There comes a moment when a wayward prince, a highborn child with powers beyond measure, must face the spite caused by his past actions. He has to contend with a legacy of suffering left behind and choose how to move forward, should he be given the opportunity. It's a moment with no clear solutions.
Oh wait, this isn't a review of Avatar: The Last Airbender. No such moment exists in The Rise of Skywalker - a title that continues to confound me. A more accurate title (read no further if you don't like spoilers) would be The Rise of Palpatine, as the only true villain in the franchise returns from the dead to reclaim his devilish mantle.
And from that sentence stems all the movie's problems.
In his two outings as director, J.J. Abrams found a way to include another Death Star in Starkiller Base and to resurrect Palpatine. He would like nothing better than to remake the original trilogy under the guise of something new. It is an easy thing to do. Like no other major franchise, Star Wars banks on nostalgia. Referencing the old is a move that goes over well, but it should just be that, referencing, not a wannabe cover album of The Return of the Jedi.
Despite this overt love for the original trilogy, Abrams's biggest accomplishment in Rise of Skywalker is to take the three movies that changed Hollywood and render them irrelevant. Darth Vader didn't kill the emperor. Han and Leia didn't end the Galactic Empire. Luke didn't...do anything except lose his hand in a battle that didn't matter. They were never gone, just hiding in the shadows and developing more planet destroying technology.
That is a far, far worse crime than any Rian Johnson stands accused of. For all the fans' gnashing of teeth over his handling of Luke, he set the stage for a saga finale that didn't include a one-dimensional puppet master controlling everything. Adam Driver's Kylo Ren/Ben Solo would have had to come to terms with killing his father, being rejected by Rey, who seems to understand his inner turmoil, and becoming the Supreme Leader of an army fighting Rey and his mother.
We all know from how skilled an actor Driver can be. Let him and Daisy Ridley take the story in a new direction and provide a more satisfying conclusion than yet another "destroy the Death Star and the emperor" story.
Furthermore, the return of the emperor feels more like an impression of the ever meme-able villain than the earlier iterations of him. He's more one-dimensional than ever, and that's saying something. Here, he just cackles and shows off his lightning-empowered force abilities. He even says, "Do it!" in the comical way we all know. If you are going to make the ill-advised choice to bring Palpatine back, can you at least get him right?
What I can say in the movie's favor is the momentum. Though it may skip steps and is illogical at times, Abrams has a good sense of pace. He's always had that. He's a professional crowd-pleaser and knows how to make even mediocre productions watchable. Driver and Ridley also get the most mileage out of the material given to them. Less committed actors would've put this film in Attack of the Clones territory.
Where I should be contemplating the course of the saga and feeling both elation and sadness at the series coming to an end, I'm left with mild exhaustion and annoyance. For a universe with essentially limitless possibilities and an expansive lore, the lack of variety in the stories makes no sense. Not everything needs a Death Star (or something like it) and an emperor (or something like him). Please, Disney, let someone take a chance and reward them when they do.
