23 Questions I Had After Seeing 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker'
WARNING: SUPER DUPER UBER SPOILERS BELOW!!!
I know, 23 questions probably sounds like a lot, but I am willing to bet there are a fair number of you out there who are thinking "only 23?"
Look, love it or hate it, it's no secret by this point that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was... kind of all over the place. The last movie in not just the Sequel Trilogy but ostensibly in the entire 9-movie Skywalker Saga had a lot to live up to, and a lot of story threads to tie up (including those we thought had already been tied up...).
Don't get me wrong, there were some genuinely great moments -- Chewy finally getting his medal, that Hux reveal, Han Solo appearing to his son, our last glimpse of Carrie Fisher, Wedge Muthafreakin' Antilles, Bendemption, REYLO KISS (You're welcome! And I accept your apology.), D-O, Babu Frik, porgs, gorgeous visuals, etc. But while it seemed determined to cram everything it possibly could in its 2-hour and 40-minute runtime, I came away with way more questions than answers.
Strap in kids, we're jumping to hyperdrive. Punch it!
1. What Did Finn Keep Meaning To Tell Rey?
As the Resistance heroes were getting sucked into a sand pit on Pasaana (avert your eyes, Anakin!), Finn (John Boyega) suddenly blurts out to Rey (Daisy Ridley) that there is something he's been meaning to tell her, but he got sucked under before he could say. A little later, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) asks him what he was going to tell Rey, and Finn blows him off. It's then never brought up again. What was he going to tell her?
Consensus seems to be that he was going to profess his feelings for her, but I assumed he wanted to tell her about his sudden new Force-sensitivity. Because there was really nothing else suggested in the movie (or even in the previous one) that he had lingering romantic feelings for her.
2. Why Didn't Finn End Up With Rose?
This seemed like a pretty deliberate retcon of events in The Last Jedi, where Finn spent the majority of that film with Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), forged a significant bond with her, and even shared a smooch with her! I went into TROS fully expecting Finn and Rose to be full-fledged, established couple, but they barely shared any screentime together.
Finn once again seemed more concerned with Rey and spent a majority of this movie with Poe and Jannah (Naomi Ackie). The most interaction he had with Rose was a... friendly pat on the shoulder.
3. Was Jannah Related to Finn? Or Lando? Or Both?
After connecting with Jannah's tribe on Kef Bir, Finn bonds with her fairly quickly, especially after they discover that they were both former stormtroopers who rebeled and defected.
Now, we know from The Force Awakens that the First Order harvests stormtroopers from babies that they kidnap and indoctrinate, and Finn was no exception. Neither, presumably, was Jannah, and the conversation seemed to be leading to some sort of revelation that they were kidnapped from the same place, perhaps even the same family. But this was never followed through on.
Later, at the end of the movie, Jannah is chilling with Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), who asks her where she's from. She replies that she doesn't know, and he says rather auspiciously, "Let's find out!" And the scene ends there. Presumably the two went off to order an Ancestry DNA kit...?
4. How Was Finn Suddenly Force-Sensitive? And Why Was It Important?
Through the course of the movie, it's inferred that Finn suddenly has a fair amount of Force-sensitive instincts. He explains to Jannah that this is what lead him to defect from the stormtroopers, and she reveals that she had the same feeling. This seems to imply that Finn's defection was due to some magic powers rather than an innate sense of right and wrong, which... isn't the greatest messaging here, to be honest.
But, if this was a tack they were going to take, then why didn't it play a bigger role in Finn's character arc? If Jannah was also Force-sensitve, then it's natural to assume that there might be more Force-sensitive stormtroopers out there. Why then not use this as an incentive for Finn leading a stormtrooper rebellion? The groundwork for this had already been laid in TLJ, in a deleted scene where Finn reveals that Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) was the one to open the shields on Starkiller Base in TFA, which leads to the stormtroopers holding him captive to turn on her. That would have at least given Finn something to do rather than just being a mission tag-along and pining uselessly after Rey...
5. Why Did Kylo Ren Repair His Mask?
After pointedly destroying his mask in TLJ and spending the remainder of the film maskless, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) had it repaired in the beginning of TROS and spent a majority of the first third or so of the movie wearing it. But... why?
