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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nHe doesn’t even get to be the star of his big scene though, losing out in the goofy alien stakes to a big sock-puppet worm who appears fearsome, but can be reached through Rey’s tender yet firm care. His injury healed, the worm slides aside like a block puzzle to reveal the exit from the sand trap. I hope you were paying close attention, because that scene was the closest Rise of Skywalker<\/em> gets to successfully deploying subtext. The worm, you see, is like Kylo Ren: threatening, a killer even, but ultimately reachable through compassion and care. Maybe somewhere off-screen, the worm’s mother passed on into the force while Maz Kanata watched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s notable because there are so many themes that Rise of Skywalker threatens to invoke before veering away at the last moment: we might have thought about loss, with Chewie and C3P0 and Kylo Ren all getting what are ultimately fake-out death moments. We might have considered friendship, with Rey testing the limits of Finn’s love with her erratic behaviour, but it goes nowhere. Could Kylo Ren be forgiven? What would that look like? We never find out, because he kills all his friends then passes briskly into the force. Even nitty gritty details like Rey appearing much more comfortable throwing a stick than swinging a lightsaber resolve only into the awesome power of two lightsabers. In this very scene, Rey passes the lightsaber to Finn for safe-keeping, much as Luke and Leia both pass one to her at different points in the film. Nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Last Jedi<\/em> provoked much feeling by asserting, or trying to assert, that Rey was a protagonist selected by the tides of fate of alone. The major contribution this film makes to Rey’s story is to actively refute that, placing her origin within the outline of an existing character and her redemption1<\/a><\/sup> in the name of another. It’s an appropriate move for this film, interested as it is in placing Rey parallel to Kylo Ren, who is defined by his failure to live up to his own sparkling lineage. You can choose good or choose evil – that’s as much of a summation of the Star Wars<\/em> world view as you’ll ever get. But what does it mean to be still fighting the same Star War as your parents and their parents? This just isn’t a film that wants to answer that question. Perhaps it’s unfair to expect it to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u265e Knights of Ren status: \ud83d\udc41\ufe0f Panoramic<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nNext: These are the exact coordinates<\/h3>\n\n\n