Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is currently playing in cinemas. The film has received mostly mixed to negative reviews. I’m not much of a fan of it either.
To take an excerpt from my own review:
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a frustrating final chapter, one whose skeleton is feeble and made out of nothing but nostalgic candy, whose flesh is see-through, blood is thin and whose heart doesn’t pound like the drums at the back of Dragon boats but whimpers softly.
Having said that, there’s no denying the amount of effort put in by JJ Abrams and the rest of the cast and crew. In a recent press conference in Los Angeles (via Collider), JJ Abrams, a long-time Star Wars fan, was asked what The Rise of Skywalker means thematically. While JJ didn’t provide too much information on the final chapter of the Skywalker Saga, he did talk about the essence of Star Wars and what that means to him.
Star Wars, for me, is about hope, community, the underdog, and about bringing people together and seeing all of the oddballs represented, in the most unlikely of places. The family that you make is really your family. To tell a story that is, of course, a giant spectacle that’s in blockbuster wrapping, but where the thing that mattered to me most, more than all of the spectacular and unbelievable work that ILM has done, along with all of the departments going beyond expectations, is really the people that you’re watching, and the eyes and hearts of the characters.
So, for me, rather than give away themes that Chris and I talked about doing, from the beginning, and what our specifics are, I will say that it really is about hope, and about coming back to a sense of possibility and unity. If Star Wars can’t do that for us, I don’t know what can.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is currently playing in Malaysian cinemas.
