Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker review: More powerful than you can possibly imagine, and an ending beyond expectations
A saga 42 years in the making has come to an end, and what an ending it was. A huge Adelaide fanboy wraps it up straight from Marion’s Event Cinemas. Were you there? Post your own review.
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The same writer on: The Force Awakens | The Last Jedi
STAR WARS EPISODE IX: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
Spoiler policy: This review does not contain spoilers from the film itself. However, details that were released earlier, such as trailers and panels, will be referred to. If you want no details at all, please stop reading here and just go see the movie.
“Roll it again”.
So spoke Ian McDiarmid, the unmistakeable voice of Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious after the first trailer for The Rise of Skywalker was shown at Star Wars Celebration in April.
That haunting cackle was, as much as John Williams’ epic score, an essential soundtrack to the two previous trilogy finales. Revenge, Return, now Rise.
The enemy that began this entire conflict has come back to end it – ensuring this ninth episode is very much a conclusion to the nine as well as the sequel trilogy.
No doubt it was a difficult line for Lucasfilm to tread – making this battle between Jedi and Sith come full circle without undoing the emotional gravitas of Palpatine’s death in Episode VI.
But they’ve done it.
Maz Kanata remarked in The Force Awakens that the Dark Side had taken many forms through the ages: The Sith, the Empire, the First Order.
It is appropriate, then, that the mythology and technology of the Sith is tapped into so deeply here, at a time when the Force is being explored in new and powerful ways.
It enables an understanding and application of this mysterious energy that is both ambitious and natural.
JJ Abrams’ second foray into Star Wars hits the deck at a lightspeed pace, the stop-start jumps of the early plot not unlike the Millennium Falcon’s heart-stopping launches.
Though a year has passed since the events of The Last Jedi, there is no peacetime for the Resistance and the tension is Palpatineable from the first few minutes.
Each of our main heroes has grown, yet maintain their winning personalities and best of all are given far more opportunity to bounce off one another.
Though their missions from Episode 8 may have been individually crucial at the time, it meant keeping them separated until the endgame – this time around we’re seeing Rey, Finn and Poe as another classic trio that was always meant to be.
“I really missed John during the last one, but we’re back together and now Oscar is part of it,” Daisy Ridley said in the lead up to the release.
Keeping the group tight empowers the rapid pace of the early acts but as a happy coincidence it means more opportunities for humour, hubris and hilarity.
It’s a dark time for the thinned-out Resistance but don’t come in expecting every world full of darkness – this story is about finding hope and humanity in unexpected places and people.
Rey and Kylo Ren have become icons of the light and the dark, the perfect yin/yang representations of the two sides of the Force.
They have come so far from the aloof scavenger and rage-driven commander we met so long ago in The Force Awakens – they’re still there, of course, but this shaky bond between them is constantly forcing them to reassess their origins and destiny.
With only a little more growth until their peak, their positions of leadership give them more interactions than ever with their respective sides, and solidify their arcs as characters who changed their universe dramatically.
As with its immediate predecessors, The Rise of Skywalker evokes nostalgia with the return of old favourites – but doesn’t stake its entire foundation on that, given the time now spent developing the next generation.
Lando Calrissian, one of the last original trilogy main characters to return, was widely known to be dropping in this time around and he’s got every ounce of his charm still intact.
Billy Dee Williams was asked by Stephen Colbert at Star Wars Celebration what he’d had to do to step back into a character he last played in a film in 1983.
“Lando never left me, man,” Williams said to raucous applause.
The beloved Carrie Fisher lives on through one last episode too, in a convincing and compelling role that feels so close to her really being there.
We may have lost “our princess” in 2016 but to see her again as General Leia, in a film which began shooting in 2018, is nothing short of magic and likely to bring more than a few tears.
(Fisher was added via extra footage shot in 2015 for The Force Awakens, and knowing this does not diminish its significance).
Luke, whose spiral into depression, return, and legendary sacrifice defined much of The Last Jedi, also makes his final appearance.
The brilliant and conflicted Mark Hamill ended in peace – and now, by completing long-established threads (so far back as to be an easter egg), he’s still a part of helping others to know that peace – us among them.
Plenty of new faces and voices also join either side of this conclusive war – including the long-known and eagerly awaited Knights of Ren.
Though many characters have past battles to contend with, their motivations are a lot clearer now – with the setting so close to the end, there’s not many grey areas left and their resolve needs to be determined before it’s over.
That’s not to say the time for soul-searching is past. A conclusion, though inevitable, cannot be obvious and there’s still some of the most important choices to be made.
All of these emotional journeys are carried by the most intense and swiftly flowing action sequences.
We’ve got a war to win here, and the senses of losses and gains are intensified by the highest stakes and the unprecedented ground on which The Rise of Skywalker treads.
There’s never been a situation like this in Star Wars or indeed in any cinematic universe.
Avengers: Endgame is close of course, a conclusion to a story told over eleven years (a few more within that world).
This is the wrapping up of no fewer than 42 years of film history, and 68 years of galactic history. (Perhaps even further than that, if you wish to speculate beyond the Skywalker saga’s timeline)
Until now we’ve had no idea how this ended, and it’s a credit to Lucasfilm’s carefully orchestrated build-up that we could only guess at what was to come.
And now that we know?
I am satisfied beyond all imagination and expectation.
Though overwhelmed with emotions, my questions have been answered.
The best way to see any of these films is with an open mind, but high expectations abound thanks to the incredible reach of the story and universe so far.
This saga has ended, certainly with some sadness but more importantly peace and purpose.
No one yet knows exactly what the future will hold for Star Wars, but all of these films – and notably now this one too – will be part of us forever.
Stars? You want a star rating after all this?
Here. Have nine of them. Out of nine.
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Tristan Willes is The Advertiser’s digital night editor and that Kylo Ren cosplayer at every Star Wars film premiere.
Originally published as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker review: More powerful than you can possibly imagine, and an ending beyond expectations