Janis Joplin was my first dead celebrity.
She was one of my parents’ favorite singers back when I was a kid, and I vividly recall being informed by my mother that Joplin had died. One of Joplin’s albums was playing at that moment on our stereo’s 8-Track player, and I went over and listened to the voice of a dead woman singing. That blew my mind as a young boy, and it also creeped me out big time, as well.
I had that same creeped-out feeling while watching re-animated Carrie Fisher casually walking around and talking in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Although she had passed away long before her appearance in The Last Jedi, it didn’t bother me watching Fisher in Last Jedi because I knew that she was alive and well while filming that movie (and that it was one of the last things she had shot). But for Rise of Skywalker, Fisher’s performance had been created using old, unused footage leftover from The Force Awakens, and yet I could never shake the unpleasant feeling that the deceased Fisher wasn't really interacting with her co-stars in this film.
They say nobody really dies in science fiction, and that saying also now apparently applies to big-budget blockbuster movies, which recently have revived the late Peter Cushing in Rogue One (another creepy “performance”) and Paul Walker in one of the Fast and Furious films. But I think it was a mistake to bring back Carrie Fisher like they did here, though. Her character would have been better served having died off-screen before the movie started.
Another bad decision that the Rise of Skywalker did was to bring back the Emperor Palpitine. Although wonderfully played by the always great Ian McDiarmid, the Emperor’s mere presence here pretty much cancels the ending of Return of the Jedi, undermining the victory of Luke Skywalker and the rebellion in that film. Also, with the way things are left at the end of the Rise of Skywalker, there’s no real guarantee that Palpitine simply won’t return again, which also undermines the celebratory ending of this film, too.
The Rise of Skywalker overall feels very rushed and chaotic; the main sequel trilogy characters, whom we’ve never really got to know as well as the original trilogy Star Wars characters, race around the universe as if they’re on one of these treasure hunting TV reality shows. And--much like Carrie Fisher’s presence here--as a film, the Rise of Skywalker just feels wrong. It’s bright and flashy, with plenty of action, quips, and space battles, and it's so frigging eager to please--but ultimately, everything just feels…off.
Although I’m not a big fan of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Rey was the one shining light of these films that I’ve always enjoyed. The engaging and charismatic Daisy Ridley always made Rey worth watching for me, with her performance rising far above the shallow material that she was given (in all three sequel films).
Perhaps it’s just as well that we’re done with the Skywalker Saga, anyway. My favorite Disney Star Wars films are Rogue One and Solo, because they show us different views of the realm that George Lucas gifted us with over forty years ago. Maybe it’s time to get away from the ongoing soap opera featuring the Skywalker clan and finally start exploring the depths of this fascinating and charming universe that’s set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. --SF
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