I've decided to try a Star Wars viewing order I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about. Now that The Rise of Skywalker is on Disney+, I'm going to make my way through all eleven films in reverse chronological order: IX, VIII, VII, VI, V, IV, Rogue 1, Solo, III, II, I. Whatever interesting insights or observations occur to me, I'll blog as I go along.
First up, The Rise of Skywalker!
Let me say, for all the fuss about Finn never saying what it was that he meant to tell Rey, I think it's become pretty obvious he was going to tell her about finding his connection to the Force. Right from the first sequence of TROS that he's in, he's getting feelings and intuitions about things that haven't happened yet or are happening elsewhere. I don't think I paid any mind to it while in the theater (six times), but when he says, "I was just thinking that," in response to Poe's suggestion that they boulder the TIE fighters, it's not just because he's in tune with Poe and they're both strategizing -- it's because he's in touch with the Force and getting impressions of his surroundings or of impending possibilities.
I'll also say that from a purely filmic perspective, Rose Tico is actually in this movie a lot for someone who isn't playing a major plot role. I think she has more screen time than Hux, who was downgraded from one of the principal villains in the first two films to a bit part in this one. And of course, Captain Phasma didn't come back at all. Now, there's probably someone out there right now ranting at the computer screen about how JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio made a horrible mistake in choosing not to give her a major plot role, but (a) I believe it when they say she originally had a much larger part, but that many of her lines were cut because they were scenes with Leia where the CGI wasn't working the way they wanted, and (b) it's actually really hard to give large numbers of characters significant plot roles in the course of a film. Yeah, yeah, you've seen it lots of times, but that doesn't make it easy. And when you're plotting a story, you inevitably make choices about where your focus will be. For TROS, the filmmakers chose to leave Captain Phasma out, cut Hux off at the knees, have Maz Kanata appear without showing any of her plucky personality, put Luke in only a single scene, and separate Rose from the big three characters so that the audience would have an important character back at the base to play against the hodgepodge of repurposed Leia footage. This isn't some kind of crime against humanity; Yoda played an enormous role in the middle installment of the OT, and then had almost nothing to do in Return of the Jedi. Count Dooku was the main villain of Episode II and gets only a single scene in Return of the Sith. Boba Fett was hyped like crazy for Empire and sparked a fan base that has spent 40 years waiting for him to have a major film role, but literally got thrown down a hole in ROTJ. All three of those disappointed me, as did Rose's small role in TROS. The tradeoff is, we got to see our three main characters interacting a ton in this film, unimpeded by any need to establish Rose's place in what would then be a quartet instead of a trio. And for people who thought Rose was merely okay in TLJ, that was probably a much bigger payoff. People need to stop treating straightforward story choices like personal affronts to their very being. You can be disappointed without screaming that the screenwriters need to rot in hell for all eternity.
Okay, getting off that particular soap box and maybe onto another one ... like the prequels, TROS is a movie that does a huge amount of storytelling through implication, putting its trust in the viewer to connect the dots. Kylo Ren is the Supreme Leader, and from the conference room scene, we know he can pretty much do whatever he wants. He's clearly chosen to elevate General Pryce over Hux, yet keeps Hux around just for the purpose of rubbing his nose in his fall from near-greatness. None of these three characters has a single line of dialogue explaining that motivation or describing Pryce being put in charge or Hux being functionally demoted. But by playing the characters off one another in the way that they do, the filmmakers tell us plainly what has happened in the year since Kylo took over.
The same thing occurs when Rey calls Leia "master." That one word makes it clear that Leia hasn't just been helping Rey train because she's the leader of the Resistance and tangentially knows stuff about the Jedi from her brother. She's taken her on as a padawan, which validates the way Leia saves herself from the bridge explosion in TLJ. That wasn't just a fluke or an instinctual use of the Force; it was the action of a powerful Force user who fully knows what she's doing -- to the extent of comfortably taking on the role of master to an apprentice. It also explains why Leia goes up to Rey and hugs her when she gets off the Falcon at the end of The Force Awakens. The two of them have never met, but Leia knows there's already an important bond there because of Han, and because of their Force connection.
When Rey watches the children laughing at puppets in the desert of Pasaana, we're being told that she recognizes and appreciates their freedom to be children, despite living in a physically harsh environment similar to the one where she grew up. Also on Pasaana: when Kylo steals Rey's necklace, the camera stays on her while she's thinking through the implications of him taking it. She doesn't tell us or her friends that she knows the necklace will let Kylo figure out where they are; we know her thought process without any dialogue at all.
The whole movie is full of that kind of stuff. This is JJ's famous "mystery box" technique, which he gets criticized for all the time because people think it's an empty trick rather than a thoughtful method of storytelling. By showing us something that provides us the opportunity to fill in the blanks ourselves, he's able to squeeze a much greater amount of story into the film and keep it moving at a much faster pace, because the characters don't need to tell each other and the audience every little thing. Not only that, but since we're filling it in ourselves, it becomes more meaningful to us and involves us more deeply than if we were led through it by the hand with dialogue.
There's lots more I could say about this movie, but I'll leave it here for now. For one thing, I think it's very likely that rewatching The Last Jedi next, even more connections within TROS will come bubbling up for me.
Overall: The Rise of Skywalker is a tremendously fun movie that ties together all three of the sequel films as well as the saga itself. We start with Palpatine and with Anakin being foretold as the one who would bring balance to the Force, and we end with Palpatine and with Anakin telling Rey that she can return things to balance too.
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