Daniel from How It Should Have Ended is here with his take on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and if feels like the fair-minded review of the film from a dedicated fan I’ve been looking for.
We love How It Should Have Ended’s hilarious animated spins on popular movies, and their reviews are spot-on. What I appreciate about Daniel’s look at The Rise of Skywalker is that it’s not afraid to skewer the movie for all of its ridiculous plotting choices, while at the same time lauding what the film does right. Rise of Skywalker is already so polarizing that it’s rare to see people discussing different elements of the movie rather than running with their visceral reaction to the thing as a whole. The film has only been out for a handful of days, and I’m already tired of all the infighting. It’s much more fun to break this thing down to its constituent parts.
Here are a few of my favorite moments from the review:
A pretty apt assessment of The Rise of Skywlaker! “It’s not exactly the home run I wanted to experience, but I wouldn’t call it the worst Star Wars episode either.”
On the film’s “overpopulation”: “There were a lot of moments where I felt like JJ was just letting his friends have single-line cameos, and that got a little overboard.”
On Palpatine: “He’s always got multiple logs in the fire, DON’T QUESTION IT, IT WAS ALL A BIG SECRET. […] All that matters is he’s evil and he’s back, so we gotta blow him up.”
On Rey’s heritage: “I still say Rey Kenobi sounds so much cooler.” DOESN’T IT JUST?
What about Jannah?: “I like the former Stormtrooper angle? I expected that to maybe mean something to her and Finn?”
What about General Pryde?: “Eh.”
What about D-0? “I don’t care. He’s like the rebel version of the mouse droid.”
YOU TAKE THAT BACK!
yes babu frik is cool but what about d-0 who doesn’t want to be touched because of past trauma, says “no thank you” while backing up which is iconic & slowly learns to trust again? this is the best character arc in #TheRiseOfSkywalker i will not be taking questions at this time pic.twitter.com/7IK2A2eBhB
— Kaila Hale-Stern (@kailahalestern) December 20, 2019
So what was the ultimate message?
“Anyone can change.”
In summation: “Do I think this was the worst Star Wars movie ever? Not by a longshot. Was the best sendoff to the Skywalker saga? Nah.”
This Christmas day, as many of you go to see Rise of Skywalker and many, many more arguments are born on the Internet, I’m putting this review here as a much-needed view that brings balance to the light and dark sides of this film. (Sorry.)
(image: Lucasfilm)
It’s Christmas! It’s still Hanukkah! Nothing else happened! But what did you see out there today?
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