Part 39 of 43 Individual Scenes from ‘Rise of Skywalker’
Did you see that? Rey just blew the transport carrying Chewbacca out of the freaking sky! With a blast of force lightning? Because she was mad at Kylo Ren just for how he’s always being like that? Crazy! Also John Boyega is really good at making it clear that Finn is madly in love with Rey despite a script that half the time would like him not to be. The scene where he’s failing to comfort her over having exploded Chewbacca with her lightning hands is really nice. “Kylo Ren made you do it!” he ineffectually voices.
The beauty of the randomiser once more is that I don’t have to care what comes next in the Chewbecca saga. I’ve definitely seen bits of film that take place after the one where he gets unmistakably blown up with a lightning blast and they still have Chewbacca in, but that’s not my problem. I got my mini-movie consisting of the teaser trailer, with an extra coda in which Chewbacca gets shot by mistake. I’m happy. That’s the end of Chewbacca for me, for now and forever.
Anyway – in this scene, they fly now. I think if you weren’t prepared by the preceding 38 scenes of Rise of Skywalker you may not be ready to parse this in the correct way, as the lunge into psychedelia that it is. Star Wars, shorn of the taming influence George Lucas, is gradually becoming Jodorowsky’s Dune. Poe, Finn, Rey, Chewie and C3P0 are being pursued across the desert by Stormtroopers, but the muted, conservative design of the Forest Trooper is a distant memory. These guys, armour gleaming brilliant white against the sky, are riding great monstrous beast-bikes that lap at the ground with flailing sandpaper tongues, in pursuit of Poe who has hot-wired a triangle. With a shout they leap from vehicle into the air, jetpack bursting with flames in a maddening suicide attack. It immediately brings to mind the loyal acolytes of Immortan Joe leaping from from the skies in Furiosa.
In fact, I’m sure Fury Road was a reference for this scene, and it’s a cruel irony that it’s oft mocked for being silly given how desperately it’s trying to be silly. As a practical measure giving a Stormtrooper a jetpack is nonsense – as a bombastic show of spectacle it touches genius. Fire, paint, smoke, blasts of colour, the protagonists thrown comedically through the air, flailing. The final trooper, clipped by a laser blast, goes spiralling off into a mountain like Wile E. Coyote. This is a comic book!
My one complaint – and I wouldn’t mention this, but because we’re paying extra special attention to the care shown to our large, carpeted friend right now: when they fall through that quicksand and are each checking if the rest of the group are all alive, no-one hugs Chewbacca. For shame.
There’s also a godawful conference with Leia here where she’s somehow aware that this scene is happening like she’s been watching it on the force television, but you know we’re 39 scenes in and I just don’t have the life in me any more to keep complaining about it.