Writer/Director JJ Abrams had mentioned in an interview prior to the film's premiere that Kylo's repaired mask would serve both a practical and symbolic function, but I am still wondering what that is. He has it repaired shortly after Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) explains to him that he wants Kylo to kill Rey and succeed him as the Emperor of the new Empire, but as Kylo himself explains to Rey soon after, he has "other plans" -- he doesn't want to kill her, he wants her to join him and be his Empress. Why did he need a mask for that? In fact, he eventually ends up taking it off so that he can appeal to Rey directly. And then doesn't put it on again for the rest of the movie.
So what was the point of the mask, other than some cool-looking new merch? Oops, think I answered my own question...
6. Why Wasn't Ben Solo's Force-Ghost with Luke and Leia?
The death of Ben Solo was probably the most devastating blow that this movie delivered. Here is a man, barely 30 years old, who had been used, abused, manipulated, and brainwashed his entire life, who finally snapped out of his nefarious programming through the love and compassion of his Force-soulmate, who was the last living Skywalker, and he just... dies. In probably the most anticlimactic way possible. And after his death, we see his body fade away, signifying that he has become one with the Force, like all true Jedi. And yet... he's never spoken of or referred to again for the rest of the film.
Even in the last scene, when Rey sees Luke (Mark Hamill) and Leia's (Carrie Fisher) Force-ghosts while on Tatooine, Ben is no where to be seen. Wouldn't it have made his death feel a little more worth it if we knew that he, along with his mother and uncle, was also watching over Rey, AKA The Love of His Life and soulmate? His omission from this moment not only felt very jarring but decidedly harsh. Like, even Anakin Skywalker got to hang out with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda after Darth Vader's redemption/death at the end of Return of the Jedi. Why was Ben not afforded the same courtesy to finally be at peace with his own family?
(Side Note: I had a friend say to me that she didn't think Ben living and ending up with Rey would work because there would always be the threat of him "turning again"... YES, that's the entire point. Redemption and atonement don't end with just one noble act! Which is another reason why Ben's death feels so unfair -- he never even got the chance to live up to his turn back to the Light. Death is, in actuality, the easy way out. No need to keep proving you really have changed...)
7. Why Did Anakin Speak to Rey and Not Ben?
After Palps zaps Ben and Rey's energy, he tosses Ben into a pit. Meanwhile, Rey calls out for guidance from the Jedi ancestors, and... it works. A myriad of familiar voices, including Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and even Anakin Skywalker, call out to her and give her the strength to rise and confront Palpatine.
Yes, Anakin Skywalker -- AKA Darth Vader, AKA Ben Solo's grandfather, AKA the man whose life was destroyed by Palpatine -- reached out to Palpatine's granddaughter and not his own grandson, lying unconscious in a pit?
I can't help but remember the scene in TFA when Ben, masked as Kylo Ren, was practically BEGGING his grandfather to show him guidance. One can assume that this was not the first time he had done this. Turns out, Anakin could have spoken to Ben at any time but just... didn't. But when Rey asked? He happily obliged. Huh?
(For that matter, the same question could be asked of Obi-Wan -- why would he choose to reach out to Rey and not the grandson, who was NAMED AFTER HIM, of the man whom he felt perpetual guilt for not being able to save?)
8. Why Did Luke and Leia Believe In Rey and Not Ben?
In a moment that shocked just about everyone (and another huge retcon to TLJ), it was revealed that Rey was actually not "nobody" but in fact the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, AKA Darth Sidious, the biggest bad of the entire Skywalker Saga. And apparently Luke and Leia already knew this?! First of all, how? Secondly, why would they keep it to themselves?
Like, Luke seemed pretty taken aback by Rey's attraction to the Dark Side in TLJ; if he knew she was Palps's progeny, that shouldn't have surprised him in the least. And YET, both he and Leia fully believed in her as the last hope for the Resistance, the Light, and the Jedi.
Weird, then, how they were both so quick to write off their own kin. Luke nearly killed Ben when he sensed darkness in his mind, and Leia just sort of gave up on him. But the granddaughter of the man who destroyed their family? Free pass! The only people who still believed in Ben were Rey and Han.
