Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

The First Order has conquered much of the galaxy, but the Resistance is continuing to be a thorn in its side. As Supreme Leader Kylo Ren continues his search for Rey, he is contacted by a most unexpected source: Emperor Palpatine, mysteriously returned from the dead in the Unknown Regions of the galaxy with a powerful new weapon he will gift to the Order, in return for their help. The stage is set for a final showdown between the Light and the Dark Side, the Sith and the Jedi. Until the next one.

The Rise of Skywalker concludes the Star Wars sequel trilogy, an exercise in film-making where one writer-director gets to write the opening movie a trilogy, another one gets to trash it and do something completely different, and then the original writer-director comes back and trashes what the second one did but can't do his original plan (because it's been trashed) so says screw it and just turns in a greatest hits compilation. The Rise of Skywalker is fanservice turned into nothing less than avant-garde performance art, an unrelenting assault on the senses where it feels like the director spends two and a half hours playing you sound effects and video clips of the previous ten Star Wars movies and yelling "Remember that this was cool when you were twelve?"

We'll skip over the main storyline, which is a mostly forgettable travelogue of unoriginal new planets, including the 476th desert planet to appear in the franchise, in search of increasingly forgettable maguffins (a magic dagger, a droid memory decoder and a magic pyramid thing) and meeting almost completely pointless new characters. Richard E. Grant, Naomi Ackie and Keri Windsor are all great but have maybe 15 minutes of screen time combined. Palpatine - a screen-chewing Ian McDiarmid on fine form - has maybe less.

Instead the focus is firmly on our new friends: John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver, with an even tighter focus on Ridley and Driver. The Rey-Kylo Ren relationship drives this entire trilogy and is the best thing about it, and it's especially the best thing about The Rise of Skywalker. The ambiguity of their relationship, Rey's pull towards the Dark Side and Kylo Ren's pull towards the Light Side makes this all quite tense and interesting in a way that Lucas never quite managed with either previous trilogy (since we already knew how Anakin was going to go and we never really thought that Luke was going to go bad). This thread gives the movie a spine to hang onto even when the overload of plot coupons, laser fights, fake-out deaths and lucky escapes get out of hand elsewhere. Expect a "Reylo Cut" of their relationship to emerge after the final film comes out on physical media which strips away a lot of the distracting frippery.

That distracting frippery gets very distracting as the movie builds towards its bombastic but - as with so much of this trilogy - strangely weightless climax. There's no real worldbuilding depth to this trilogy, with ships continue to be able to jump in and out of hyperspace directly from planetary atmospheres, and almost from planetary surfaces (ignoring the first six films which established you couldn't do that). The movie does bizarrely retcon the hyperspace ram from The Last Jedi, revealing it's not actually possible and they're not sure how it was done. This is probably the most overt of several decidedly juvenile, snide digs Abrams gets in at his predecessor film which feels both infantile and also hubristic; The Last Jedi had a lot of issues of its own, but it is also a more coherent, original film than The Rise of Skywalker.

The final thirty minutes of the film play like The Return of the King's five endings but on crack, with so much fanservice hurled at the audience that it is physically exhausting. Almost every single spaceship that's ever been in a Star Wars film or TV show turns up. Tons of characters from all three trilogies get cameos (some so short that you wonder why they bothered), and they even live-action canonise (albeit only through audio clips) several characters from the Clone Wars and Rebels TV shows. Fan-favourite musical cues from across the series are weaponised with merciless efficiency by John Williams on autopilot, who in lieu of new material seems to have merely hit "shuffle" on his Star Wars Greatest Hits playlist and handed it over to Abrams. The very end of the film goes full overload in burying the audience with cheese. It's not totally ineffective - it turns out that a sunset shot and John Williams' stirring theme still can't get old after forty-two years - but it feels a bit obvious and a bit safe.

The Rise of Skywalker (***) puts all of its dramatic heavy lifting on the shoulders of Adam Driver and Daisey Ridley's shoulders and they pull it off with aplomb, giving the film and the trilogy a dramatic spine which is really fascinating and well-played, when the movie remembers to focus on it. The rest of the time the move is an unrelenting popcorn rollercoaster ride which never stops moving and never stops hurling references to the previous movies at the viewer. On a base level that's fun, but those hoping for some new twists on the classic formula will leave disappointed.

The Rise of Skywalker is on general release worldwide.

Lucasfilm release STAR WARS: EPISODE IX trailer and title

Lucasfilm and Disney have released the trailer and title for the next Star Wars film, now officially called Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.

The trailer confirms several early reports that the late Carrie Fisher would still be starring in the film, despite passing away shortly after the completion of the previous movie in the series, thanks to an entire secondary storyline filmed for The Force Awakens that was cut for time.

The trailer also features the return of Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, as he takes control of the Millennium Falcon in live action for the first time time since using it to destroy the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi (1983), although he has since voiced the character in animated series and video games.

