Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker makes many errors while trying to satisfy all of its fans, but it makes one critical error in particular.
One of the most enduring images in the entire Star Wars saga is the binary sunset. In the original film, Luke Skywalker looks out to the twin suns of his home planet Tatooine and dreams of what his life has in store for him.
As George Lucas has often spoken about, it is the moment that launches the archetypal hero’s journey: something deep inside Luke Skywalker pulls him to adventure; he knows he wants a larger life than the one he was born to.
The image of a young man, full of hope, watching the two suns set as John Williams’ haunting French horn plays the somber theme that would come to evoke the entire notion of the Force, is one of the most moving moments in the entire history of film.
SPOILERS!!!
The Last Jedi, the previous installment in this beloved franchise, ends with Luke’s death, and in his final moments, he sees the binary sunset again in the distance, having fulfilled his destiny, saving the galaxy one final time. (I get chills just typing this, it’s a perfect poetic moment for Luke’s journey to end on.)
The latest and final film of the saga, The Rise of Skywalker, ends on this image. Rey has vanquished Emperor Palpatine — in theory for the final time? — and traveled to Tatooine, to Luke’s childhood home. She surveys the land from the entrance of the house and some neighbor woman asks her name. She says her name is Rey … Skywalker, she adds.
I don’t understand it. I don’t understand a lot of choices in The Rise of Skywalker, but this is the point that sticks with me. It disrespects the themes of the original trilogy more than anything in The Last Jedi does, a common accusation lobbed at that film (which just so happens to be the best film not part of the original trilogy).
After much speculation about Rey’s parentage in the past several years, we learn definitively that she is not a Skywalker. She is a Palpatine, a family the sequel trilogy has been 0% concerned with in the first two films.
But she is a Jedi, and she chooses the way of the Jedi instead of the way of the Sith. She defeats Emperor Palpatine (her grandfather, which given the timeline of the nine films, means he had human relations with a woman at some point in his 50s after he had become the Emperor, which is just absolutely wild) by harnessing the power of all the Jedi that came before her.
And so, Rey elects to become a Skywalker, even though she is not, because it is a name that is filled with history, and to her, good. She chooses this despite the fact that the first Skywalker of any renown became Darth Vader and the last person in the bloodline is Kylo Ren.
Both of whom are redeemed by the end of their own narrative arcs in the series, but for great lengths of their lives, actively choose the dark side of the Force.
Additionally, in the original trilogy, Luke is constantly battling his own attraction to the darkness. The only Skywalker across the nine films that is all good is Leia, and the untimely, deeply saddening loss of Carrie Fisher before the filming of the final film robs us of her ability to be the ultimate definition of the light side of the Force.
But, Luke always remains a Skywalker. He finds out his father is one of the evilest people in the galaxy, but he does not change his name. Leia uses the last name Organa all the way through until her death, long after she found out that she was actually a Skywalker. So why does Rey get to change her name?
Star Wars was never about getting to rewrite your heritage, but about owning that heritage and becoming who you want to be despite it. In other words, Star Wars is not about choosing who you are, but choosing how you are who you are.
George Lucas did this in his life. Famously, he was expected to take over his father’s business, and the thought of doing that filled him with dread. He longed for a world bigger than the one he was born into, and he went out into the world and he did it, just like Luke Skywalker.
George apocryphally said upon leaving home that he would be a millionaire by the time he was 30. He achieved his dreams, but he was still George Lucas, who he was the day he was born—in Modesto, CA, which looks not unlike the drab desert of Tatooine.
The original Star Wars films were a cry from the depths of George Lucas’ very soul. He had written and directed two feature films within the studio system (THX 1138 and American Graffiti) and had found himself disillusioned with the machine of Hollywood. He channeled that rage into Star Wars, making a David and Goliath story about a boy (George) battling against the machine (Hollywood).
Ending the nine-film saga by letting Rey become a Skywalker, completely erases Lucas’ signature, and it is clearly an ending written in some Disney conference room, figuring out a way to end the story as a triumph for the Skywalkers, despite the fact that there are no Skywalkers left at the end of the film. I understand the impulse, but it is simply wrong.
I wish the film ended with Rey able to stand in her own light, either as a Palpatine (if they really were going to insist upon that convolution), or as The Last Jedi revealed, as someone unrelated to one of the Star Wars dynastic families.
Rey should not have gotten the binary sunset. It is not a symbol of her journey. It is a symbol of the Star Wars legacy, of course, but it is misused as the conclusion of Rey’s journey at the end of The Rise of Skywalker. And it is the nail in the coffin for this lifelong Star Wars fan’s hopes of a satisfying conclusion to a beloved series.