For The Record: It bears mentioning here that the movies never did fully explain what happened the night that Luke's Jedi Academy burned down. It's still assumed by many, if not most, fans that Ben Solo was responsible and that he murdered some of his fellow students. When in fact, as was revealed in the first issue of The Rise of Kylo Ren comic book series, that no, actually, Ben was responsible for NONE of it. He woke up to Luke trying to kill him, he defended himself, he THOUGHT he killed Luke, and when he tried to just leave, a small group of fellow students tried to stop him, so he had to defend himself AGAIN. Meanwhile, it was PALPATINE who set the academy on fire, and Ben ended up killing exactly ZERO people. Would have been awesome if this highly crucial info was in any of the actual movies though...
9. Why Didn't Leia Train Ben?
In a move that not only seemed to retcon both the previous movies but also the entire canon in general, it is revealed that Luke trained his twin sister Leia to be a Jedi. She even had her own lightsaber(?)! So this begs the question -- why didn't SHE train Ben then? Why did she ship him off to Luke?
We already have plenty of info to suggest that part of the reason Ben fell to the Dark Side was because he felt neglected by his parents. This just makes Leia look like a less-than stellar mother, who was too busy to deal with her troubled, Force-sensitive kid, and so just sent him off to a military academy to let someone else deal with him. Not a good look for our favorite space princess...
10. Did Rey Kill Leia?
The way the sequence plays out where Princess General Leia Naberrie Skywalker Organa Solo dies was a little muddled for me.
As Rey and Kylo Ren are battling it out on the ruins of the Death Star II (with Kylo on the verge of victory), Leia decides to commune with her son through the Force. When she does, Ben is so shook he stops mid-fight and drops his lightsaber, which Rey then picks up and buries in his gut. At this moment, we cut away to Leia and see her hand go limp, implying that she has died. Since she was reaching out to Ben through the Force at that moment, does that mean, then, that the shock of Rey shanking Ben is what ultimately killed her? Yikes...
11. Why Wasn't Rey More Affected After Her Soulmate Died?
According to Force legends, Force-bonded pairs are connected for life, and the bond can only be broken in one of 2 ways: (1) turning away from the Force, or (2) one of the pair dies; their incompleteness creates a "wound in the Force", so the surviving party would feel that wound profoundly, like the loss of a limb. And yet, Rey seemed pretty cool after the death of her Force-twin, no?
I mean, granted, Force-bond lore is mostly a part of Star Wars Legends, not Canon, and was abandoned when Disney took over the property, but even so, this newfangled "dyad" thing they introduced is still pretty intense (and implicitly romantic). Rey essentially ended the movie as a widow, having lost the only person who truly knew and understood her, who loved her so deeply that he literally gave up his life for her own, and you would think that would have a more traumatic effect on her, but we did not see that.
Not to mention the Force could not possibly be balanced by the loss of her Equal...
12. How Did Palpatine Come Back?
One of the most anticipated reveals from TROS was that the infamous and uber-evil Sith lord Emperor Palpatine had somehow survived being yeeted by Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi and has been orchestrating all the strife in the Galaxy -- including the First Order and Ben Solo's turn to the Dark Side -- this whole time.
But it's never actually explained how he survived or how he managed to worm his way back into power or how (and why) he managed to keep on the DL all these years. It's simply stated in the opening crawl that he's back and we're left to fill in the blanks for ourselves.
13. Did Rey HAVE To Be a Palpatine For The Story to Work?
It seems to me that they probably could've omitted Rey Palpatine completely and the story still could have played out exactly the same way.
Actually, it could have played out even better. Because they would still need to eliminate Palps to restore order in the Galaxy. He still could have targeted Rey after realizing that Ben wasn't the heir apparent he had hoped for. That way, Rey and Ben could have defeated Palpatine TOGETHER, as the Dyad that Ben said that they were, instead of Rey doing it all by herself, thereby taking the brunt of the trauma, dying, and having to be resurrected by Ben's sacrifice. Or you could have even had Palps deliberately pitting Rey and Ben against each other, to see who was most "worthy" of taking his place.
There was actually something really great about "Rey Nobody" -- the idea that ANYONE can be a hero and access the Force, not just a handful of elite bloodlines. And attributing Rey's powers to a Legacy character stripped her of her agency (they literally had Kylo Ren say the line "You don't just have power; you have HIS power." OOF.)
"Rey Palpatine" added nothing to the story and all of this could have been achieved without a cheesy parentage reveal. And speaking of...