Tantalisingly, the film also features the voice of Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor, despite his death in Return of the Jedi, and a shot of what appears to be a large chunk of the second Death Star lying on the surface of (presumably) Endor. This is interesting from a plot perspective since that is also where the Emperor died, suggesting that the characters may find a key to defeating the First Order and Kylo Ren in the place where the Empire was defeated the first time around. McDiarmid also joined a Rise of Skywalker panel at a Star Wars convention this weekend, suggesting that his role may be more than just a voiceover,with some fans theorising he will return as a dark Force ghost to banter with Rey.

Some may take issue (I certainly did!) with a large chunk of the Death Star II apparently surviving the end of Return of the Jedi, which may be worthy of more exploration at another time.

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, directed by J.J. Abrams, will be released on 20 December 2019.

Billy Dee Williams to return to STAR WARS in Episode IX

Billy Dee Williams is returning to the Star Wars franchise. He will be reprising the role of Lando Calrissian in Episode IX, which is currently in production for a December 2019 release.

Williams played the role in the films The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), but has returned to the role in projects including The Lego Movie (2014) and episodes of Star Wars: Rebels (2015), as well as video games. Apparently both J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson considered including him in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, but ultimately decided he didn't really have a role.

The sad passing of Carrie Fisher (who played Princess/General Leia) and the on-screen elimination of Harrison Ford (Han Solo) and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) means that Williams will be the highest-profile returning member of the original cast in Episode IX, alongside Anthony Daniels (C3-PO) and Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca).

A younger version of Lando was played by Donald Glover in the recent Solo spin-off film.

J.J. Abrams confirmed as writer and director of STAR WARS: EPISODE IX

Lucasfilm have confirmed that J.J. Abrams will be revisiting the Star Wars universe by directing and co-writing Episode IX following Colin Trevorrow's recent departure.

The news is not really surprising: Abrams has worked on all three of the new main-sequence films as a producer and was also available. It looked like Abrams was gunning for directing a fourth Star Trek reboot movie, but with Paramount still hesitant about pulling the trigger on the film following Star Trek Beyond's disappointing box office, he had a hole in his schedule. In addition, with Episode IX due to commence filming in the next couple of months, an experienced director with some existing involvement in the film's development and conception makes a lot of sense.

Some fans will no doubt be disappointed, though. Abrams did a reasonably good job on The Force Awakens, but the movie did have some problems (such as the resurfacing of Abrams' bizarre inability to understand how big space is) and many of its strengths were down to Lawrence Kasdan's writing. Kasdan is retiring from writing Star Wars after the upcoming Han Solo spin-off movie, so will not have a hand in this movie. Instead, Chris Terrio will co-write the movie with Abrams (based on a story developed by Rian Johnson). Terrio is best-known as the co-writer of, er, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice but, more hopefully, he also won an Oscar for writing Argo.

Lucasfilm are also understood to have explored the possibility of Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (due in cinemas in December), directing the movie. However, Johnson is still editing the movie and putting it through post-production for the next three months, whilst Episode IX needs to go into pre-production yesterday to hit its intended release date.

Star Wars: Episode IX is due for release in May 2019, although don't be surprised at all if this slips to December instead.

UPDATE: It's now been confirmed that Episode IX will debut in December 2019. This will give Abrams more time to get up to speed on the movie and will also resolve Disney's scheduling issue of launching two massive movies (Episode IX and Avengers: Infinity War Part II) within a couple of weeks of one another.

STAR WARS EPISODE IX loses its director

In what seems to be becoming a trend, the Star Wars franchise steamroller has lost another director. Colin Trevorrow has stepped down as director of Star Wars: Episode IX, the concluding chapter in the trilogy that began with The Force Awakens (2015) and continues with this year's The Last Jedi (due out in December).

Trevorrow had previously directed the surprise mega-hit Jurassic World (2015), which unexpectedly became the fourth-highest grossing movie of all time. For his accomplished use of visual effects, comedy and action, Trevorrow seemed a reasonable choice for the third new main-sequence Star Wars movie, but the choice was criticised since Jurassic World was not exactly the smartest movie ever made, and lacked a lot of heart. Trevorrow certainly didn't have the indie cred of Rian Johnson (who's directed The Last Jedi) or the proven track record of J.J. Abrams (who directed The Force Awakens).

Trevorrow stepping down isn't quite as disastrous as the situation with the Han Solo spin-off movie, which lost its directors halfway through filming, with Ron Howard stepping in to finish the movie off. However, Episode IX is already in pre-production, with shooting have been expected to start at the end of this year or the start of the next in order to hit its (already ambitious) May 2019 release date, so a new director will need to be found quickly.

One possibility is that J.J. Abrams might be willing to step in. He's produced several movies but has not got a directing gig lined up at present. Apparently he was interested in helming a fourth Star Trek movie, but Paramount seem to have put the franchise on hold whilst they debate what happened with the disappointing performance of Star Trek Beyond. Rian Johnson is also going to be wrapped up in post on The Last Jedi up until release day, so might not be willing to take on this project.

It'll be interesting to see who picks up the baton. Episode IX will conclude the trilogy that started with The Force Awakens and will resolve - if only for a time - the stories of Rey, Poe Dameron, Finn, Kylo Ren, the First Order and the Resistance (not to mention Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca and others). Taking on that story and making it would could be a tall order.