Part 29 of 43 Individual Scenes from ‘Rise of Skywalker’
Rest in peace to the Knights of Ren, hanging out with Constable Zuvio and Ochi of Bestoon in “characters who were basically edited out” heaven. They were an odd bunch, a naked attempt to bottle the lightning that was the bounty hunters summoned up by Vader in Empire Strikes Back. Obviously their major flaw in this film was that in the final cut they never did anything beyond standing menacingly at the edge of scenes, but even if they’d had all sorts to do it’s hard to imagine they’d have the devoted fanbase that, say, IG-88 does. They lack whimsy, for want of a better word. They lack spirit. They’re too coordinated, too manufactured – like someone’s violence-themed backing band. Sorry, Knights of Ren. It’s not me, it’s you.
This is the second half of the fights that started all the way back in Scene 6, one between Kylo Ren and his knights and one between Rey and some guys. Neither half of the fight here is particularly memorable, but Kylo’s opponents are at least individuated and are attempting hand-to-hand combat, while Rey is forced to try and last out the scene doing long-distance force shoves on what were always some very ceremonial-looking red cloaked guards. Kylo Ren has changed into a particularly fetching black sweater since we last saw him.
Once that’s all wrapped up it’s Sheev cackling for the next few minutes as he hoovers up Rey and Ren’s force telephone credits to regenerate his fingers and presumably legs, because he’s walking again after this. The great mechanical arm that’s been supporting him through all the scenes before this point is a lovely bit of design, absurdly oversized as befits this grandiose interpretation of Palpatine with his black lips and hollowed eyes. It’s a real shame they didn’t go one even further and have him swoop around on it a bit like a vampire bat. The suction effect looks pretty rough – notable in a film which has every other marker of being rushed, but where the visual effects are normally still very sharp.
Meanwhile it’s going badly for the Resistance fighters, as we see Poe suffer the loss of that one guy from Heroes who takes the classic Porkins death, splatted in an X-Wing to let us know that the stakes are now high. So long, space cowboy.
What’s striking at this point is how many stages there are, cumulatively, to this climax. Of the 29 scenes that I’ve gone through in the movie so far, 7 of them have been set on Exegol – and we’re not even done yet. Palpatine is talking to Rey for a proportionally quite significant period of the movie, without really having anything to say. He just sort of wins in lots of different ways, then loses in exactly one. The film is leaning really hard on Ian McDiarmid’s ability to chew scenery, it’d be in serious trouble if he weren’t so up to the challenge.
Knights of Ren status: Severed 🔪