I already posted my more general, overarching rant about Rise of Skywalker that praised what it did right but generally griped about what it did wrong. I’ve had a little more time to think about it since then, and I’m going to move past some of the structural and mythological aspects and dig into where I think Abrams punted on what could have been a much cleaner, sensical, edgier version of the same movie, and might have saved it. Since this discusses major plot reveals from the movie, spoilers are of course rife and rampant throughout.
In general, some of my biggest structural complaints from the last post had to do with the fact that Abrams can’t stop copying source material. So of course we got the reveal that Rey was Palpatine’s daughter. (“That’s not true, that’s impossible!”) And of course there was another throne room showdown with Palpatine, and they both even had the “Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey to the dark side will be complete!” thing. Literally, that was Palpatine’s entire plan. He’s been trying to get a Jedi to kill him for decades and it’s apparently a lot harder than you’d imagine. And of course a Sith turned against the Emperor to defeat him and gave his life to do it, except he didn’t! And then he did after all!
So, let’s assume all the structural things from the movie that annoyed me were still mostly the same, but we tweaked a couple of the big reveals and went a different direction. What difference could it have made? I submit to you, Rise Up, Skywalker
- Ben Solo should have lived.
Why? Because the story was also about him. Yes, Rey is the Jedi hero and all that, but as much as Ben is basically Anakin Skywalker 2.0, with almost literally the exact same story arc, he’s also a main character, whereas Darth Vader was merely a foil to Luke. He had his own scenes, he had the most character development and backstory of any character in the series. And he was also portrayed with the most dynamic actor of the series as well in Adam Driver. Ben dying was a huge waste.
What instead? I think Abrams in general didn’t handle Kylo-Ben all that well, but he could have saved the character by having him return to Ben Solo, living out the rest of his days atoning for all the evil he’d done. He would have been a broken person in a lot of ways, but in a perfect world Leia would have still been around to accept and forgive him, and help her long lost son through the pain of recovery. Star Wars doesn’t ever seem interested in penance, just death. For that matter, I would have loved to see (another filmmaker) do a Ben Solo follow up movie with just Ben on his own, slightly older, on a new adventure, quieter, more self-aware, a personal journey. It would have been a great opportunity to ask Big Questions, which Star Wars isn’t always great at either. Can anyone be redeemed? Was the darkness inside him all along or was it all because of the Emperor’s influence? Can he ever forgive himself? What is the burden of the Solo-Skywalker legacy? And then I think you throw in some fan service with a SECOND movie where he meets Luke’s long lost daughter with Mara Jade, and an older, mature Ben becomes her master in secret, showing that he’s cast off his demons and dedicated himself to the light. It’s a huge missed opportunity for what could have turned Kylo into a truly great character.
- Ben and Rey should never have kissed.
Why? This was about one thing: pleasing the Reylo fans. For a movie that really handed in the fan service, this was the most fan service-y thing of all. I know the comparison will annoy the Reylo fans, but let’s be honest, this relationship was just as dumb as the Anakin-Padme relationship. Rey and Kylo have zero chemistry. None. This is their relationship: A handful of long looks across rooms at each other, a trio of lightsaber battles (in which she kills him in one), and a series of bizarre, creepy astral projection conversations across space with each other, almost all of which involve him tempting her to the dark side, and all secretly puppet mastered by her demented grandfather. That’s about as good as the idea that an annoying, impetuous teenager with a boyhood crush somehow lands a powerful Senator through a series of truly terrible pickup lines about coarse sand. Their relationship is garbage, but the film keeps forcing them together. Their relationship is abusive. They shouldn’t have kissed. She should have gotten a restraining order and therapy. No one should have been rooting for that.
What instead? See below.
- Rey should not have been a Palpatine.
Why? On the one hand, I think she should have been nobody. The end of Last Jedi had that great tease that suggested there were many more force sensitives out there, and I love the idea that she’s very talented and very powerful, but isn’t fundamentally broken in the way that Anakin was that led him to the Dark Side. Let’s face it, her being a Palpatine was totally unnecessary. Palpatine being in the movie at all already makes no sense, why compound the error by having Rey be his secret granddaughter when it does nothing for the plot? And when no time is allowed to let her reflect on it? Why does everything have to revolve around last names from the original trilogy? And if it does have to be from the original trilogy–which, it’s an Abrams movie so I guess it does–let’s at least be a bit smarter about it in a way that serves the story.
What Instead? I think Rey should have been Ben’s twin sister. Fans of the Extended Universe were hoping we’d see the twins, Jaina and Jacen Solo in some form, and I’ve seen many articles written in the last week or two with lengthy rants about how this would have been better and I agree. Maybe Han and Leia were told Ben’s twin died during childbirth, maybe she’s his younger sister and was thought killed when Kylo killed all of Luke’s students. But that would explain why both Han and Leia took a shine to her, because both were holding onto the pain of a missing daughter and she reminded them both of her so much. And maybe Leia just knew it was her through the Force. It would also explain the Force connection Kylo had with her as well. It connects a lot of dots that Abrams and Johnson both seeded in their earlier movies but never actually tied up. And then even if you were still going to do that whole weird she kills him and saves him and he dies and is alive and she dies and he saves her and dies nonsense (I mean really, read that again, it’s what actually happened and it’s dumb), but with the tweak that Ben survives, now it all clicks into place a lot more, and somewhere in there one of them has the same realization that Luke had on Dagobah about Leia. Yes, it’s STILL borrowing from the original films, but it serves the characters and the story so much better. It makes more sense given the story they’ve laid out for us.
