THERE! I FIXED THE MOVIE! - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Dude, when it first came out, I absolutely loved The Rise of Skywalker. I thought it was one of the best Star Wars movies in recent history, and easily the best of the sequel trilogy. But in the nearly four years since its release and upon rewatching the nine films, it escalated from being one of the best Star Wars movies to one of the worst further solidifying the theory that J.J. Abrams can do a lot of things, but he cannot do a finale. Not as bad as The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, it's still a huge mess of a movie riddled with endless plot holes, needless retcons of the past movies (especially Last Jedi) and completely nonsensical and convoluted writing. Ultimately, despite the filmmakers’ attempts to please everybody, it ended up pleasing nobody. I could go on and on about how this movie doesn't work, but that's not my job here. My job here is fixing those problems. But how would I do it? Let's begin.
Right off the bat, I know the biggest thing we need to fix in this film: we gotta get rid of Palpatine. His inclusion in the movie is the dumbest idea they could've brought into the film. Not only does it undermine the ending of Return of the Jedi, and not only does it result in the most “WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?” opening crawl of the saga, but his connection to the main characters, especially Rey, makes no sense. There’s even a scene where Poe talks about him and you can see that Oscar Isaac is saying to himself “really? That’s what they’re going with?” What doesn't help is that whenever the scene is not set on Exegol (so, like, 94% of the movie), Palpatine practically has no presence in the story. If he were trimmed out, very little would actually change. But then again, if we get rid of the movie's biggest antagonist...then what? Well, we could still keep Exegol, but upgrade it so instead of it being the hidden world of the Sith, it could be the hidden world of the...Snoke people, I couldn't come up with a name for his species. That way, we can expand on Snoke's presence and set his people up as the most powerful evil beings in the galaxy. When Kylo Ren arrives at the planet, we could still have the Final Order explained to him, but with the Snokes explaining it to him instead of Palpatine. What also could help here is that the Snokes could be legit pissed at Kylo for killing the OG Snoke. But I know what you're thinking: what about the twist with Rey as Palpatine's granddaughter? For that, I have two workarounds. One is we could reveal this in The Last Jedi rather than this film. It’d still make no sense, but that way, we could build the rest of this movie around Rey coming to terms with that fact, similar to how Luke was dealing with being Vader’s son in Return of the Jedi. The second is that we don't include the twist at all and just go off of the "her family really was nobody" idea Last Jedi set up. But if they absolutely had to include the “Rey was related to someone” twist, and that’s a big damn if, my solution is that they have her be related to one of the really obscure Jedi from the prequels, like Quinlan Vos or something. Or, to really piss off fans, make her related to Jar Jar.
So that’s Palpatine out of the picture, but what about the rest of the story? The easy thing to do would be just to follow the original script, Duel of the Fates. But I’m not gonna do that. Instead, I’m gonna build my rectification on what the film as is built upon. One thing I'd rectify is the pacing, since the entire film moves at at full speed with little to no room to have a breather. So, to fix this, I'd include more scenes where the characters sit and talk before jumping into the next action set piece. That way, we can look more into the character's inner thoughts and backstories, instead of making it so if you sneeze into your arm at the scene where the crew's in that cavern, by the time you look back at your screen, Chewie's dead...oh, and can we talk about that? That has to be the most "making stuff up" scene in the whole movie, and that's really saying a lot. The ship blows up and Chewie's suddenly dead, except no he was put on another ship...off-screen. Here, they could've either A. shown the ship Chewie got captured on flying away while Rey and Kylo are fighting, or B. have Chewie actually be on the ship that blows up and literally die. That way, the story could have higher stakes and could tap into Rey not fully knowing about her force power. Though, option A would make more sense since if Chewie’s dead, why would they go to the Star Destroyer? Plus, going back to the cave scene, what was Finn gonna tell Rey while they were falling through the quicksand? That he’s force sensitive? That he has a crush on her? That he’s her father? That he used her lightsaber to unclog the toilet? What? My idea is to have Finn lift a lightsaber with the force after the finale, having a moment where he’s saying “remember what I wanted to tell you earlier? That’s what.” Also, what’s with the Hux twist? The dude was essentially a ruthless dictator, as evidenced by his chilling speech in Force Awakens. And then all of a sudden he barges in and says “what up? I’m the spy. this is the movie now.” That twist makes zero sense, because if he was working for the Resistance the whole time, why did he present himself as space Hitler? So, how would I fix this? Easy: they introduce a new, kinda pointless character named Allegiant General Pryde. The dude just shows up outta nowhere and basically just serves as Hux 2.0. So, why not just make him the spy? That way, his presence is a little more justified. My last fix is in regards to the main characters. The characters as presented are fine and likable (except for Poe), my one change is just adding one character: Rose. Rose, and subsequently Kelly Marie Tran, were dealt a terrible hand in this film, getting not even two minutes of screen time because some angry man-babies were whining about how this character wasn’t a white man in Last Jedi. In a way, JJ Abrams just sorta let those “fans” win. I wasn’t a huge fan of Rose in Last Jedi, but she wasn’t an awful character, she had a good number of nice moments with Finn and Kelly Marie Tran did absolutely fine. If anything, my problems could just stem from the casino side plot. My solution is to give her a more prominent role, exploring her friendship with Finn further. It’s not great, but at least it’s something.
