Star Wars: The Abuse of Nostalgia (spoiler review)

What was Finn going to tell Rey? For the slightly attentive viewer, this is one of many questions that never gets answered in J.J. Abrams' "The Rise of Skywalker." The film, seemingly in response to a vocal minority who didn't like "The Last Jedi," veers itself so far into safe territory that it loses all narrative weight, yielding a lifeless, predictable end to a now-disposable trilogy. 

Let's begin with the plot. Does it really have one? The first two acts of the film play out as if we are embodying the roles in a video game quest, as the characters navigate the galaxy like pong pong balls from expositional character to expositional character in search of Palpatine's location. Palpatine is somehow alive (plot armor)—a villain who was not only thrown down an impossibly-tall height by Vader in "​Return of the Jedi," but also part of the death star that exploded at the end. The writers' explanation—'sith powers'—is something we've never seen before and is one of many signs that points to their gross course-correction in this trilogy. Not only is Palpatine back, but every influence for Kylo Ren was him, including the short-lived Snoke who was somehow a clone (how/why?) of Palpatine. The plot never rises above a "Transformers" level of sophistication, delivering visual noise and a familiar score instead of a compelling or dramatic arc for these familiar characters. There is a dizzying level of confusion from "The Last Jedi" alone: 'Rey is nobody' turns into 'Rey is the granddaughter of Palpatine' ; Luke's decision to toss the lightsaber on Ahch-To turns into his preaching that Jedi always take care of their weapons. In one scene, Kylo takes Rey's necklace from their force-connection into his plane of existence first, yet they never explain how this works—why can't he just fully-transport into her location? 

Character arcs in "The Rise of Skywalker" are either non-existent or zany at a middle-school level. Finn is seen repeatedly throughout this film as a force user with his connection to Rey, yet he does nothing to use this ability, instead commanding armies on horses that possess an impossibly low oxygen tolerance when fighting on star destroyers in the atmosphere. Rey has ascended into full-on god mode in a obvious rebuke of prior canon material. After six films where Anakin Skywalker was the chosen one, Rey comes along with Thanos-level power, healing six-eyed snakes and Kylo Ren with ease. After she fake-kills Chewbacca with force-lightning, Rey decides to never explore that skill again. It probably would have been helpful against someone like Palpatine who uses that exclusively. Palpatine is a disgrace in this film, as he appears dimwitted and reactionary, rather than as the calculated menace he was in the Original Trilogy. His diabolical plans change THREE times throughout the movie: 1) tells Kylo to kill Rey; 2) tells Rey to kill him to transfer his spirit to her; 3) decides to cannibalize their powers and kill them both.

The indecisiveness of Palpatine mirrors that of the creators who created this Frankenstein of an ending. There is no logical possibility that Palpatine was the end-game villain of this trilogy all along during production. Rian Johnson's shift in killing Snoke must have disturbed J.J's force, as Palpatine's presence, from his convenient clones of Snoke lying around, to his stereotypical 'hiding in darkness, waiting to strike' trope, subtract any level of logicality from the film. Plot elements here disrupt the entire saga, not just this tepid trilogy. Leia, in a disposable cut-scene, apparently was a better Jedi than Luke in the recent past, although we neither heard of this nor saw her in battle ever before. "Episodes 1-6" chronicled the rise and heroic fall of Darth Vader, yet this film annihilates his sacrifice by reincarnating the very force he died destroying. While previous trilogies established that only the top Jedi (not Sith) could be brought back as force entities, apparently the number cap expanded, as Palpatine explains he possesses all the Sith, while Rey possesses all the Jedi. 

"The Rise of Skywalker" is not painful viewing for the deaf or amateur fan. The non-stop action and explosions keep audiences entertained, akin to watching fireworks on the Fourth of July. John Williams' score is the strongest part of the film, although even it succumbs to mundaneness towards the third act after being the only source of emotional resonance. Everything here feels manufactured in a sloppy, infantine fashion. J.J. Abrams has always been one to copy, but his logic capability in crafting a finale has been thrown into a chasm deeper than Palpatine experienced. Instead of continuing Kylo Ren's path further to the dark side and establishing a worthwhile foe to Rey, he simply turned him into heroic Vader. Instead of challenging the emotional identities of Rey and Kylo, he keeps gender roles confined to the Star Wars status quo: Rey is over-expressive, while Kylo is under-expressive. Instead of taking bold risks with the principal arcs of Rey, Finn, and Poe, he sidelined the latter two and divined the former, creating boring mirrors of Luke, Leia, and Han, respectively. Ending this trilogy is admittedly difficult, yet Abrams' overreliance on nostalgia creates a desensitization of the past. "The Rise of Skywalker" evanesces the closing of this trilogy much like Palpatine, leaving viewers metaphorically stranded on Exigol, looking for any creative minds that will bring them original stories in a galaxy far, far away...

Sean Kelso is the founder and editor-in-chief of Greyscale.