I wanted to write some more about The Rise of Skywalker. But, I don’t feel like complaining right now. So, I thought I’d try coming up with some positive things about the movie.
1. Ian McDiarmid – McDiarmid plays Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi, the Prequel Trilogy, and The Rise of Skywalker. We’ll ignore the fact that Palpatine’s return makes no sense and just appreciate how great McDiarmid is in the role.
2. Luke called his actions from VII and VIII a mistake – They were clearly a huge mistake, aside from being completely out of character. We should commend him for acknowledging that.
3. C-3PO had a larger role – One of the problems with the sequel trilogy is that R2 and 3PO have been marginalized. It was nice to see 3PO get some real screen time in the third installment.
4. Using old footage of Carrie Fisher in the new movie, after her death, wasn’t as horrifyingly bad as it could have been – This one explains itself, but I was dreading seeing Carrie Fisher brought back from the dead. It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. The Leia scenes were stilted and awkward, but didn’t feel like a desecration.
5. Luke trained Leia – One of the last things Yoda said to Luke in Return of the Jedi was, “Pass on what you have learned.” It was a big disappointment to me that there was no indication in VII and VIII that he had tried to do so with anyone other than Ben Solo and a handful of others that followed Ben to the dark side or were killed. Why did Yoda and Obi-wan bother revealing that Leia was Luke’s sister if it wasn’t so she could be trained? I’m glad they rectified that oversite.
That’s five positives (sort of). I can’t come up with anything else at the moment, so it’ll have to do.
