![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ros-9-1024x576.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWe’ve reached the doomed planet of Kimoji, where the First Order are hard at work making it be the Star Wars Christmas Special<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One thing that does jump out to me about the set here though is the prominent use of staircases. Star Wars<\/em> is not a setting that makes copious use of staircases, outside of Anakin chivalrously carrying Padm\u00e9’s suitcase that one time, and some of Andor<\/em>‘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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again matching the Holiday Special<\/em> 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Who are you hanging out with that speaks Sith<\/em>?” is a great line delivery. That’s why you pay the big dollars to put Keri Russell in the mask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u265e Knights of Ren status: \ud83c\udf84 Festive<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part 9 of 43 Individual Scenes from \u2018Rise of Skywalker\u2019 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"45-skywalker","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,96],"tags":[262,45,19,260,49],"class_list":["post-909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-media-criticism","tag-43ros","tag-media-criticism","tag-movies","tag-rise-of-skywalker","tag-star-wars"],"yoast_head":"\nNext: General, what’s our next move?<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"