mnemehoshiko

(i was going to write this when I saw it again next week with my family but my phone just died so why not now~)

Absolute minimal possible spoilers beneath the cut as possible but use your own judgement. ^_^

This was a movie. I can confirm this due to the facts that: 1) it was playing in a movie theatre and 2) I gave @briarlily movie to procure a ticket to this.

So, high certainty that this was a movie.

Was it a good movie? For this, I went to the dictionary. Good is a multi-purpose word functioning as; an adjective, a noun, and an adverb, depending on the context. In this context, it’s functioning as an adjective modifying the noun “movie”.

In this case, it has two potential meanings

For this context, we will be working with the first definition; “to be desired or approved of”.

This is a movie that desperately wants to be desired and approved of. The problem is that in order to attempt to accomplish this goal, they decided to try to encompass superficial aspects of the 8 previous movies such as but not limited to

Big ships
more big ships
Sand
more sand
Lightning
pew pew
tentacles
more pew pew
rocks floating
pithy one liners from prior movies that worked in the context of the movie but devoid of context falls flat
staging that had emotional build up in prior films but falls flat devoid of that context

Then then actively try to compensate for being unable to understand how to portray visual language by just using deeply sloggy exposition instead of showing the audience what they want to portray. The few times they decide to attempt “show not tell”, it deeply misses the mark.

Regardless of your feelings for TLJ, the fact that TFA was written by JJ as well as the fact that JJ was the executive producer of TLJ, implies that he would at least know where to take this final excursion of the Skywalker Saga from being involved at each bit. Instead you get a strong feeling that any heart and uniqueness that TFA script had was solely due to the influence of Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt to gently reminding JJ of the power of silence and emotion as opposed to worshiping slavishly at the altar of nostalgia.

This gets particular frustrating in the second half where instead of trying to tread new ground instead you get blatant flashbacks to prior films (including TLJ) where they directors are desperately trying to recapture the feelings from prior films by reusing iconic scenes but instead get empty shades devoid of the emotion that drove them.

The Rise of Skywalker is the conclusion to a 9 film saga, but instead of focusing on the hope that this universe was supposed to encompass it instead tried to rehash scenes from prior films in an effort to find something that sticks with minimal editing or thought.

When I left the theater Thursday night, I was at a loss to explain this movie without spoiling and finally hit upon this analogy that has served me well. This movie is akin to a receiving a chocolate easter bunny wrapped as a fancy chocolate bar. You’re happy because it’s still chocolate! Who doesn’t love chocolate? (note: this writer does not unless it’s like really really good chocolate but we digress) But upon eating you are still hit with the fact that while it is chocolate it’s still

cheap
hollow
utterly devoid of substance
and upon chewing some more you realize that the bitter aftertaste is because this is actually white chocolate that has been dyed to look like regular chocolate

I will say this, it does take skill to make Star Wars Into Darkness.

Rating: 1.5/5 stars