It also makes the scene where Rey kills Kylo make more sense. Why did Leia use all her remaining strength to force project herself to Kylo and distract him so that Rey could kill him? That was a bizarre moment to me. Both Luke and probably Leia could have taken on Kylo and killed him, especially if Rey, untrained, could hold her own in a lightsaber battle against him multiple times. So it couldn’t just be about that. And why would Leia put the burden of Rey killing Kylo on her? It was all so awkward and makes no real sense when you think about it. But, make them siblings, and Leia senses a great disturbance in the Force. She senses her two children fighting, and feels a stab of pain through the Force when Rey kills Kylo. She reaches out for a moment to connect all of them for one last moment, and Kylo looks up to see both Leia and Han (who is less a Force ghost than a figment of Ben’s imagination) and Rey looks up and sees them too, their parents looking down on them and smiling, their family finally reunited as Ben returns to them. Now Kylo and Rey go to the Emperor’s palace together and they face him down and beat him together. That sounds incredibly better than what actually happened. It’s such a relatively minor tweak structurally, yet it massively changes the flow, emotion and payoff of the film. And it does better service to all the characters.
- If she had to be a Palpatine, Rey should not have introduced herself as Rey Skywalker at the end.
Why? Hat tip to fellow Rise Up Contributor Kara on this one. For such a small change it would have a huge impact, and paired with Ben surviving, changes the story significantly. For one thing, what is the virtue of keeping the Skywalker name alive? I mean really, I think a lot of people by the end were actually a little excited to have this series come to a close, and killing off all the Skywalkers was one way to give it some finality, but honestly, she knew Luke and Leia for like fifteen minutes. Despite the fact that they obviously had a big impact on her, there really wasn’t much purpose from a character growth perspective that I could see there. Now, if the Leia scenes had been moved to the second movie, and we actually saw some sort of mother-daughter type relationship unfold over two movies, I would have said that would have been cool, as a sign of how close they were and her desire to honor her adopted mother and carry on the name. But none of that happened.
What instead? Rey Palpatine. Because it’s who she is. She’s a Palpatine. Calling herself Rey Palpatine would have been reclaiming the name, destroying its dark legacy and showing she was okay with showing who she is, and that she isn’t hiding from her past. Instead she runs from her past, never really confronts it, and claims Ben’s legacy for her own. From a narrative, character-driven standpoint, I both found that the worse choice, and I also think it was unearned, because no groundwork was laid to justify it either with Luke or Leia, or by having her relationship with Ben be more stable and heartfelt.
- Poe and Finn should have been a couple.
Why? I’m not normally a big shipper, and I’ve never really gotten into the fanfic community of slash shipping either, but, in true Hollywood fashion, I supported the pairing in this film that had the greatest chemistry, and that’s Poe and Finn, who I’m giving the portmanteau Fone. Poe was basically asexual throughout the first two films. It wasn’t until they made a side trip to obligatorily throw Zorri into the mix to both remove the idea that Poe and Rey might be a thing, also perhaps to quiet some of he Fone shippers out there. They kind of did the same thing with Rose in the second movie with Finn, but I thought most of their scenes together were a little forgettable (despite liking her character in general). But what I liked that they did was also remove the Finn-Rey shippers as well by making it pretty clear that Finn and Rey had a friendship as well as a connection through the force. I was okay with this until I realized they only did this to make the Reylo kiss happened.
What instead? Go for it! The Fone chemistry was fantastic. They were clearly into each other, why not be a little bold and a little edgy and just go for it. Instead they threw a woman at Poe and a half second lesbian kiss during the celebration at the end as a weak cop out, present enough to mollify a large fanbase, perhaps, but not so large it couldn’t easily be cropped out in Asia. Look, I’m firmly of a mind that not every pairing that could happen should happen, because men and women can be friends without being romantic, just as obviously most male-male and most female-female pairings are also platonic. But this one just worked, and despite the magic happening onscreen, they not only refused it, both Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams tied themselves in knots to throw heterobstacles in their way to block it from happening. Oscar Isaac said recently, “I think there could’ve been a very interesting, forward-thinking – not even forward-thinking, just, like, current-thinking – love story there, something that hadn’t quite been explored yet; particularly the dynamic between these two men in war that could’ve fallen in love with each other. I would try to push it a bit in that direction, but the Disney overlords were not ready to do that.” So maybe the House of Mouse was the biggest heterobstacle of all.
So there you have it. Five changes that would have been pretty easy to implement, as they really only affect a handful of scenes, but dramatically improve the film, and actually help it make a lot more sense.
