Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Somehow, JJ Abrams returned to direct another Star Wars film.

Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker represents the conclusion to the erratic Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. It wraps up most of the dangling threads for the series and completes the overall story arcs for the classic characters by killing the remainder of them off. It is also the most divisive of films in the series, dividing the fanbase in terms of how things should have gone and how they really ended up.

First Impressions

This is it, (again)! The end of an era of new Star Wars films. Epic imagery of fierce battles, raging seas, and lightsaber-wielding champions peppers the new trailer for the final film in the Sequel Trilogy. Threepio puts a voice to the feeling by taking “one last look at his friends.” It’s the return of some favorite heroes, as well as some despicable villains, for The Rise of Skywalker. What does that even mean? Didn’t Luke die in the last film? Is he coming back?

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) fights through a fiery and ashy planet to retrieve a Sith Wayfinder, a device that allows him to find the hidden planet of Exegol. On that dark and thundering planet, Kylo descends under the surface to find vats with lifeless copies of Supreme Leader Snoke, and a reanimated Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). The Sith Lord commands Kylo to kill Rey (Daisy Ridley), end the Jedi, and a new Empire, called the Final Order, will be his. Elsewhere, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega), and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) receive information from a mole within the First Order that somehow, Palpatine has returned. At the resistance base, Rey decides she needs to finish this once and for all, against the wishes of General Leia (Carrie Fisher), and decides to head off on her own to find and destroy Palpatine.

Her friends won’t let her go alone, so Poe, Finn, Chewie, BB-8, and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) join her on the desert world of Pasaana, where the Festival of the Ancestors is taking place (which happens once every 42 years). Kylo, now the Supreme Leader of the First Order, initiates a Force connection to Rey and seizes her flowery necklace, providing the location of the would-be Jedi. They are saved from a First Order stormtrooper patrol by Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), who provides them a clue to find Ochi’s ship, which contains information about another Sith Wayfinder. After a harrowing speeder chase through the desert canyons, complete with stormtroopers that fly now, the group ends up in an underground cavern, finding a Sith Dagger.

C-3PO is able to read the Sith inscription, providing the location of the Wayfinder, but he is unable to speak the words as it’s against his programming to translate the ancient tongue. The group is attacked by a large serpent that is injured, so Rey shows compassion and uses the Force to heal it. The Knights of Ren arrive, capturing Chewbacca and the dagger, while Kylo tries to run Rey over with his TIE fighter. Rey uses the Force to prevent the transport with Chewie from departing, but Kylo uses the Force as well, triggering Rey to use Force lightning and accidentally destroying the shuttle. Unbeknownst to the heroes, there was a second ship that took Chewbacca to the First Order Star Destroyer. Saddened at the thought that Chewie is dead, but needing to continue the mission, Poe suggests traveling to Kajimi, where he knows a black market droidsmith who can pull the location from Threepio’s memory.

The group meets with Babu Frik (Shirley Henderson), who gets Threepio to reveal the location of the Wayfinder, but at the cost of losing his memory. An old flame of Poe’s, Zorii (Keri Russell), provides him with a landing medallion, allowing them to land on board First Order ships. They get off planet just as Kylo Ren and his soldiers arrive, allowing them to sneak aboard his ship and rescue Chewbacca, who Rey can sense is still alive. On board the Star Destroyer, Rey and Kylo fight (via another Force Time call) as he reveals that she’s really Palpatine’s granddaughter. Poe and Finn are captured freeing Chewbacca, but General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson)–who is the secret First Order mole–saves them. His new boss, Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant), sees through his ruse and kills Hux. The heroes escape, with the Millennium Falcon, and head to the Endor system.

