Tuesday 21 January 2020

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (12A)

And so, here we are — for the third time in our life The Saga has come to an end. 

Until next time, obviously. And let's not rule that out. But already we digress....

It's almost as if we're trying to find reasons not to actually write this review...


Our LobbyCast companions have already voiced their thoughts on the matter, and we get that this is a big moment for fans everywhere.

Or should be.

And yet...

You see, Jedi was far from the greatest film ever made — but within the context of the trilogy it made sense, felt right, and had added euphoria that younger us remembers fondly. Even now.

And sure, Revenge Of The Sith wasn't amazing, but it was the best of those three (OK, low bar...) and had the added nostalgic impact of finally giving is the back story we'd always craved.

Badly acted and with terrible dialogue, but THAT BIT happened so all was forgiven.

Then, because Disney loves a cash cow, we seemingly needed to know what happened next.

I mean, we know what happened next — the Empire was defeated and everyone lived happily ever after. But apparently that wasn't enough.

And so we get a whole new trilogy to have fun with, and to be fair The Force Awakens ticked all the right boxes and hit the right buttons.

By basically being Star Wars again, sure, but it felt right. It felt like the wait was worth it.

And then, of course, we had offshoots we didn't know we needed as a universe we were happy with got expanded beyond all reasonable measure.

Rogue One and Solo weren't awful, but also weren't great — and in the case of Rogue, just re-shot key scenes from Empire.

In between these of course, we got The Last Jedi.

Or got got by The Last Jedi, depending on your viewpoint. Too long, too confusing, too dull and baffling given how good a writer/director Rian Johnson actually is.

All of which brings us to where we are now. Still wondering why we put ourselves through it. Why we allow ourselves to have our nostalgia and emotions toyed with once again.

If we ever find the answer to that, we'll get back to you.

In the meantime, as the world dashed to the opening weekend, we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

We knew what was coming, we knew what would happen, but like those end of year accounts we were in no rush to face the inevitable.

And then, finally, we trudged to the big screen, sat well away from everyone, and waited...

And the first thing we realised was that no matter how many times we see them, no matter how many parodies exist, those words scrolling up the screen telling us the story so far in excitable, juvenile, over-written English still give us that same tingle.

It would be the last one for a while.

From here on in, it's a long, slow descent into apathy with a few audible 'oh ffs' being muttered along the way.

We're not going to go details of the plot (really, what's the point?), suffice to say Good is fighting back against Bad and there's conflict and angst.

Good angst, too, at times.

But...

And there are few too many buts flying around here...

But....

It just feels wrong.

Old characters return, new ones are clearly there to sell merchandise (a totally unwelcome callback to The Phantom Menace) and action scenes are here ready for the inevitable game that will be launched when the BluRay arrives.

And the dialogue is clunky as all hell.

No, it was never brilliant, but it was better than this.

We very nearly screamed 'WE KNOW YOU'RE THE SPY, YOU DIDN'T NEED TO TELL US', but that would have broken the Code Of Conduct.

And that, ultimately, is the problem here.

Sure, OK, ignore the last film completely, but if you're going to do that then know how you're going o plug the gaps.

And yes, it looks amazing, and is wonderfully dark in places (it is, essentially, Empire and Jedi shoved into a blender), but as we've come to expect Skywalker is entirely style over substance.

Which, granted, is ever as it was, but back then you were given characters to love, you cared what happened, you were given a story to get stuck into (no matter how hack Jedi might look now, we loved it then).

But when you spend most of the film picking large holes (His name wasn't mentioned for three films, so how come it's suddenly all over the place, eh? Oh, and where the hell did he suddenly come from?)* you know something is wrong.

And it's not the lack of plot or terrible lines, or even that they were riding sodding horses in space, it's the fact the emotion has gone.

No one seems to have cared about this film.


Yes, OK, we're world weary, cynical, mildly depressed and watching the world burn — but that was almost the same set of circumstances surrounding Awakens and we loved that.

No, sadly, in attempting to bring loose ends together that didn't need it, to create events we know could not have happened, to produce something that is essentially soulless is just wrong.

For the film to only come alive during the final scenes was even worse.

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