go on, but the purpose of this review is not to hate on The Last Jedi. The point, however, is that The Last Jedi made J.J.’s job much harder in creating The Rise of Skywalker. He had to try to fix those mistakes without creating plot holes, and still make a good movie.

     And The Rise of Skywalker was anything but The Last Jedi. The most obvious reason is the pace. For the most part, The Last Jedi followed a few Resistance ships as they tried to escape the pursuit of the First Order, while going back and forth with Rey on Ahch-To and Finn/Rose’s mission, etc. The Rise of Skywalker was packed with action, nonstop. There were pretty much no moments to catch one’s breath. It followed one group of the Resistance (with occasional looks at happenings elsewhere) as they journeyed to three planets (Pasaana, Kijimi, and Kef Bir) in search of the Wayfinder, and ultimately to Exegol where the final battle took place. And it was all action.

     So Rey’s a Palpatine. As some of you know, my main theory on Rey was that she was a clone. My reasons were her vision on Takodana and her experience in the Dark Side cave on Ahch-To. Rey being a Palpatine doesn’t create any plot holes though, in my opinion. At least not really. You may remember that in The Rise of Skywalker there was a very quick flashback to that same vision on Takodana, and in the movie it was incorporated into the story of Rey’s parents being killed while trying to keep her safe. As for the “mirror” scene in The Last Jedi, I think it simply enforced the idea that Rey had nobody but herself (and remember that Palpatine was behind all of this). There’s also the fact that The Rise of Skywalker deliberately undid some things from The Last Jedi. This possibly means plot holes, but I’ll get into that later.

     Oh, and speaking of clones, did you notice the cloning vats with “Snokes” in them on Exegol? That actually was one of my theories. xD

     Palpatine’s been controlling Snoke this whole time. Snoke was just a puppet. So this means Palpatine’s responsible for all the visions, Force connections, and essentially everything that happened up to this point.

     But how is he back? That question really was not answered in this film. There are three main possibilities (keep in mind that we’ll probably find out for sure eventually from Disney in some way or other). There’s the idea that Palpatine as seen in Return of the Jedi was a clone, and that it was the clone who was killed when thrown down the reactor shaft. Unlikely. Another plausible idea, which sort of goes along with the first one, is that Palpatine used essence transfer. In one of the legends Palpatine created a bunch of clones of himself, and while those clones were not necessarily Force-sensitive, Palpatine basically “body-hopped,” possessing one of them at a time and thereby always having a remnant of himself. Finally, a possibility is that he did not actually die after being thrown down the shaft. In the canon comics, when Snoke was training Kylo Ren, Kylo was allowed to fall off a cliff after having “let go of his anger.” However, Kylo kept himself alive using Force levitate, with which he made himself hover above the ground. This skill was obviously taught to him by Palpatine, because Palpatine was controlling Snoke. And that is how Palpatine would have kept himself alive after falling. How that explains staying alive after the entire Death Star blew, I don’t know. But Palpatine said in Revenge of the Sith that he could cheat death. 

     It’s still very hard to know, though, because Palpatine said in The Rise of Skywalker that he had died once before, and that “The Dark Side is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.” So really, it remains a mystery.

     The Rise of Skywalker kicked The Last Jedi in the face. So much, in fact, that you literally do not have to see The Last Jedi in order to understand what happens in The Rise of Skywalker. It essentially picks up where The Force Awakens left off. 

     For example: Bringing back Palpatine was certainly not the plan when the sequel trilogy was started. But Rian Johnson, thinking mainly about money and personal success, thought it would be a good idea to have Snoke randomly killed in The Last Jedi. So this was pretty much J.J.’s only choice. He had to try to fix that and explain it without making too many plot holes. It’s a little late for Palpatine to be back, but what other options were there? Overall, I think Abrams fit everything together very nicely, even though some things seem a bit random. Also, one of the most obvious ways in which The Rise of Skywalker “fixes” The Last Jedi is in the scene where Rey goes to exile herself on Ahch-To. She throws her lightsaber into the fire, Luke Skywalker’s Force ghost catches it and Luke says, “A Jedi’s weapon should be treated with more respect.” Yes, it should! Thank you!! In Episode VIII Rian Johnson had Luke toss that very same lightsaber over his shoulder and walk away, and with it throw away all that George Lucas painstakingly set in place about the Jedi, their codes and customs. A Jedi’s lightsaber was his life. Why on earth couldn’t Rian Johnson grasp that? Anyway, I’m very glad J.J. Abrams fixed that and returned the character of Luke to how the Jedi should be.

