Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi has become my third favourite Star Wars film, behind A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, but far ahead of all the others, except Return of the Jedi.

I've watched it several times now and it doesn't get old, in fact it gets better every time I view it, and it's wonderful to once again have a Star Wars film to look forward to watching, again and again and again.

And again.

I still watch episodes I-III again when I see them on television, but with less enthusiasm. However, I've come to prefer them to episodes VII and IX for the following risk-fuelled reasons.

It's not that episodes VII and IX are particularly bad, or lack entertainment value, but they're so heavily reminiscent of episodes IV through VI, that they lack the imaginative characteristics of Luca's bold second trilogy.

Take Episode IX, where Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) reemerges.

Could they not have thought of another villain to fill the gap left by Snoke, one who perhaps hadn't met his electric end so many decades ago?

Or made Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) all the more wicked?

An elaborate explanation as to how he comes back to life isn't even provided, we're just supposed to accept that he was so powerful he was able to return from death, and build a massive fleet of star destroyers with planet annihilating capabilities.

Is this a Star Wars film or low budget television?

People may be calling this period of time the post-explanatory age, or the post-Truth age or what have you, but does that mean film narratives with the highest budgets imaginable aren't even going to provide explanations for their controversial plot developments anymore, and fans are just supposed to accept them without thought or thinking?

There's more continuity between episodes I through VI as well, they flow more harmoniously together.

Episode IX may be entertaining, but it doesn't flow well with Episode VIII. At the end of The Last Jedi, for instance, the entire rebel complement can fit on the Millennium Falcon, but their numbers don't seem to have been drastically reduced in Episode IX, or at least it proceeds as if everything's fine. Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) adds so much to The Last Jedi and I thought earned a place at the forefront of subsequent narratives, but she's largely forgotten in The Rise of Skywalker, like Katherine Brewster in Terminator Salvation. As are the children on planet Cantonica. And the notorious codebreaker DJ.

It's like J.J. Abrams took the criticisms of The Last Jedi, which sees new strong female characters with prominent roles and critiques the manufacture of weapons and the eating of meat, and wanted to make a clean break with it in The Rise of Skywalker (note how Rey soothes the pain of a giant snake within), and the result's more like separate films than a trilogy, George Lucas had much more resolve.

Episodes I-III may be cheesy and some scenes are difficult to watch again and again, but their narratives are still highly complex and the result of in-depth brave storytelling.

They provide reasons for what takes place for instance.

They smoothly flow from one to another.

And Lucas significantly expanded upon the world he created within A New Hope, adding multiple layers of legendary depth, councils and federations and clones and mysticism, the films may have been melodramatic, but they weren't derivative or one-dimensional.

Lucas took brave risks when he created Episodes I-III and didn't back down when faced with bitter criticism.

He ironically didn't rely on what had come before because he was spending too much time creating it.

Episodes VII and IX may be entertaining, but I don't want to watch them again so much, because they aren't complicated or controversial, they're much too free and easy.

Episode IX is jam-packed with action for instance, it rarely slows down unless Rey (Daisy Ridley) is searching for something, but several of the scenes unreel far too quickly, notably the demise of General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), a ginger, and Kylo Ren's torture of a disagreeable bureaucrat. Lucas had a much better sense of timing and pacing and his films were edited with much more care.

The Last Jedi was too.

Take the moments when Rey and Kylo Ren are being inspected by Snoke, Finn (John Boyega) and Rose are about to be executed, and the Rebel transports are being picked off one by one.

The editing for these three parts of the narrative is exceptionally well done, and keeps you hanging on the edge of your seat as you eagerly await what's going to happen next, and the film doesn't lose sight of the three components of its narrative, and keeps interweaving them with compelling precision.

The Rise of Skywalker loses sight of Finn trying to destroy the super star destroyer for far too long during its exciting climax.

It leaves it hanging as if fans aren't concerned.

While Rey battles the Emperor, who is also her grandfather, come on!, and Lando (Billy Dee Williams) predictably shows up with reinforcements.

One of the coolest aspects of Episodes I-III is that they pointed out how there's no such thing as Jedi blood, how Jedi are born throughout the galaxy at random and if discovered have the opportunity to develop their skills to avoid the risks of becoming obscurii.

It's an aspect this trilogy overlooks, except for the fact that Luke had students besides Kylo Ren who disappear after their cataclysmic falling out.

The Jedi can't end.

There will always be individuals capable of skilfully using the Force.

The Jedi Order may come to an end after which future Jedi may call themselves something different, but they will still technically be Jedi if they don't become Sith, even if they have to train themselves.

You wait 32 years for The Force Awakens with the hopes of seeing more Luke Skywalker and then he doesn't show up till the end, and he's abandoned the rebellion and is living alone on a remote island, on a planet that can't be found.

And Han Solo dies.

Disappointing to say the least.

The relationship between Kylo Ren and Rey is well-developed in the new trilogy and I really like Finn's character, but Episodes VII and IX just seem like they're more concerned with not slipping up than trying to create something new.

It's like they're so worried about not making a bad film that they forgot to make good ones.

Too much "supposed to", not enough, "totally".

Which is what Episodes I-III, with all their issues, tried to do.

It's a shame the latest trilogy completely ignored them (they're ceremoniously discredited in The Force Awakens).

