Part 5 of 43 Individual Scenes from ‘Rise of Skywalker’
Not to be outright provocative here, but when Rian Johnson said “Let the past die” I think he should have had Rey set fire to the homestead set. Actually set fire to the real thing in a deliberate act of arson. For this and this alone I am a practical effects enthusiast, because then it couldn’t have been used in the horrible Obi-wan show and it couldn’t have been used here. Star Wars, like any other legacy media setting, is prone to nostalgia – to reusing the trappings of the previous films just for the warm fuzzy feeling of seeing them again. Part of the genius of the prequels is the way they continually recontextualise or subvert the elements of the original films that they return to: Jabba the Hutt is a respected dignitary, the Jedi’s humble robes are an affectation of poverty, the Stormtrooper armour was first used by the Republic and so on.
The homestead has a similar reuse. Where for Luke it was a symbol of the normal life that he strained against but then found taken from him by the Empire, when it is revisited by Anakin in Attack of the Clones it contains all the old horrors of his childhood – his mother, taken from him and imperiled. He leaves and never goes back, and his former friend Obi-wan chooses it as a safe location to hide Luke with that knowledge.
What then to make of Rey turning up and burying some e-waste in the sand? Or Luke and Leia turning up as force ghosts to cheer her on a bit? It’s hard to understand what any of this means to any of the characters present. Luke’s affection for the place was based on his life there, not the bare fact of the buildings. That’s why Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru got the charred corpses and Luke didn’t sob over some sooty brickwork. Look, I know why the scene is set here. It’s because this is the big famous Star Wars location that isn’t the Millenium Falcon and it’s so that Rey can stand in front of the two suns while the music does a big swell. In the context of this film it means nothing. In the context of the sequel films as a project, or Rey’s character, it means nothing. Even Obi-wan knew Tatooine was a place where you were by definition slumming it. It’s cheap and incoherent and I hate it.
Anyway, a passing stranger asks Rey why she’s bumbling around the old Skywalker place and she looks directly into the camera and says “MY NAME IS REY SKYWALKER”. That’s the name of the film. The force ghosts look really stupid. Rey claws some cool points back for her silly little sand-sled though, that’s great.
Most importantly, we get the credit roll here! Thank you JJ Abrams for your efforts. Despite my broad distaste for this one, it’s crazy how much stuff has actually been packed in to these five scenes, we’ve had the whole gamut from “The FINAL Order” through to “I am Rey Movie Skywalker,” and near on every important character has appeared and made a face. This is a dense block of filmmaking, by any measure.