     Another thing is the issue with Rose Tico. She’s a major character in Episode 8, and in 9 she just stays behind and...studies Star Destroyers? I’m not a fan of Rose myself, but it’s way too obvious that the writers of Episode 9 were trying to fix The Last Jedi in every possible way. 

     This does create some holes, like Kylo Ren told Rey in The Last Jedi that her parents were nobody, but apparently in The Rise of Skywalker he just “hadn’t told her everything.” Actually, those two descriptions don’t add up. Rey’s father was Palpatine’s son. That sounds like everything but “nobody” to me. This dude was the son of Darth Sidious, for crying out loud. Also, this means Palpatine had to have a wife? Sure, there is the possibility that he manipulated midichlorians or whatever, but that’s highly unlikely. There’s one other possible plot hole that I’ll get to in just a bit.

     So the ending of this movie will probably be the biggest source of discussion and debate among Star Wars fans for a long time. Personally, I thought it was pretty cool. But there were some things I liked and others I didn’t like so much.

     I was worried that Disney would mess up Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker, and I was mostly pleased at what they did with him. He has pretty much been the most powerful Force user in the galaxy throughout the Star Wars saga, and he was nothing short of that here. He immobilized the entire Resistance fleet and sucked the life essence out of Kylo Ren and Rey using just his hands. Super OP. But I didn’t like how he died. He was blown away just by getting Force lightning deflected back at him for a few seconds. I get that Rey had all the power of the Jedi in her, but Palpatine was still just too powerful to be killed like that.

     Speaking of which, the part with the voices of the Jedi from the past was pretty cool. I had wanted other Jedi to come back and help defeat Palpatine, and that’s...partially what we got. It was just the voices, though I would have liked to see some of them back in the flesh. Even though part of this scene was just total fan service, I still liked it. In case you didn’t know, we heard the voices of Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi (both old and young), Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu, Yoda, Ahsoka Tano, Aayla Secura, Luminara Unduli, Adi Gallia, and Kanan Jarrus. Ahsoka and Kanan only show up in The Clone Wars and Rebels, which makes it obvious J.J. was just trying to please fans. Either way, I thought it was cool.

     However, if it were up to me, I would have had Anakin return in the flesh to defeat Palpatine once and for all, or at least help to defeat him in a major way. If the sequel trilogy is part of the Skywalker saga, it should include the Skywalker, the Chosen One, who was to destroy the Sith. This also would have perhaps justified Palpatine dying so easily, because of Anakin’s power.

     And then the kiss between Rey and Ben. Ugh. I don’t think that was necessary at all. However, the way Ben’s redemption played out was cool. Similar to Vader’s, but we know that each sequel movie has in many ways mirrored its respective OG movie. xD

     But Rey calling herself “Rey Skywalker” was not to my liking. I understand that she doesn’t want to be associated with the name of Darth Sidious, but that doesn’t change her identity. She should be able to accept it and move on, and try to restore the name rather than destroy it. The Jedi do not live on past regrets or faults. She’s not a Skywalker. She’s a Palpatine.

Other things I liked: The Rise of Skywalker was riddled with humor, and I think it was better placed than that of The Last Jedi, which had humor in the worst places (like during devastating battles where people were dying). I was genuinely entertained. I also liked the way General Hux’s character was handled. It fit perfectly, and reinforced the idea that he was just a messed up guy who didn’t have any good in him but hated Kylo Ren, for the wrong reasons. And in general, the soundtrack, visual effects and sets were phenomenal.

