Part 3 of 43 Individual Scenes from ‘Rise of Skywalker’
One of the many ways in which this film feels like more of an anthology than a single narrative is the approach taken to the force and force powers: individual scenes (including this one) are internally coherent, but the overall picture is extremely flexible. For instance, in Scene 14 we will see Rey casually levitating in the fashion of an air-bender. Later on still in Scene 28, she will be doing some free solo climbing with all the tense short jumps and leaps that implies. Neither scene is particularly coherent with either the original trilogy, where Luke never flew, or the prequel trilogy, where fully-fledged Jedi could leap great distances in a single bound. Here we have another incongrous introduction, the force telephone, with a visually striking cross cut back and forth between Kylo and Rey as they establish the bones of their relationship in this film. Not in what they say, because this is not a writer’s film by any measure, but in how they interact – which is to say the quality of the acting.
It’s nice – after so many years of playing these characters, Driver and Ridley have an effortless comfort with the parts that will serve to gloss over large amounts of indecision in the scripting over exactly what their relationship is. They might be furious rivals, they might be starcrossed lovers, they might be both. It’s not a tension the film cares enough about to resolve, but the ability of the actors to express that ambiguity places most of their scenes on a higher level than everything else.
Continuing with the theme of anthology vs single narrative, the gang have landed on Tatooine Jakku Jedha Pasaana, where they bump into – who else – that old rogue Lando Calrissian! He’s talking a bunch of nonsense about Sith do-hicks. He’s mentioning Exegol. He’s been hanging out with Luke. He’s apparently been here on the desert planet, on pause, since the conclusion of that adventure. Which was presumably before Luke went into exile. As we said back in Scene 1 – this is not a film which is going to sweat the facts. I don’t think anyone even mentions that Luke founded a Jedi school, totally screwed it up, then went to live on an island for a decade or whatever. Maybe it’s like the Obi-wan show, he was technically ‘in exile’ but in reality he was finding an excuse every five days to go on “one last” adventure with Lando.
Lando count: 2