Hololulu baby

Rating: Null/10 (6 February 2020)

What the latest trilogy of Star War films needed was a writer of the statue of J. J R Tolkien. A vivid story teller with a command and understanding of myth and fairy tale. Tolkien was an Oxford professor of Early English Literature and the experience left a burning desire to create his own epic. George Lucas was an enthusiastic reader of Joseph Campbell books on mythology but he could barely string together a vivid sentence, no matter, he had a burning desire to produce his own epic and went on to form an empire.
This maybe is what this new endeavor needed but it is not what what it got and I mention this because the one thing Disney's new Star Wars series needed is a reason to exist, other then to make money for a large and ever expanding corporation. The writers it did get was among others, J.J. Abrams for The Force Awakens, Rian Johnson for The Last Jedi and then Abrams again for The Rise of Skywalker, They are the directors of each film and share equal credit with each film 's numerous screen writers, six in total credited to the last.
The first, The Force Awakens; is nothing more then fan fiction, (can you think of anything that happens that doesn't happen in the original trilogy?) The second urinates over everything Abrams thinks Star Wars stands for and tears up and jumps on everything the first sets up. The third urinates all over the second and negates or ignores all that has happened there in.Its a trilogy were both ends think it only has two parts. When Peter Jackson was making Lord of the Rings he had the privilege crafting a narrative arc with moments of quite reflection as well action because at the beginning he knew where he wound be at the end, so that controlling the film untill the end, became a mater of tone and pacing. The produces at Disney had that privilege too and they threw it away which has turned Star Wars into a p***ing contest between directors with inconsolable views of a galaxy far away.
All of this explains exactly where we are at the start of The Rise of Skywalker, when a sweeping roll of text declares that the Emperor Palpataine is alive and well and broadcasting to his future plans to the galaxy. This has to be one of the miraculous escapes in cinema history considering he was last seen beaten and demoralized hurtling head first down a huge air shaft to the tumultuous center of the Death Star's reactor, which in turn was blown up into a billion tiny sparkling fragments, which in turn have rained down through an atmosphere on to the raging sea on a planet's surface. So we deserve a reasonable explanation. Do we get one, no because there isn't one. In fact we get no explanation at all and so the whole thing is shoved into the prologue because it's too ridiculous to have deal with dramatically in the main body of the film
The reason why Palpataine has made such sudden return is that Rain Johnson has killed off Snoke, the freshly minted villain of the first film. You need to have a big Star Wars finish with the heroes wining against insurmountable odds and the villain going down the drain. Rian is asking you to think again J.J can only think of Star Wars on those terms. Emotionally Abrams is right in bringing back Palpataine for the finish because after those nine films there needs to be a cathartic end, Abrams is incapable of producing it from the current drama he is dependent on nostalgia to fuel everything it may feel emotional right but it makes no sense at all, Palpataine just pops up, ping! And there he is there.
" Hello everybody here I am having a lovely time with my Sith friends on this mystery planet (big wave everybody) ,hope you don't mind all those huge planet destroying Sith battle ships parked outside every bodies houses, they're be all gone awfully soon."
One wonders where all these other Siths come from, do they lead ordinary lives as Palpataine once did only to disappear for the weekend away from the wife and kids, rather like Laurel and hardy did in Sons of the Desert and if this is a Sith convention then vast arena must be a conference hall, what is the catering like, are there adequate toilet facilities, what do they talk about in the quieter moments?
The Rise of Skywalker is full of emotional jolts and surprises as familiar people and objects career into view but they fail to cohere because their appearance is so contrived. For example its a convention in theater and cinema for characters to return from the dead to talk to the living. Hamlet's father returns to speak with his son and in the film Gravity, George Clooney returns to offer advice to the still unconscious Angela Bullock. In The Empire Strikes Back Alec Guinness has joined the afterlife afforded to all those who are strong with the force and he appears to Luke to offer cryptic advice and to hopefully clam his two and a half percent from behind a blue haze. Soon enough Yoda and any other recently croaked padawans can be seen smiling some what smugly behind a shimmering hue. Alls well with that until Harrison Ford pops up in front of Adam Driver in the final film to offer even more advice and maybe a bigger cut. Harrison doesn't have a blue sheen and.. hang on a minuet, the closest Han Solo has ever got to the force is the inside of princess Leia and that doesn't get you any Brownie points if you pardon the expression.
"You must be from inside my mind" Adam Driver helpfully adds for all those at home.
The surprise appearance of Ford certainly sent a warm glow to this Star Wars fan's tummy but the brain was starting to revolt. Another part that doesn't quite logically fit. You begin to feel the film will do anything for fan service. This would not matter if the plot didn't feel so arbitrary. People ruining around collecting stuff at great speed. Why is there a knife that points to the secret hiding place of the Sith, are they sent out with conference invitation.
The Rise of Skywalker pressed all my emotional buttons, all my Star War buttons and revealed some emotional Star War buttons I didn't know I had, but I just know I have been fingered For two hours and twenty minuets. This is what Pavlov's dog must have felt like after a hard day at the office. J.J. Abrams film is hollow and manipulative and exploitive. It feeds from the very real and personal emotions we have but it gives very little.