14. Who the Heck Was Getting Freaky with Palpatine?!
The Rey Palpatine reveal, weird as it was, yielded an even more disturbing question -- who was getting down with Palps for him to have a son?!
Let's do some quick math -- Rey is about 19 at the start of the Sequels; assuming her dad was, say, in his early-30s when she was born, that would make him about Luke's age. Luke was born at the end of the Prequels, right after Palpatine assumed control of the Empire. It's never indicated that Palpatine had a wife or a girlfriend or even a friend-with-benefits or anything, yet somehow he managed to knock up some poor lady.
Let's at least hope it happened before Mace Windu turned him into a raisin...
15. What Was Palpatine's Plan Anyway?
So let's review: at the beginning of the film, Palpatine tells Kylo Ren that he's been grooming him his whole life to take his place and take over the Galaxy, and he orders Kylo to kill Rey. Later on, Kylo tells Rey that her father was Palpatine's son, and that her parents sold her into slavery on Jakku in order to hide her from Palps. She was about 5 (or younger) at this time, which means Ben Solo would have been a teenager -- already well under Palps's ethereal influence (via his Snoke puppet... snicker) -- so are we to assume that, once Rey was born, he decided to set his sights on her instead? But when she disappeared, he went back to focusing his efforts on Ben?
When Rey finally confronts Palpatine herself on Exegol, he tells her that he fully expects her to kill him out of anger and hatred, and he will then use her body as a vessel as she becomes Empress Palpatine (again, snicker). Soooo if that was his actual plan, why did he tell Kylo to kill Rey at the beginning of the movie? Was he just testing him? Did he already know that Kylo would defy him anyway so he just sent him on a wild goose chase while he bided his time waiting for his TRUE heir apparent to finally come to him?
16. Why Did Rey Take The Name Skywalker?
In the last scene of the movie, Rey randomly decides to adopt the Skywalker surname as her own... even though she had actually learned her true family name earlier.
But setting that aside for a moment and assuming she didn't want to be associated with the Palpatine name or whatever, why Skywalker? Her last interaction with Luke (until his Force-ghost showed up in TROS) was in TLJ where she beat him down for lying to her about almost killing Ben and then refusing to make it right by joining the Resistance. Basically, her relationship with Luke was tepid at best.
Meanwhile, it was Han Solo who was her first mentor, and it was Leia who gave her any sort of substantial training, and it was Han and Leia's son Ben who was her Force-twin... So why didn't she take the name Solo? She had way more profound connections with the Solos than she ever had with a (named) Skywalker.
17. What Was The Point of Hux?
General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) was a conundrum of a character throughout this entire series.
Unintentionally funny in TFA for his unhinged overzealousness and perpetual you're-not-using-the-coasters look on his face, he became an odd bit of comic relief in TLJ and Kylo Ren's punching bag. The tension between him and the Master of the Knights of Ren-turned-Supreme Leader seemed poised to bubble over at some point, and it did indeed in one of the truly pleasant surprises in TROS.
At the beginning of the film, the Resistance tries to unsuccessfully track down a mole from inside the First Order. Sometime later, that mole is revealed to be Hux, as he gleefully announces "I'M THE SPY!!!" after shooting down some stormtroopers holding Poe, Finn, and Chewy captive. Soon after, he explains that he doesn't actually care if the Resistance "wins" or not -- he just wants to see Kylo Ren taken out. Pettiness Level: ELITE.
It was just such a delicious bit of character development. But then literally minutes later, he is shot and killed by General Pryde (Richard E. Grant). Whomp-whomp... So much for that.
So what was the point of his character anyway? He was set up as a foil for Kylo but nothing that really matters ever came out of that. Imagine the possibilities of him actually working with the Resistance. Imagine his reaction to finding out Kylo had turned back to the Light and was helping/in love with Rey. So much potential...
18. What Was The Point of Dark-Rey?
Wowee was this ever hyped up... only to be another "whomp-whomp" moment. Here I was thinking Dark-Rey had some powerful narrative value when it was just... a fleeting vision trying to remind Rey of "who she really is" or whatever. Why bother, honestly?
19. How Did Chewy Survive?
Maybe I need to watch it again because I feel like I super missed something...