Other things I didn’t like: The addition of so many new characters seemed a bit unnecessary, especially ones like Zorii Bliss, Jannah, and even Babu Frik and D-0. They weren’t overused, but they didn’t do much to advance the plot and mainly just raised more unanswered questions. The time spent on those characters could have been used to slow down other scenes and allow viewers to catch their breath. There was also an insane amount of “fan service” in The Rise of Skywalker. This was probably partially to try to make up for The Last Jedi’s failures, but I think they went a little overboard with it. I was cool with the voices of the Jedi only nerds would know well, but Chewbacca getting the Yavin medal? Really? I mean, we all know that he deserved it, but it’s a little late to be coming back to that, not to mention there’s literally no need to address it in any of the movies. Another example is Palpatine quoting so many of his lines from the prequels. It was cool, but once again, possibly abused a bit. And the Ewoks? Just wow. xD

     In addition, Rey’s immense power has still not been explained. We’ve hardly seen her train at all, and yet she’s using the Force to pull First Order transports back to the ground. Yes, she’s a Palpatine, and that gives her some measure of power just because of her blood, but that’s not an excuse for not training. If I could rewrite the sequel trilogy, one thing I would change is adding more scenes of Rey’s training. If she’s going to be such a powerful Jedi, we have to know how she became so powerful, how she earned that power.

     Another thing I’ll briefly mention is a possible plot hole that The Rise of Skywalker created. Force healing was used three times in this movie (that I can recall), and it’s something we really hadn’t seen at all in the previous ones. Rey used it to heal Kylo Ren and that big worm on Pasaana, and Kylo Ren sort of used it to save Rey. So why didn’t, say, Obi-Wan use it to heal Qui-Gon Jinn? Perhaps he hadn’t learned that power yet. But what about Obi-Wan (or Anakin) and Padmé? Or Luke and Vader? It’s possible that there are reasons otherwise, but it seems odd that Rey would be able to use this so much, yet we never see even more powerful Jedi use it. And while the use of Force healing was essential to the plot of The Rise of Skywalker, it could potentially be a plot hole for the prequels, or even parts of the original trilogy.

     The Rise of Skywalker answered a lot of our questions, but we’re still left with quite a few. Obviously a major one is about how Palpatine survived. But how about Finn? What was he going to tell Rey as they fell into the quicksand on Pasaana? (We actually do know the answer to this now, as J.J. Abrams recently stated that Finn was going to tell her that he was Force-sensitive) But what about the Finn and Rose connection? Or Finn and Jannah? Is there some significance to the fact that those two could basically be siblings?

     Another question many people will be asking is why Rey now has a yellow lightsaber? My best guess: Yellow lightsabers have not shown up in the movies before, but they have in the Star Wars TV shows. The Jedi Temple Guards had double-bladed yellow lightsabers, which represented them as guardians of the Jedi and their principles. Since Rey is literally the last Jedi left, she is the one guarding the legacy and code of the Jedi, so it makes sense that she might have a yellow lightsaber.

     And speaking of that, where did she get the kyber crystal for that saber? Where did Palpatine get the kyber crystals necessary for putting mini-Death Stars on all the Super Star Destroyers? Lightsabers, Death Stars and all similar weapons depend on kyber crystals to have their power. But remember that Ilum, the planet on which kyber crystals were found, was the location of Starkiller Base, which blew up and thus blew up the planet. So where did all the other kyber crystals come from?

     Another one which I touched on before is how on earth did Palpatine have a son? Who is Rey’s grandmother? Perhaps this is something that we’ll learn from another show, like The Mandalorian (also, I would hope not). 

     So, in my opinion, was The Rise of Skywalker a good ending to the sequel trilogy? Yes. Was it a good ending to the Skywalker saga? Well, no, because for me, Return of the Jedi was the ending. To me, the sequel trilogy is somewhat separate, as it is about the children of the Skywalkers and Palpatines. Anakin Skywalker fulfilled the prophecy and died at the end of Return of the Jedi, and that was the end of the true Skywalker saga. This doesn’t mean the sequel trilogy is not as much a part of Star Wars as the rest of the saga, but I view it as quite separate. Episodes I-VI are about Anakin, and Episodes VII-IX are about the following generation.

     But this review is about The Rise of Skywalker, and overall I really, really enjoyed it. I think J.J. Abrams and the other directors did a fantastic job of tying everything together and ending the story given what The Last Jedi did to it, and despite it.

     Boy, there’s so much more I could and want to say, but this is getting to be too long. Now it’s time to get hyped for the next movie, which is set to release on December 16, 2022. xD In all seriousness however, what do you all think? How was this movie in general and compared to The Last Jedi? And how on earth did Palpatine survive? Is there anything else of importance that I should have touched on? I’d love to answer any questions you have. And as always, may the Force be with you.