A Galaxy Divided (Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker Spoiler-Filled Review)

As Mao’s health was failing him, there were two people vying for his position as paramount leader. His chosen successor, Hua Guofang, advocated what came to be known as the “Two Whatevers”, which stated, “We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave.” The other person who was maneuvering for paramount leader—and who eventually did outmaneuver Hua Guofeng—was Deng Xiaoping, who, advancing his “Four Modernizations”, put far less emphasis on ideology, refused to concede on the utterly disastrous Cultural Revolution, and advocated a policy agenda that sought to rapidly advance the country’s agricultural output (China had still not recovered from the Great Leap Forward), industrial development, defensive capabilities, and economic development (it should be noted that Xiaoping, for all of the good he did for China, also ordered the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4th, 1989).



The reason why I bring this up is that, Star Wars, particularly the latest trilogy, seems to be an ideological and cultural struggle in its own right, between JJ Abrams, who directed The Force Awakens and Rise of the Skywalker, and whose vision for Star Wars might be categorized as the “Two Whatevers”; and Rian Johnson, who directed The Last Jedi, who might more closely resemble the “Four Modernizations” in that he sought to change Star Wars and compel audiences to look at it more critically. Unfortunately for the trilogy, and Star Wars as a cultural entity, I think that its version of the “Two Whatevers” (“Whatever George Lucas would have wanted...”) won out with the final film.



I loved The Last Jedi, as I believed that it pushed the Star Wars saga to a close, and, in a very meta way, asked fans to examine it more critically, particularly when Phantom Yoda and Luke Skywalker were discussing the legacies of past Jedi. It was obvious that they were talking about Star Wars, and Rian Johnson very obviously wanted to change Star Wars—I think—for the better.



The primary theme of The Last Jedi was that the heroics of the original trilogy were no longer working against the First Order, and survival required not one single hotshot pilot running suicide missions, but everyone working together. It left the Resistance on the run from an insurmountable enemy, calling for help from the Outer Planets (the idea that the FO doesn’t control and cannot reach sections of the galaxy is very interesting to me and I wish the political situation was more fleshed out in the series), and on the verge of total defeat. It also introduced more diverse characters, and unfortunately the actors who played these characters—like Kelly Marie Tran—were harassed incessantly by die-hard fans who liked Star Wars when it was much less diverse. Again, pushing Star Wars forward.



Of course, because of the tsunami of vitriol and harassment against the people involved, JJ Abrams was called back in to deliver a salve in the form of what one could call the “most Star Wars of all the Star Wars movies,” which not only erased much of what The Last Jedi was trying to say about Star Wars (like how Rey was a nobody—and then, oops!--she’s a nobody but also of Palpatine lineage, and also the final scene of the kid working in the space stables who lifts the broom using the Force, implying that anyone could be Force-sensitive), but also delivered a highly rushed, extremely crowd-pleasing finale built on a narrative house of cards. 25 years later you are going to tell me that Emperor Palpatine survived not only being tossed into the Death Star fusion reactor, but also the explosion itself, and then somehow made it back to the Sith home system? Upon this house of cards, they further piled on brick after brick of fan service moments—Lando shows up! Phantom Luke Skywalker! A touching funeral for Leia/Carrie Fisher! Han Solo gets Kylo Ren to abandon the Dark Side! Totally sidelined Rose Tico!--specifically designed to, like HBO begging people not to cancel their service after Game of Thrones ended, beg the neo-Nazi fanbase not to have a Unite the Right rally outside their offices.



Did I describe Rise of Skywalker as a house of cards? It would be more accurate to call it a bullet train made of rice paper. The two-and-a-half-hour runtime is jam-packed with loud noises, quick edits, few slow transitions, and no character development whatsoever. I said earlier that it is the “most Star Wars movie of all the Star Wars” because it is filled to the very second of Star Wars “stuff”--little character dialogue, a lot of lasers and lightsabers, and a lot of “this is where we need to go next.” There is no tension, no build-up, no uncertainty. There is no logical consideration for anything that happens; no justification. Early in the film, the Squad falls into what is basically quicksand after a speederbike chase, and they find the dagger which tells them where the Sith starmap is, and then suddenly a giant sandworm/snake thing appears. Later, they go to the ruins of the Death Star II (which is very cool, but I hoped that Rey got her tetanus shot beforehand), and all of the sudden she knows that in the handguard of the dagger is an outline of the ruins and a marker showing the exact location of the Sith starmap. She just takes it out of her pack and bam!—she knows everything. The only real narrative tension in the film—up until the end—is when C3-PO gets his memory wiped so they can break the lock on the Sith language in his programming, but this isn’t Data at the end of Star Trek: Nemesis; toward the end of the film, R2 jabs him in the head and restores his memory lickety-split.



Look, I know Star Wars is supposed to be a Big, Important Thing, but the lack of narrative tension is a real issue. The incessant breakneck pace of the film desensitizes the viewer to everything happening on the screen, and what makes matters worse is the foreknowledge that everything is going to happen a certain way. There is no time to build that tension, to ask what or why the characters are doing a certain thing. It’s Star Wars as told by JJ Abrams: Shit just happens and we’re only here for the laser-light show.



Some pretty amazing things happen in the last twenty minutes or so. The Outer Planets’ massive fleet shows up. Neo fights Agent Smith in the rain and ion lightning. Agent Smith unleashes a massive EMP/lightning storm that disables the fleet’s ships. Kylo Ren kisses Rey before he dies (using the last of his life Force to resurrect her in a necessary sacrifice so that Carrie Fisher can be at peace). And, like Independence Day, all of the Star Destroyers are miraculously annihilated after the Sith base is wiped out (someone needs to explain to me how Ewoks—who have never reached space and have been oppressed by the Empire basically since forever—managed to get rid of a Star Destroyer).



JJ Abrams’ “Two Whatevers” won over Johnson’s “Four Modernizations,” and I really think that the entire series as a cultural mecca suffers for it. It is set in the same black stone, a large mass in space that produces its own gravity, and all of us are just orbiting it now, enjoying the pretty lights and not thinking very hard.