The Boomer Review.
By Cecilia Calabrese.
Through this prism of Star Wars nostalgia I watched The Rise of Skywalker (Episode IX) with great anticipation of what Easter Eggs were going to exist in order to maintain the attention of “my” generation. This film did not disappoint.
The opening sequence reminded me of the first scene opening A New Hope. It was visually appealing, fast-paced, and immediately grabbed my attention. Throughout the movie the brilliant use of familiar music at the right times were particularly appealing. I hope when you see this movie you pay attention to the sound cues. Not merely the music, however, but also certain dialogue and references. I am looking forward to seeing this film again to catch what I surely have missed.
If you are still on the fence about seeing this movie in theaters rather than waiting for its inevitable release on DVD/Blue-Ray, don’t wait! One of the things I enjoy about going to the movies is the chance to suspend reality for a few precious hours and be entertained. This movie does that, and, thankfully, in a much more enjoyable movie experience than Attack Of The Clones, the runt of the Star Wars litter (spoiler alert: NO Jar-Jar).
I found the expansive scenes beautifully filmed. The fight sequences were choreographed in such a way as to highlight the skills of each character, Jedi or not. Appropriate, if not slightly predictable, uses of harkening-back and foreshadowing complete the popcorn-movie experience.
This film has its weaknesses. The trio of Rey, Finn, and Poe at times felt a bit “Harry Potterish” (think The Deathly Hallows). It had a formulaic feel to me. What peril was our band of adventurers going to find themselves in next? I could have done without one particular interaction toward the end of the film, but I kind of “get it”, why that was included. It was fine and did not detract from my overall enjoyment of the film. I loved the interjections of humor to break the tension. The interactions between Finn and Poe were…well…adorable. They had great chemistry.
One fairly significant question was left unanswered, and it makes me wonder if there is already a vehicle in the works with the intent of filling that void. Time will tell.
My favorite parts of the film were when Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley were working out their “issues.” I felt that the two were well cast as Kylo Ren/Ben Solo and Rey. Driver’s physical presence on screen is riveting. Ridley is slight-of-build, yet perfectly exudes her character’s inner strength. The contrast between their characters work well on screen.
The story arc was reflexive of previous installments in the Star Wars saga and gives a satisfying conclusion to known characters in the Star Wars Universe.
If you go to the movies to be entertained while leaving wanting more, this movie does the trick.
Cecilia Calabrese is the Vice President of the Agawam City Council and will serve as President of the Massachusetts Municipal Association in 2020. She is a licensed attorney in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as well as a Registered Dental Hygienist, and a rental property manager. Married to her husband, Michael Calabrese, for 34 years, they have two grown children, Charles and Michaela Calabrese.
Cece has written featured articles in the
The Gen Z Review.
By Michaela Calabrese.
Needless to say, my enjoyment of the prequels ended very soon afterward.
I won’t pretend to be the font of knowledge when it comes to the Star Wars saga. There’s plenty I don’t know about the extended lore, I can’t tell you the names of every planet in the Republic, and I certainly haven’t read all the novels or watched every episode of the animated clone wars. What I can tell you is the message I took from watching the original trilogy when I was young; the same message this new trilogy (in my eyes at least) has carried on for the next generation:
There will always be darkness in the world. It’s inevitable and terrifying and overwhelming at times.
But it’s not indestructible.
The first reviews for The Rise of Skywalker left me worried that this message would be lost behind clunky editing, bad writing, and a story that (according to some) was all over the place and a complete mess. This is not the movie I saw. The movie I saw had pacing issues and awkward lines, but it also had beautiful cinematography, a simple-to-follow narrative, characters I not only liked but really grew to love, and an ending which cemented the fact that Star Wars is still Star Wars even after forty-two years and three separate trilogies.
Let’s talk technicals, first. The beginning of the film definitely has an issue in terms of timing. The first…oh, let’s call it ten minutes or so…feel like they’re on fast-forward. There aren’t enough breaks between lines, and locations change at a rapid pace. This was what I was expecting for the whole movie. Everything felt rushed; like the director just wanted to get exposition out of the way so it wouldn’t impede the rest of the film. The opening crawl was frustratingly abbreviated, and even the first mission felt clumsy and out of place. Had this carried through the entire runtime, I would understand the negative reviews. I sat through The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey when it was released with an accelerated frame rate and I left that film with a splitting headache. No WAY was I about to subject myself to something similar!
Thankfully, there is a major turning point during which the pacing slows down. Everything which must be established by this point has been established, and from here in the film allows itself and its actors to breathe. Thus, my major fault with the movie was solved and I was free to find other elements which could ruin my experience.
And then the film reached its third act…and I hadn’t found those elements yet.
The characters (aside from 3PO) are charming and work well together. The sets, though small and a bit hard to see at times, still fit well within the narrative, and the story moves in a very promising direction. I wanted the heroes to succeed, I wanted the villains to be thwarted, I felt the same childlike excitement that I had felt watching A New Hope in my living room when I was little.
Kylo Ren, my least favorite character for the past two films, evolves far enough that I began to look forward to his scenes. He feels more three-dimensional in The Rise of Skywalker than he felt in The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi. Rey, likewise, has progressed away from the “wide-eyed outsider” trope into her own character. She was always very interesting, as well as being a great role model for little girls to look up to, but she becomes so much more by the end of this film. She finds her own strength, her own reasons to keep fighting, and she isn’t just parroting Luke Skywalker’s morality or Han Solo’s tenacity. She isn’t a protege anymore, but she isn’t cold either. She learns how to balance being stern and focused with being compassionate and kind.
The big question now: does this film work as a concluding chapter to the Star Wars saga? Well, that sort of depends on personal preference. For me, it absolutely does. The threads which were left at the ends of the original and prequel trilogies are tied up for me. There are other stories in the Star Wars universe which could be told, but this one has reached its final page. I want more, I’m always going to want more, but if this is all we get for a while then so be it. I have enough to hold me over.
Michaela Calabrese was born and raised in Agawam, MA and is now living her dream of studying filmmaking in New York City. Her graduate program has offered her the chance to direct a twelve-minute short film which will be screened for industry professionals. Please give your generous support to the project at GoFundMe.com.
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