Article / Analysis: Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise Of Skywalker / The Fall of Palpatine; Why Episode IX Flips the Canon on it’s Head [2019]

— Cᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ Iɴᴅᴇx —

an article by Darth Magpie (a.k.a.: the Extinction Entity).
You’d better read the whole thing!

A lil’ bit of news: It’s pretty obvious we haven’t been as on the money like we usually are this year because so much’s been going on. This is going to be my last post for the year and like I keep saying, I’m making no promises that I’m coming back. I have other things going on. Far as the Cap’n goes… we still haven’t really spoken about The Corvid Review but I know he’s going to at least finish the Death Stranding series before 2019 is done with. I’ll see you lovely lot at the Oscine Awards next year (I have a VIP ticket, y’know?)

But let’s leave next year to next year! Let’s talk about why I think The Rise Of Skywalker is one of the better Star Wars films out there (even though you might not think it is)! Yeah. It missed the mark. Yeah. It wasn’t the best film. But it had the potential to be the best Star Wars film. It just got completely messed up by having to stuff everything into one film. Like I said in my spoiler-free review, the folks at Disney Star Wars should’ve just cancelled The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and made The Rise of Skywalker into the whole sequel trilogy. So let me go grab a little something and let me tell you why I think all of those things.
^{Now where did I put it…?}

————|–(ಠ◡ಠ^✿) ^{zwing! It’s Star Wars time!}

Right! So we’ve laid into JJ Abrams before. And I won’t lie… I was a bit worried he was going to turn out another stinker with The Rise of Skywalker.

And the film looks like a right mess once it starts getting into the swing of things. It’s throwing ideas all over the place and running from plot part A to B to C to D to beyond like a headless fishie. Remember that I’m not going to be telling you that this film is some huge piece of art, but when you sit back and think about what really happens in it, you realise just how great it is as an ending to the series.

A lot of folks have been complaining (and me too!) about the “disrespect” that TLJ showed to the original Star Wars films. And yeah… the film was pretty disrespectful. It didn’t even have the decency to try and continue the story. It just did its own thing like there wasn’t a whole other film in the trilogy to leave space for. Because of things like this, a lot of Star Wars fans got put off (like me) from the idea of Episode IX. (There was the whole “blaming fans for the film not making as much money as the people who made it expected.) But I’ve always said individual films deserve their fair shake, and I’m glad I gave Episode IX the chance it deserved.

See, the thing is that bringing back Papa Palpy seems to crap all over the legacies of Anakin and Luke Skywalker. Rey just showing up and being the awesomest thing since sliced delicious fishies seems to just be lazy character-building (and it is in TFA and TLJ). And THAT’S what TROS fixes!

Let me ‘splain.

————|–(ಠ _ ಠ^✿) ^{zwing! You’d better listen…}

So TROS shouldn’t have been called what it is. The film’s not so much “The Rise of Skywalker” than it is “The Fall of Palpatine”. The film straight up establishes the fact that Palapatine, not Skywalker, is the “family” we’ve been following all along. And how does this work out, you ask? Well, Palpatine MADE the first Skywalker. Palpatine made Anakin so that he could use the hotheaded kid. Anakin was a really really really successful experiment up until Obi Wan happened and threw ALL of Papa Palpy’s plans into the bin.

When Anakin got stuffed into his badass tin suit, Papa Palpy got a pretty cool right hand (lol) man, but he couldn’t get the 100% he wanted from Anakin any more. That’s where Luke came in and the original trilogy ended with Papa Palpy wanting to replace Vader with Luke. The Rise of Skywalker kinda goes into what Papa Palpy had in mind for the Skywalkers, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What’s important here is that Palpy is capable of creating life.

I keep seeing folks still talking about who in their right mind would bump uglies with Papa Palpy and even if we ignore the whole thing that he was the Emperor and could probably get someone into bed (ew!), it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t need to go through the motions to spawn kids. So if we think that Palps was kinda, sorta Anakin’s dad, HE was the guy responsible for the heroes of the story so far. And hey, just because Anakin got diced up and chargrilled doesn’t mean another special kid would get the same treatment. Right?!

Yup! I’m saying that Rey is Anakin 2.0. That explains everything. Rey’s parents (or at least one of them) were created by Palpy, and then he made sure their kid would turn out to be a really powerful Force user. Hell, Palpy could have been “training” Rey from afar like he “trained” Ben Solo into becoming Kylo Ren.

This makes the whole saga (Episode I to IX) ALL about Palpatine trying an experiment twice and it blowing up in his face both times. Rey taking the name “Skywalker” at the end? That makes sense too! The Skywalkers are just as much Palpatine’s family as Rey is. That makes the whole Star Wars story so far about the rise and fall of Emperor Palpatine. And that’s the kind of thing that makes everything click. This is why we didn’t need Luke or Anakin at the end (even though it’d be nice to give them a bigger slice of the cake). Rey really is it.

This way of looking at the film explains everything about Rey being so “Mary Sue” powerful (she isn’t any more because of what we find out), about how Luke dying could still work (even though TLJ handled it poorly).

I guess I’m still a little upset by how the film chucked Ben in a bin, but at least he got a redemption arc (which I liked). I just don’t like ALL the “true Skywalkers” dying I guess. And the film also explains something very important about Force Lightning! Force Lightning comes from the bladder, obviously! That’s why Palpy can’t stop even though he’s melting his own face off! Have you seen an older bloke trying to cut his… stream off?!

But yeah, that’s my piece. Don’t get yourselves all worked up with how the film disregards the Skywalkers. Rey’s just as much a Skywalker as Anakin was. Hell, she’s most definitely an improvement over Anakin since Palpy’s had so long to tweak his “Force Baby” technique.

Think of the saga as a the Tragedy of Darth Palpy the Weak-Bladdered and it’s all poetry all the way! Go watch The Rise of Skywalker if you didn’t like the last two films and imagine just how much better things would’ve been if this was the whole trilogy!

Right! I’m off to destroy a pile of KFC! I’ll see you lot next year! Love you loads!

— Azure-Winged “Darth” Magpie up! Up! ^{And Awayyy! *BONK!*}

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Final Ratings

THE AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE: 7.5/10

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Here’s one of the official posters: