Part 9 of 43 Individual Scenes from ‘Rise of Skywalker’
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: the straight-laced secondary protagonist knows a guy from his own mysterious past with a skill set (or access to a skill set) that will help the good guys overcome their – okay let’s just say “locate their Sith wayfinder” because it’s not like that’s making it any less generic. But whoops! He/she/they left their life of crime on bad terms (there is no other way to leave a life of crime than on bad terms) and going back leads to an embarrassing showdown, at least until the former amigos put aside their long-simmering disagreements. Okay, you’re caught up. It’s Keri Russell in a mask. Poe used to be a spice runner because he used to be Han Solo (He still is Han Solo).
We’ve reached the doomed planet of Kimoji, where the First Order are hard at work making it be the Star Wars Christmas Special every day of the year. It’s a curious choice to give the planet a Christmastime theme, and the fake snow is a little distracting absent a context that requires it (unlike dry ice, snow was not an original component of Life Day, at least to my knowledge). As an aside, in drafting I wrote ‘fake Snoke’ there instead of ‘fake snow’. Wouldn’t that have been something.
One thing that does jump out to me about the set here though is the prominent use of staircases. Star Wars is not a setting that makes copious use of staircases, outside of Anakin chivalrously carrying Padmé’s suitcase that one time, and some of Andor‘s brutalist excesses. It’s a world of elevators, first and foremost, with rarely more than a handful of steps in sight and always a focus on aesthetics over practicality – the Star Destroyer bridge pits lacking any steps, while the Chancellor’s office contains entirely frivolous steps that must be a huge pain when a protocol droid comes to clean his desk. With all that in mind it’s extra adorable that the staircases here have little droid accessibility ramps to allow BB-8 and the other guy to plod along after the more leggy characters, even if you struggle to imagine that it would make mobility any more convenient for R2-D2 or C3P0.
Again matching the Holiday Special as closely as possible, there’s a micro-cantina scene here with a handful of ugly monster suits who get quickly panned past. I wouldn’t have mentioned except that one of them appears to be a Sontaran? Most curious. We also meet the extremely marketable Babu Frik; he perfectly straddles the line between endearing and irritating, like a Crazy Frog that’s capable of love.
“Who are you hanging out with that speaks Sith?” is a great line delivery. That’s why you pay the big dollars to put Keri Russell in the mask.
♞ Knights of Ren status: 🎄 Festive.