Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker comes out TOMORROW! The preliminary reviews are rushing in, and the hype is enormous!

However, as much as we have questions we want answered and things we definitely want to see, there are some things the film would be better off without.

Here are nine things we definitely do not want to see in the Rise of Skywalker.

**Note: There are potential franchise spoilers below.**

A Character that Exists Solely to Sell Toys and then Dies Before Doing Anything

It happens in a lot of Star Wars movies. You get characters like Boba Fett or Captain Phasma who show up, look awesome, and then get killed off before doing much of anything. It’s disappointing because these characters exist for us to project so much potential onto, and then in canon they’re just tossed into a sarlacc pit.

We’ve got a bunch of cool new characters in the final film, armored and otherwise, that we hope get a fair share of screen time. It’d be heartbreaking to see any more wasted potential.

An Extended Scene That’s Just Exposition About Tax Law or Something

I actually enjoyed the world building that went into the Prequel Trilogy, explaining how Palpatine manipulated political tensions and Republic law to ensure his rise to power.

However, this is the final film in a trilogy of trilogies! It’s the END! Now’s not the time to slow down! Now’s the time to go into hyperspeed toward the conclusion! If there’s a 15 minute scene explaining First Order bureaucracy, it better be absolutely critical to the film.

No Exposition Whatsoever

There is a fine line, though. If they introduce a new thing of Earth-shattering significance, they had better at least briefly explain it.

Like, if Palpatine is alive and not just a force ghost, how the heck did he get out of an exploding Death Star’s reactor core? Did he teleport? They don’t have to show us him hobbling through to an escape pod, but at least acknowledge his survival should have been impossible, but he managed because of The Force or something.

A Visually Stunning Sequence That Literally Accomplishes Nothing

The Canto Bight sequence in The Last Jedi was cool, but it accomplished literally nothing. For those of you who have forgotten, Finn and Rose travel to Space Monte Carlo to find a master code breaker but get arrested. Not for being members of the Resistance but for a parking violation. They fail to meet up with the actual code breaker but find a shady backup sharing their cell and escape with him on a stampede of space horses. Then he betrays them immediately.

Academically, it makes sense in that it’s a deconstruction of the reckless plans that Star Wars heroes carry out. The whole movie is basically a deconstruction, and I appreciate it. But it also accomplishes nothing. Nothing moves forward, the Resistance isn’t even that worse off from where they started, the same level of peril and overall message could have been achieved by running onto the Star Destroyer and getting captured. I like Rose! I like Finn! I even like the idea of Canto Bight! But a parking ticket? Seriously? That’s what foils their plan?! Either fully commit to the idea and make it meaningful, or tell the same message in a more efficient and impactful way.

That Signature George Lucas Dialogue

George Lucas gets a lot of bad press, but he’s still the man who gave us Star Wars. His imagination is a national treasure and I will always be grateful for what he’s done for Sci-Fi, Cinema, and my Geeky Memorabilia Collection. But if there’s one thing that is universally acknowledged, it’s that he cannot write dialogue. 

He’s the man who gave us such gems as…

• “I hate sand. It’s rough, it’s course, and it gets everywhere.”
• “Love won’t save you, Padme. Only my new powers can do that.”
• Literally anything that has ever left Jar Jar Binks’s mouth.

The original trilogy was heavily workshopped and ad-libbed. The prequels… less so. The new trilogy doesn’t have his direct involvement, so it should be immune to those Lucasisms, but sometimes writing Sci-Fi dialogue is HARD. I don’t blame Lucas for having trouble making it sound natural because how do you make any sentence about “midi-chlorians” sound natural?!

Oh, wait. “Midi-chlorians are a dumb idea and probably shouldn’t have been in the movie.” I did it!

Jar Jar Binks

Okay, not literally Jar Jar Binks, even if people have been joking about that for years. Also Ahmed Best really gets a bad rap for this performance, which he doesn’t deserve.

But seriously, Jar Jar is an example of a Kid Appeal character gone wrong. He’s supposed to be funny and endearing but just comes off as annoying. He doesn’t contribute anything to the plot, does stupid things just because they’re supposed to be funny, and honestly the dialogue is… does it make anyone else uncomfortable his first line is “Meesa your humble servant?” Like… does Disney know?

Kid Appeal characters can be done well! R2-D2 is an example of a character designed to be cute who, nonetheless, ends up becoming one of the most popular characters in the franchise. Perhaps it’s a good sign that the past few kid-appeal characters (BB-8, Porgs, D-0, and even Baby Yoda) all seem to be effectively mute…

EWOK DANCE PARTY!

Okay, an Ewok Dance Party sounds kind of fun, but it’s a metaphor. See, the fact that the final scene of the original trilogy was a Space Teddy Bears Picnic was… well… cheesy. That’s not a bad thing!

Star Wars, by its nature, is cheesy. It’s an update of Buck Rodgers serials! That’s the definition of camp. But Star Wars works best when that cheese is tempered with emotion. The Ewok Dance Party at the end of Return of the Jedi was good because it was coupled with the catharsis of the Rebellion’s victory over the Empire. The yub nubbing was a goofy background event, but not the main focus. Jar Jar trying to eat a frog for no reason and then ending up in a fist fight with Sebulba? Cheese for the sake of cheese. And as much as I enjoy cheese, sometimes you need something substantial to go with it, you know?

Space Coca-Cola

Okay, this is unlikely, but… now that the door is opened to products like Coke becoming canon in universe, I’d really like to avoid product placement. We can accept it at the park because, well, people get thirsty. That’s fair. I even said I’d like to see elements of Batuu in the new film!

But if at any point it turns into a straight up ad for the theme park at the expense of the story, I’ll be sad.

Leia Dying

Um. I mean… this one… I’d accept it if it was part of the plot and meaningful. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’d just…

I’d cry, okay? A lot. A whole lot. For hours. I want to be able to see the rest of the movie, and it’s hard to do that through tears.

Well, there you have it. Nine things we don’t want to see in the new movie! As a reminder, you can get your tickets right here! Showings are still available for opening day, so grab your seat before it’s too late.

Let us know what you don’t want to see in the new movie down below! May the Force Be With You!

 

Post a Comment