My last fix is to further explore the conflict regarding Rey and the Dark Side. The previous two sequel era films painted the light and dark side sort of like a Yin and Yang, where there’s good in the Dark Side and bad in the Light. In Rise of Skywalker, they only ever do that with Kylo Ren. Everything else is just a “the good side is always good and the bad side is always bad”. There is literally a scene where Rey is fighting a Dark Side clone of herself (which as is only serves as trailer fodder) and the clone for some reason has shark teeth. The conflict as presented here is more black and white than a Charlie Chaplin film. My fix would be showcasing Rey’s internal conflict. This would be harder to do now that there’s no Palpatine, but hear me out. There are a few scenes in the film where Kylo tries convincing Rey to join him on the Dark Side. Why not have a moment at one point where Ray’s all “damn he’s actually got a point” before snapping back to reality. And hey, what about that Dark Side clone scene? There could be a moment where the clone says “this is your true destiny” instead of flashing the aforementioned shark teeth. This could catch Rey off guard, briefly disarming her. The conflict could also be heightened by the reveal of Last Jedi - that Rey’s parents were nobody and sold her off like she was nothing. This was a horrifying reveal for her, since her entire goal in the first two films, and to have it all fall apart and amount to nothing? Yeah, that’s gonna be pretty hard on her. Maybe this could’ve taken a toll on her well-being, with Kylo trying to convince her that with the First Order, she’ll finally be someone. But even with some consideration, Rey refuses, trying to convince Kylo in the same way. And after that scene with Han Solo which we aren’t gonna change because that scene is phenomenal, Kylo rejects the Dark Side and fights the Snoke people with Rey. But in the aftermath, there is another problem: why have Kylo die? I know, Leia passed her life force onto him and he passed that onto Rey, but I feel like it would make a little more sense to have them both remain alive, since there’s a lot of potential that could be tapped into, especially for Kylo…also, I’m also getting rid of their kiss, because in the context of the movie, why was that even in there? Finally, I wanna address the ending. The film has a motif with Rey where she learns not to worry about being attached to the name Palpatine that it throws away when she dubs herself Rey Skywalker. In any other scenario, this would be a really poignant ending. And since Palpatine’s gone, maybe it can be a good capper to the saga.
So, with all that said, how does the story go now? Well, we open with Kylo Ren being summoned to Exegol after finding a Sith Wayfinder and being greeted by the Snoke people. They’re pissed off that Kylo killed the OG Snoke and explain their Final Order plot to him, forcing him to go along with it. Meanwhile, Rey, still struggling with the truth that her parents were nobody, learns about Exegol and decides to find the planet to stop the Snokes. So she, Finn, Poe, C3PO, Chewie and Rose head off to find a Wayfinder with the help of Lando. However, things take a turn for the worse when Rey blows up a ship she thinks Chewie was on, but later she senses that he was put on another ship (which we actually see take off in this version) and they head off to the Star Destroyer. The group get captured, but escape with the help of Pryde. Rey’s internal conflict with the Dark Side comes to a head when a Sith clone appears in the remains of the Death Star and battles her, taunting her that she won’t be anything unless she joins the Final Order. After Kylo tells her the same, the two duke it out and Rey leaves in Kylo’s ship. Kylo follows in suit after the talk with Han Solo and they all head in to defeat the army of Snokes. Afterwards, Rey and Kylo return, with everyone uneasy about Kylo’s presence. Finn reveals to Rey that he’s force-sensitive. And on Tatooine, Rey decides to let the Skywalker name carry on by dubbing herself Rey Skywalker. And there ya go, I fixed the movie.
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