The Fall of the House of Skywalker

I have been wrestling with what to say about The Rise of Skywalker since I saw it and in some ways I'm still not sure. I think, for one, that it is not necessarily a very good movie. It's maybe an OK Star War. There have been good Star Wars that are good movies as well, and there have been good Star Wars that are bad movies. The prequels, for all of their many faults in terms of dialogue, plot, and characterization, are still good Star Wars in my opinion, as the Star Wars universe is largely better for all they have wrought and all they have inspired, such as Clone Wars. Solo was an OK movie and an OK Star War. Force Awakens was a pretty good movie and an OK Star War. Rise of Skywalker is, to reiterate, a kinda bad movie, one that somehow has both too much plot and not enough of a relevant one and has a frenetic pacing in the first act that blows well past exciting and into infuriating. It is, in my apparently controversial opinion, an OK Star War.

The Rise of Skywalker had one task above all others, and it was going to be the main criteria on which I personally judged it, and I am not alone in this regard. This was to end the "Skywalker Saga" as we have come to call it, giving us the resolution to the characters and factions that have waged the titular Star War for 42 years. Now, mind you, I do not think this necessarily had to be the main goal of Rise of Skywalker. It could merely have been the end of the sequel trilogy, and it arguably should have limited itself to that goal, as the first two installments of the sequel trilogy seemed to focus more on the new story they were trying to tell rather than rote continuation of the six movies that came before. Alas, JJ Abrams made it clear this ninth movie "had" to tie all of the films together and provide a finality to some battles we had already thought were over, and so I choose to judge it based on that stated goal. For me at least, Rise of Skywalker very awkwardly stumbles to a more or less acceptable landing with that in mind. The Sith are defeated, peace is once more restored to the galaxy. Leia and Han's sacrifices are not in vain as they bring Ben back from the brink. Luke and Rey ensure the continuation of the Jedi Order. These were the main things I was hoping to get as an ending for the saga as a whole.

I gather this is not the popular opinion, and there are two main sticking points for people who have told me the ending is actually depressing and not at all in keeping with the optimism that should define Star Wars:

1) Rey ends the saga alone on a desert planet, as she began the Force Awakens
2) The Skywalker family line ends, and worse, they are outlived by a Palpatine.

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Supreme Leader Snoke

"History often repeats itself, the first as tragedy, then as farce" - famed Corellian agitator K'rl Marxx

Since his introduction in The Force Awakens, but especially since his shockingly abrupt demise in The Last Jedi, the character of Snoke has been a point of controversy within the Star Wars fanbase (much like, well, everything else, but I digress). From the time he was introduced in the run up to TFA's release, Snoke was shrouded in mystery, his origin a well-kept secret. He is introduced as a literally larger than life figure, a giant Wizard of Oz like projection that towers over his apprentice Kylo Ren, deliberately invoking a comparison to Palpatine and his own wayward Skywalker, Darth Vader. Surely this mighty being, this man so great and important as to have seduced the heir of the Skywalker legacy to the dark side while leading the revanchist First Order, must have some impressive origin story or secret behind his immense power, and surely it was key to the entire narrative of this new trilogy.

Well, about that...

With a mere flick of his fingers Kylo Ren bisected Snoke and the fanbase. All of the mystery and supposedly untapped potential of this powerful character vanished with a stroke of the lightsaber. In a movie that has proven extremely polarizing, the quick execution of the enigmatic Supreme Leader has drawn a substantial amount of criticism.

Is this warranted, though? Was Snoke a character we needed to know more about? Is the story improved by either keeping him around or at least explaining his rise to power before killing him off?

No. I could simply point out how when Emperor Palpatine first made his appearance in Empire Strikes Back we knew nothing about him other than that he was the Emperor, or that by the time he was killed off (perhaps not forever, apparently) in Return of the Jedi we didn't even know his name and that worked out alright. Those arguments have been made by many people, and they are accurate, and speak to the problem that so many critics of the sequel trilogy have in that they criticize a still-in-progress narrative vs two trilogies that are complete and have had every possible detail filled in by expanded universe materials. Suffice it to say that the audience doesn't need any more of Snoke's story than they got for the plot of these films to work.

I am willing to bypass those arguments, however, and meet the critics where they are: knowing what we know after the fact regarding Emperor Palpatine, his power as a Sith, and the machinations that led him to rule over the galaxy, does the character of Snoke work without getting a similar explanation of how he ended up on the throne of the First Order?

I say yes. Snoke being little more than a bully, a mere imitation of Palpatine that badly overplayed his hand, overestimated his talent for corrupting and manipulating Ben Solo, and getting summarily dispatched for it is the best possible outcome for the character because of what it says about the First Order and what the Sequel Trilogy is saying about that organization and the nature of fascism.

The Last Jedi Review: Luke Skywalker Warned You (SPOILERS)

You really shouldn't have been surprised by the twists and turns in The Last Jedi. The very first trailer ended with Luke Skywalker warning us "this is not going to go the way you think" not long after Kylo Ren told us it was time to let the past go.

No two statements describe The Last Jedi better and it is sadly not surprising so much of the Star Wars fanbase, known for spending the last two decades booing George Lucas out of public life for daring to make some underwhelming movies, has rebelled against the risks that The Last Jedi takes and the significant departure it marks from the narrative of the first seven movies (this despite many of the same people spending two years decrying The Force Awakens and Rogue One for relying too heavily on nostalgia and harping ideas from the original trilogy). Every time something in this movie starts to follow convention, when you think you have an idea where it is all headed, something different happens.

Spoilers after the jump