Plus, Episode IX sees gay actor Richard E. Grant take the stage as General Pryde, and he's in charge of the new planet destroying star destroyer fleet.

I didn't think a new Star Wars film would be homophobic.

But there you have it.

Two lesbians kissing for a split-second near the end doesn't make up for this.

Finn should have ended up with Rose too, but instead it looks like he'll hook up with a fellow African American (Naomie Ackie as Jannah).

A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi all had different directors, but they were also consistent and flowed well together.

Totally loved The Last Jedi.

The Rise of Skywalker could have been so much more.

Dracula Untold

Dracula revisited, often portrayed as a vicious bloodthirsty tyrant, recast as a loving devoted father, husband, and ruler, willing to risk everything to secure the social prosperity of his dominion, brought up as a warrior, who excelled beyond limitation, against his will, trial by fire, impeccable excretions, having returned home a free man, to govern his people with wise, trustworthy gentility, through the art of thinking critically, and the continuous deployment of tribute.

Yet battle once again demands his obedience, a battle that can't be won through earthly means, and a pact is made with transcendent deviance, limitless power, for an insatiable thirst for blood.

Thus the iconic villain is torn, invincible at war, romantically condemned by his true love.

It's a different take on Dracula, Gary Shore's Dracula Untold, the latest vampiric franchise to tenderly and ravenously strike.

It's alright.

Somewhat cutesy at times, which is odd for a mass produced vampire film, making derelict lesions and hallowed imperfections seem direly quaint by comparison; however, its protagonist is rational and his love undying, his fidelity to the centuries, like twilight's eternal fountain.

Missed Jarmusch's Adam a bit while viewing, but it's unfair to compare the two visions.

Glad Jarmusch made that film.

Jodorowsky and vampires?

It's not too late.

Ida

Diametrically opposed feminine caricatures, each possessing their own semantic strengths, volatile penitence, the vixen's splurge, contextualize their continuum within Ida's scene, after and during their first unexpected meeting.

They're related.

One is about to take her vows.

The other struggles with her political legacy.

The younger seeks to discover the whereabouts of her dead parents, killed during World War II, her aunt is able to assist, they set out to interrogate 20th century Polish history, stylizing their familial cross-section, with upbeat moving jazzy consolidations.

Existentializing the saxophone.

As blunt, bellicose, and bitchin' as it is chaste and resigned, Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida solemnly soars through perceptible heights, contemporary fusions stern and frolicked, olives, rye bread, beemsters, or a fast with a glass of Soplica.

Unassailable friction diffused in check.

Begets temptation.

An hourglass.

For a crucible's chime.

Perfect companion piece for Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest.

Faust

And within a mendicant, mountainous, microcosm, classically constructed, Gothically germinated, and residually realized, wherein one's affluent 21st century appetites atrophy while those of its citizens starve, he who possesses bountiful knowledge is tempted by a resplendent representative of an aspect which he fails to comprehend, his fabricated yet all-encompassing desire having been serpentinely syncopated, as a bear growls in the wilderness, in Alexander Sokurov's Faust's obstinate prolonged periodical remonstrance, whose resultant subjective reconstitution, climactically dislocates an historically sustained psychodeterminancy.

Through the art of manipulation.

Its traditional themes and monumental modalities are elaborately elucidated and sensuously entwined.

Competing rational classifications are cantankerously, sinisterly, and conditionally, collated.

Notwithstanding a little joy.

The world Sokurov creates arguably situates the contemporary depersonalized alienated televisual lack of collective agency within an impoverished feudal stasis to materialize an ahistorical fabric, but that may be a bit of a stretch.

For me, it also functions as a dramatic counterpart to Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings triology, the opening sequence having begged the comparison (not that Faust isn't fantastic and The Lord of the Rings undramatic).

And Faust (Johannes Zeiler), you fool, you had it in you all along.

Didn't you see "Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me?"

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Intermixing fate, superstition, religion, individuality, gambling, dreams, ethics, history, economics, showmanship, temptation, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus provides a phantasmagorical panoramic synthesis of parapsychological proportions. A religious guru (Christopher Plummer) makes deal after deal with the devil (Mr. Nick played by Tom Waits) only to fall further and further into his demonic clutches. When we first meet the immortal Doctor Parnassus, his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole) is days away from becoming the exclusive property of Satan, and, due to his lacklustre antiquated bush-league performance values, the Doctor has no hope of reversing her fate. But shortly thereafter, his travelling troupe discovers a man hanging from a bridge (Heath Ledger as Tony), and, after saving his life, benefit commercially and ontologically from his gifted oratorical skills. So a new wager must be made which the Prince of Darkness generously conceives, the first one to capture 5 souls receiving sole access to Valentina's future, souls being captured after they enter Doctor Parnassus's Imaginarium, which is the Doctor's imagination physically manifested, the dimensions of which are cultivated according to the imagination of whomever happens to enter (the souls have to decide whether to travel the high or low road within, those flying high becoming the Doctor's possession, those not, Satan's). As Valentina falls for Tony, and Tony's credibility deconstructs itself, Anton (Andrew Garfield) falls by the wayside, and the Doctor must come to terms with immortality. The past and the future then destructively present themselves without recourse to binary oppositions or stable, enduring dispositions. One part romance, two parts tragedy, three parts reality, four parts fantasy, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus competently delegates intergenerational gesticulations, while mysteriously emphasizing transcendental transmutations. Plus two.