Landing on the planet of Kef Bir, the heroes discover remnants of the Death Star II in an ocean, along with a group of freedom fighters, all ex-First Order deserters, led by Jannah (Naomi Ackie). Using the dagger and aligning it with the wreckage reveals the location of the Wayfinder. Rey, impatient at being told to wait until the rough seas calm, takes a water skiff and searches the remains, finding what she came for. Kylo confronts her, and the two have a lightsaber battle along the surface of the sunken battle station amidst the surf and sea spray. She stabs Kylo through the chest as he is distracted by General Leia’s Force touch, but regrets her impulsiveness and heals him, taking his fighter and heading into exile. Leia dies from the exertion, and Kylo is visited by the memory of his father, Han Solo (Harrison Ford). Kylo renounces his Sith name and becomes Ben Solo once again. Rey lands on Ahch-to, the planet she trained with Master Skywalker in the previous film, and burns Ren’s craft, planning to stay away. But the Force ghost of Luke (Mark Hamill) convinces her that her destiny lies elsewhere, and she takes his X-Wing to stop Palpatine.

On Exegol, Rey triggers a beacon allowing a small Resistance fleet to follow her to the hidden planet, where General Pryde is already taking control of the Sith Fleet. Rey confronts Palpatine, who always intended for her to kill him, so he could possess her body and lead his followers back into the galaxy. Rey declines his dark invitation and is nearly beaten. The Resistance ships prevent the Sith fleet from departing by knocking out the navigation beacon, while Ben arrives to help Rey. From beyond, the voices of several dead Jedi masters help revive a wounded Rey, who reveals that all the Jedi are within her. She channels Palpatine’s Sith lightning back at him while Ben battles his Knights of Ren. Rey manages to destroy Palpatine, but is knocked out as Lando, Zorii, and thousands of other starships show up to stop the Final Order. A wounded Ben crawls to Rey and revives her as they kiss just before he dies. The Resistance fleet returns home, triumphant, where Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o) gives Chewbacca a long-awaited medal, as remnants of the First Order fleet are destroyed across the galaxy. On Tatooine, Rey buries lightsabers from Luke and Leia in the sand outside the Lars moisture farm. An elderly woman asks who she is, and the young Jedi responds, “Rey Skywalker.”

History in the Making

Just two years after the previous Sequel Trilogy film (The Last Jedi), and 19 months after the previous live-action release (Solo: A Star Wars Story), the world finally got a chance to see the conclusion of the most recent part of the Skywalker Saga with Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. It represented a hurried end to the current trilogy and Saga, which now spans nine episodes, and concluded the character arcs begun with the Original Trilogy, 42 years ago. It was originally intended to be helmed by director Colin Trevorrow after his successful Jurassic World film from 2015. But due to various vague issues regarding creative differences, Trevorrow left the production in mid-2017 to be replaced by JJ Abrams, only a week later. The planned May 2019 release date of the film was pushed to December 2019, making all Disney-related Star Wars films holiday releases, with the exception of Solo, which adhered to the standard Memorial Day/May dates of the Original and Prequel Trilogies.

As with Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith, The Rise of Skywalker was the conclusion to a smaller trilogy. It concluded the immediate storylines of the main characters focused on in this trilogy, including Rey, Finn, and Poe. But it also served as the conclusion to the larger Saga, becoming the final film in a sprawling nine-movie arc. As with the two Sequel films before it, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, this film served as a final romp for classic characters from the Original Trilogy, namely Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Leia Organa. Each previous Sequel film was a showcase for one of these characters, with Han getting his time to shine, as well as his death, in The Force Awakens, and Luke becoming a mentor character, also with his death, in The Last Jedi. The Rise of Skywalker was meant to serve as Carrie Fisher’s chance to take center stage as Leia, before her untimely death in December, 2016. With her death prior to the start of principal photography, it seemed as if her character may not get her day. Fortunately, the visual effects wizards at Industrial Light & Magic were able to use unreleased footage of Fisher shot during The Force Awakens and stitch together the performance seen in the finished film. It’s quite a marvel, considering a whole arc was planned for the character and then had to be rewritten and crafted from pre-existing footage. Still, it would have been nice to see what was planned instead.

