{"id":23022,"date":"2019-12-27T20:26:46","date_gmt":"2019-12-27T10:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=23022"},"modified":"2020-02-05T20:36:21","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T10:36:21","slug":"star-wars-episode-ix-the-rise-of-skywalker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=23022","title":{"rendered":"Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Director:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>JJ Abrams
\nWriters:\u00a0 <\/strong>Chris Terrio, JJ Abrams
\nCast:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Oscar Isaac, Richard E. Grant<\/p>\n

E<\/span>mperor Palpatine is back!<\/p>\n

Although our heroes succeeded in stopping Snoke in\u00a0The Last Jedi<\/em>, it has since been revealed that Palpatine was the true leader of the Sith revival all along and he was using Snoke as a puppet to lure Kylo Ren to the dark side.\u00a0 In this final chapter of the new\u00a0Star Wars<\/em> trilogy, Palpatine unveils the Final Order – a gigantic armada of Star Destroyers – who have the firepower capable of wiping out the Resistance and restoring power to the Dark Side.\u00a0 Its up to Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron to try and save Kylo Ren’s soul and somehow find a way to stop Palpatine’s fleet.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Disney has absolutely steamrolled the movie industry box office takings with their awesome portfolio of Marvel superhero films, lucrative remakes of Disney classics and sequels to flagship titles such as\u00a0Toy Story<\/em> and\u00a0Frozen<\/em>.\u00a0 Their film industry dominance almost feels absolute, but for the noticeable exception that has been their handling of the\u00a0Star Wars<\/em> franchise.\u00a0 Star Wars<\/em> has\u00a0had troubled creative development (The Rise of Skywalker<\/em>\u00a0had three different directors), mixed results at the box office (The Force Awakens\u00a0<\/em>soared but\u00a0Solo<\/em> disappointed) and a rocky relationship with both fans and critics alike.<\/p>\n

The Rise of Skywalker<\/em> was an opportunity for Disney to deliver a crowd-pleasing closing chapter.\u00a0 To iron out the kinks and draw a clear through-line in the new trilogy\u00a0artistically and thematically.<\/p>\n

Did they stick the landing?\u00a0 Not really.<\/p>\n

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I’ll focus on the positives to start.\u00a0 I loved\u00a0The Force Awakens<\/em> and I think Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac) are fantastic modern day\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0protagonists.\u00a0 I find the actors to be inherently likeable and all three have earnest and endearing qualities that I strongly connect with and want to cheer for.\u00a0 To varying degrees, those three characters were surprisingly sidelined or marginalised in\u00a0The Last Jedi<\/em>, so I’m pleased that in\u00a0The Rise of Skywalker<\/em>, they’re back where they should be – front and centre in the heat of the action.<\/p>\n

The same goes for Adam Driver as Kylo Ren.\u00a0 He’s a terrific screen presence and although its a difficult act trying to follow up Darth Vader, one of the most iconic screen villains of all time, I think Driver\u00a0does an admirable job of it.<\/p>\n

So what we get with\u00a0The Rise of Skywalker<\/em> is an incredibly slight, modestly crafted closing act that skates by on the bare minimum of what it should deliver.\u00a0 Of course the heroes save the day, the Final Order is defeated and Rey fulfils her destiny.\u00a0 Taken on its own merits, the movie is okay-ish action adventure fare.<\/p>\n

When you look at the trilogy as a whole however, The Rise of Skywalker<\/em>\u00a0is a crushing disappointment.<\/p>\n

Where to start?\u00a0 I can’t believe someone paid a billion dollars for\u00a0Star Wars<\/em> and apparently didn’t have the foresight to plan for any sort of cohesive narrative to tie these new movies together.\u00a0\u00a0We can see the competing visions of the different directors tug and pull the audience in different directions.\u00a0 Rian Johnson gave Finn a love interest in Rose Tico and in\u00a0The Rise of Skywalker<\/em> she is unceremoniously benched and left out of the adventure almost entirely.\u00a0 In\u00a0The Last Jedi<\/em>, Luke Skywalker wisely intones to Rey that her unremarkable family history is not important because anyone can become a Jedi<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0TROS<\/em> tosses that notion out of the window and explains away that she’s powerful specifically because of her family lineage<\/em>.\u00a0 It’s insane.\u00a0 Can you imagine if Frodo suddenly stops being friends with Sam in\u00a0The Return of the King<\/em> or if Han Solo suddenly loses all interest in Princess Leia in the original trilogy?\u00a0 Because thats the level of inconsistency we’re getting with the characters here.\u00a0 None of this holds together at all.<\/p>\n

Even new ideas introduced within\u00a0The Rise of Skywalker<\/em> itself don’t go anywhere.\u00a0 There’s a mole inside the First Order who\u00a0is secretly helping the Resistance but its a side story that doesn’t go anywhere.\u00a0 Finn constantly tells Rey he has something\u00a0urgent<\/em> to tell her and then…never does?\u00a0 It’s like the loose ends and half-developed ideas of former directors and screenwriters somehow made it into the final edit.<\/p>\n

The Rise of Skywalker<\/em>\u00a0walks and talks like a\u00a0Star Wars<\/em> movie but it desperately lacks soul.\u00a0 I don’t believe a single line in this film will\u00a0endure in pop culture memory.\u00a0 The story lines in\u00a0Star Wars<\/em> has always been unashamedly pulpy melodrama and what made the original material work was the groundbreaking special effects complimented by the fantastic banter between the characters.\u00a0 In 2019, there is nothing unique about the look of\u00a0Star Wars<\/em> any longer and unfortunately, the film feels like 80% exposition\/20% character dialogue.<\/p>\n

In short, the whole production has been a disjointed mess.\u00a0 Worse still, the series\u00a0has inflamed some of the worst corners of internet fandom and driven the likes of Daisy Ridley and Kellie Marie Tran offline\u00a0with their vitriolic abuse.<\/p>\n

So where to from here?\u00a0 Despite the catalogue of problems Star Wars<\/em> has had, its improbable to expect Disney to give up the ghost.\u00a0 There’s too much money riding on it.\u00a0 There’s talk of giving the franchise a breather.\u00a0 Moving away from trilogies to focus on stand alone films instead.\u00a0 You can bet the producers have sat up and taken notice of how well received the marquee Disney+ tv show\u00a0The Mandalorian\u00a0<\/em>has been.\u00a0 Maybe they’ll just go all in on a Baby Yoda movie next?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Palpatine mysteriously returns, the Resistance faces the First Order once more in the final chapter of the Skywalker saga.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2365,2358,2363,62,2364,2694,2356,1763,779],"class_list":["post-23022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-adam-driver","tag-carrie-fisher","tag-daisy-ridley","tag-disney","tag-john-boyega","tag-laura-dern","tag-mark-hamill","tag-oscar-isaac","tag-star-wars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23022"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23072,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23022\/revisions\/23072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}