"Let the final battle...begin."

"Taking one last look, sir, at my friends."  

C-3PO, The Rise of Skywalker 

"This will be the final word in the story of Skywalker."  

Emperor Palpatine, The Rise of Skywalker

When Karli and I invited her sister Stefanie to join us on Boxing Day to see The Rise of Skywalker, she initially wasn't sure if she wanted to attend or not, but finally decided to come, commenting that, "...the upside of the movie is participating in a cultural phenomenon".

And she's completely correct in her description, not only in the case of this movie, but for Star Wars in general.  Fond though I am of Star Trek, it doesn't have anything close to the extreme depth of cultural penetration that Star Wars has achieved.  One of the characters in the movie talks about finishing the fight that their parents started, and it's pretty much the same for the audience - Star Wars has become a multi-generational tradition that parents share with their children.

 

On our way to the movie, Karli asked me if I thought that she would enjoy the movie more than I would because she had no expectations about the ending.  When I thought about it, I realized that, surprisingly, neither did I.

Because, really, how do you end a story which spans over 40 years, a story that has ended each chapter with a monumental struggle between good and evil, between the dark and light sides of the Force? How do you pull all of the strands of the Skywalker family's story together to create an ending worthy of a saga like this?

The Rise of Skywalker certainly does its best to answer that question by providing an epic conclusion to an epic story, a conclusion which is monumental in scope and presentation, while offering appropriate codas for the character arcs of Rey, Po, Finn and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo - as with C-3PO's quote, this movie takes a last look at the characters in order to say goodbye to them.  It also ties the story's past into its present, as symbolized by brilliantly using the wreckage of the Death Star on the ocean moon of Kef Bir as a setting, and by placing the final scene of the movie on Tatooine, where it all began.

However, there are some odd turns on the path that the movie takes to reach that final scene.  The Rise of Skywalker is full of plot points that we should have found out about sooner - in fact, there were times when it felt a bit like I was learning things that really should have been in the second film:* the power of the Force to heal (which could have easily been introduced at the end of The Force Awakens when Finn is wounded); Leia's Jedi training; Po Dameron's background as a spice smuggler - odd that he managed to make it to the third film without any sort of back story;   Finn's unexpected connection to the Force;  the true nature of the power behind Snoke and the First Order; and, in spite of her experience in the caverns of Ahch-To in The Last Jedi, the critical - and unexpected - importance of Rey's parentage.*

 

There are also some less than perfect decisions in the script.  The character of Rose Tico, who is so beautifully introduced in The Last Jedi, is completely pushed aside,* C-3PO's "sacrifice" really isn't, it's just a mechanism for some jokes, the presence of a spy in the First Order is used once to allow for an easy escape and then tossed away without any further development, and the focus of the final battle seems to jump around for no reason  - not to mention the ongoing convenience of easily destroyed critical failure points for the bad guys.  Oh, and in traditional Disney style, a supporting character is apparently killed but then miraculously turns out to be alive, thereby allowing them to have their emotional cake and eat it too.

I also would have liked to see some kind of interaction between Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren, who finally make an appearance in this movie, rather than just have them be silent, faceless opponents.**

After the movie, as we were walking to the car, Stefanie asked if that was really the end of Star Wars.  Karli laughed and said, "It's made a lot of money, and Disney owns it - of course it's not the end."  And she's completely correct too - it's impossible to imagine Disney turning their back on a cash cow of this magnitude, as evidenced by The Mandalorian and the planned Obi-Wan Kenobi series for Disney +.

Really, though, this isn't about the end of Star Wars - as the Emperor points out, it's about the end of the Skywalker saga, and ultimately, the movie does signify that ending, while still leaving the door open for a new beginning.

Now that the saga is over, I'd like to be able to change one thing in the final trilogy:  the end of Luke's story.  It would have made me very happy to see him make his last stand in the final conflict with the Dark Side, thereby allowing a Skywalker to finally bring balance to the Force as was foretold all those years gone by.

 

But at least Chewbacca finally gets a medal - that only took 42 years.

- Sid

* Logically, this is what happens when you alternate writers in the creation of a trilogy:  it would be interesting to contrast a Rian Johnson script for the third movie with the J. J. Abrams/Chris Terrio version that's on screen.

**For that matter, why does Ben Solo change his name to Kylo Ren in the first place?  Did I miss something in a movie where that was explained?  I understand why he changes his name, obviously he wants to turn his back on his original life as Ben Solo, but why Kylo Ren?  If you're a Sith, you take the title of "Darth", which apparently means Dark Lord in whatever ancient tongue is native to the Sith, but everyone treats Kylo Ren as a name rather than a title.