The inability to use Fisher for any new footage in the film hampered elements of the storyline, but so did dictates from Lucasfilm, along with what had transpired in the previous films. When George Lucas created the Original and Sequel Trilogies, he had a rough story outline for the films. When Star Wars was released in 1977, the novelization of the book had a bare-bones version of what had come before, and would eventually be fleshed out into The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Unfortunately, the Sequel films do not appear to have a similar structure. Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in October 2012 led to a hurried dictate to get new films into theaters. Apparently, the more, the better, and as fast as possible. From 2015 through 2019, a new live-action Star Wars film was released annually to varying degrees of quality and reception. While it took Lucas three years to craft each of his trilogy films, these were being done within two years or less lead time. The evidence of the lack of an overall plan for this Trilogy really becomes evident in this installment. Story beats and character arcs that were set up by Rian Johnson in The Last Jedi, apparently given the free rein to do as he wanted, were abandoned, reversed, and altered when Abrams came back aboard. The Rise of Skywalker also suffers from a growing fan-backlash on the events in the films being viewed as too ‘woke’ or not Star Wars-y enough. While Lucasfilm offers no confirmation and has yet to release any Making Of books regarding these recent five films, the consensus by audiences is that the last Saga film attempted to course-correct deficits as pointed out by the loudest online detractors.

Genre-fication

Somehow, Palpatine returns as the bad guy for this film. Don’t get me wrong, Ian McDiarmid is a great actor, and his performance in Return of the Jedi and the Prequel Trilogy created one of the best and most enigmatic screen villains ever. It’s just that he had his time to shine. Neither of the previous Sequel films hinted at there being even the possibility of Palpatine being yet another shadowy menace, pulling the strings behind-the-scenes. Snoke appeared to be this new villainous force until he was unceremoniously killed by Kylo Ren in the previous installment. So Abrams dusted off a villain who had been apparently killed 36 years previously, and set him up, once again, as the puppet master. However, this is one of the most Star Wars-y things that the film can do.

The film series is known for its constant use and reuse of themes, dialogue, and action beats. Star Wars introduced the Death Star. Return of the Jedi brought it back again, bigger and badder. Every film in the Saga, plus the standalone films, features at least one character who “has a bad feeling” about something. Each film in its position within the trilogy has certain thematic beats it hits. The first film introduces new characters and sets up an overall larger conflict. The middle film goes darker with a Master training a new Apprentice. The final film features a rousing and gigantic battle across land and space. So nothing that The Rise of Skywalker does really feels out of place for the norms of the genre. Yet, there’s still something that feels disingenuous about this episode.

Fans have often commented that JJ Abrams is best when he’s making Star Wars references in other movies, but not when he’s making a film within the Star Wars universe itself. Growing up as a fan of the Saga, his choice to include elements of fun and adventure in his other films (especially his more Star Wars-y take on 2009’s Star Trek) is an exciting homage. But making a reference to Star Wars and really making a Star Wars film are two different things. The Sequel films seem to lack the mythical and philosophical elements that can be seen stitched into the original six films. All of the deeper details have been filed down to a much simpler version of good guys are good, and bad guys are bad. Rian Johnson introduced a further blurring of the lines between the good guys and the bad, intimating that Rey and Kylo Ren were somehow in between the extremes. Abrams upped that by creating the brilliant plot twist that the good guy Rey was a granddaughter of the villain Palpatine, just as the bad guy Kylo Ren is the grandson of villain Darth Vader. A never-ending dichotomy that is present in all the films.

Societal Commentary

Regardless of how well the genre-specific elements in The Rise of Skywalker hit, the thematic elements all feel very true to the series–or at least the modern incarnation of the Star Wars films. The return of the fascist villains, now portrayed by the First Order rather than the Empire, feels very true to form and even scarier than they were in the 70s and 80s. Perhaps that is because the rise of fascism in real-life is a more accurate reflection in the early 21st Century than it was in the post-Watergate era. The Resistance, now modeled on more current elements, provides important tips for fighting a foe that uses an atypical approach to winning hearts and minds. The film also impresses that it’s never too late to resist oppression. Kylo Ren is the main catalyst of this message. He has perpetrated some utterly heinous acts in the screen time he’s had. After killing his master in the previous installment, he ascended to the post of Supreme Leader and actively sought out the mysteries of Exegol. Yet in this film, he fights both an external battle (with Rey) and an internal one (with the ghost of Han Solo as his conscience) to reconcile what kind of person he wants to be. In an amazing sequence on the surface of the crashed Death Star II, Ren and Rey spar with lightsabers as waves spray water across them. Unlike the battle of Mustafar, a lava planet where Anakin was injured and completed his fall to the Dark Side of the Force, Kylo battles Rey in the healing power of water. He is killed and then reborn to the Light Side by her healing powers. The important message being that our past doesn’t have to define us.