As a result of Rey and Kylo playing Force-tug-o-war with a transport shuttle carrying stormtroopers and a captured Chewbacca, the ship was destroyed and, presumably, Chewy along with it. I mean, the thing was completely demolished, there is no way anyone could have survived it. And yet, a couple scenes later, we see Chewy and the troopers being escorted off a(nother?) shuttle aboard a First Order star destroyer. Like... YAY and all, but also HUH? How did he end up on a completely different ship?
We know the troopers "can fly now" but can they also teleport?!
20. Why Did All The Rebel Reinforcements Come For Lando But Not For Leia?
At the end of TLJ, the Resistance is down to a few dozen people, and Leia sends out a signal across the Galaxy asking--nay, BEGGING for reinforcements. But no one responds. It is confirmed that the signal is being heard, but it's going deliberately unanswered. Even though Leia is a highly respected princess and general known throughout the Galaxy.
Then at the end of TROS, after Leia has died, Lando Calrissian is given command of the Millennium Falcon and the task of again trying to reach out to any reinforcements. This time, they answer -- and come out in droves. Literally thousands of ships show up at the last minute as the Resistance is being pummeled by the combined forces of the First Order and Palpatine's "Final Order" (snicker snicker snicker).
Where were all these people when Leia needed them during the Battle of Crait? How/Why is Lando the one to finally convince them to help?
21. How Did Maz Kanata Come Into The Possession of the Skywalker Legacy Lightsaber?
This question goes all the way back to TFA and was one that seemed to be promised to be answered by the end of the series. When Vader cuts off Luke's hand in Empire Strikes Back, Anakin's lightsaber goes with it, and it's never seen again... Until TFA, when Rey discovers it in a box at Maz Kanata's (Lupita Nyong'o) cantina. Later, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) asks her where the heck she got it, and she replies, "A good question for another time."
Welp, that time never did come, did it? Maz was even in TROS, and didn't have much else to do, so explaining how she managed to come into the possession of one of the most storied lightsabers in the Galaxy would have been a good use of her screentime.
22. Why Did Everyone End Up Alone?
The so-called "Resistance Trio" all had romantic set-ups going into TROS -- Rey with Ben, Finn with Rose, and Poe with new character Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell). And yet... none of that came to pass.
Yes, Rey and Ben had their big Epic Kiss (and excuse me while I squee about that for eternity), but it was undercut by Ben dying 5 seconds later. Poe tried to rekindle his fling with Zorii, but she didn't seem interested in that life. And, well, we already talked about Finn and Rose.
I have to wonder what the reasoning was behind this. In a series that has historically put a great emphasis on love and family, all the main characters walked away from this series with none of that. In particular, Rey, who always just wanted family and belonging (as did Ben, incidentally), ends up in the exact same spot where she started the series -- all alone on a desert planet with a droid (that isn't even hers).
I ranted about this in my TROS Wish List (which JJ Abrams apparently read and decided to break my heart by doing NONE of those things), that the "Independent Woman Who Needs No Man" trope is getting pretty played out. Especially in this case, when it is made clear in the very first movie how lonely Rey is. At the end of TLJ, when everyone is regrouping and celebrating on the Falcon, Rey sits alone holding two halves of a broken lightsaber, watching Finn dote on Rose with a twinge of longing. Even in THIS movie, we are shown a moment where she stares reverantly at a group of children. So what exactly is the message here? That Rey needed to learn to accept and embrace her isolation? That she can't be a true Strong Female Character™ if she has something lame like LOVE dragging her down? Is that really a message we wanna teach all the little girls who watch these movies and look up to Rey?
23. So, Palpatine Won In The End?
It certainly seems that way, doesn't it? He got exactly what he wanted -- the Skywalker family completely wiped out and his own progeny living on. Was that the intention all along? I know "let the past die" was a big theme throughout this series, but I didn't think that they meant it literally.
In a movie called The Rise of Skywalker, it was actually the extinction of the Skywalker family. And Rey is certainly not going to do much to keep the name going even if she insists on adopting the name as her own, considering, as mentioned previously, she seems destined for a life of solitude. So what was even the point in her taking the name? Why did ALL the Skywalkers need to die? Why couldn't they have started a new line with the only grandchildren of Skywalker and Palpatine forging a union and combining their two powerful bloodlines to create a new generation of Jedi, and bringing Balance to the Force? Isn't that what this entire 40-year saga was supposed to be about?
And perhaps the cruelest revelation of all: knowing that Palpatine got further with a girl than Ben Solo.