Another example of characters changing their direction is demonstrated by Jannah and her clan of ex-stormtroopers on Kef Bir. She explains to Finn that she and the others were once part of the First Order. Like Finn’s defection in Episode VII, Jannah and her team refused to follow illegal orders and left the military ranks to hide on this Endor moon. “They told us to fire on civilians,” is how she describes the choice they made to Finn. It was certainly the right thing to do, but not an easy choice, given that they were probably hunted by the First Order for their defection. The other evidence that the past does not define the individual mirrors Kylo’s turn to the Light Side. Rey finally discovers her backstory, which is about as grim as possible. She is the paternal granddaughter of the most notorious Sith Lord in the galaxy, Palpatine. Having spent two plus films looking for her origins, it would seem like this news might break her. But she is more resilient than that. Partially because she’s never seen herself as anything but Rey. Not knowing where she came from prevented her real past from influencing her behavior. And Rey is shown as being the most compassionate character of the trilogy. She chooses an empathetic path at every juncture, whether that’s helping a giant serpent with its injury, forgiving Kylo Ren for all his ills, or deciding to remove herself from the equation in hopes that the galaxy can survive without her. She is a role model that more people should follow.

The Science in The Fiction

One thing that the Star Wars films don’t get enough credit for is helping people through their real-world problems. Case in point, who better to remind audiences about the importance of routine backups than the droids Artoo and Threepio? It’s understandable that we all live busy lives, with our digital memories and digital work being an integral part of our livelihood. Remembering to take the time to back up your phone or computer can be the difference between happiness and sorrow. This is the way that Rey, Poe, and Finn must have felt when they realized that Babu Frik’s hacking would wipe out C-3PO’s memory, even though it would reveal to them the location of the Sith Wayfinder. It was a hard choice, and one that many audience members probably were affected by, especially older fans. It made for some humorous moments, as Threepio, who is one of two long-standing characters who have been in every Saga film (along with R2-D2), mentions that Babu Frik is his oldest friend. Luckily, Artoo–the industrious little droid who sat out most of The Force Awakens–happens to have a recent memory backup of Threepio and restores his memory. This is what friends are for! Also, go back up your devices. Seriously!

The Final Frontier

As with any popular franchise, there’s more Star Wars on the way. Maul: Shadow Lord, a 10-episode animated series, has recently wrapped up on Disney+. It continued the stories of Darth Maul’s return, which started in The Clone Wars and continued in Rebels. Later this month, May of 2026, The Mandalorian and Grogu hits theaters. This is a spin-off from the popular The Mandalorian TV series, also on Disney+. There are also plans for a Starfighter film featuring Ryan Gosling and directed by Shawn Levy, of which not much else is known. And somehow Rey will return in a new, but unannounced film, featuring Daisy Ridley returning to this breakout role. No word on whether it will be a one-off film or part of a new trilogy.

The Rise of Skywalker may not be a film for everyone. It may not be a film for every fan of the Star Wars franchise. So much of the media in the last 10 years that has come out from Lucasfilm, whether it’s films, TV shows, books, or comics, has seemed more fractured, which may not be a surprise. The more of something that exists as it tries to find new and wider audiences, the less it is going to be built for the original fans. This is a common growing pain for any media franchise and one that many must learn to accept in the new world of Star Wars. It’s been a pleasure reviewing these core Star Wars films here on Sci-Fi Saturdays, and since this is my final one (for now), let me just say, “May the Force be with you, always!

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