Last December, “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” was poised to be the triumphant finale of a nine-film saga that began way back in 1977. Unfortunately, the film didn’t live up to those lofty expectations and fell well short of what fans were hoping to see. Though the film has its defenders, by and large, the general sentiment is that JJ Abrams and his cast/crew turned in a film that just doesn’t complete its goals as a satisfying conclusion to the newest trilogy of films and as the finale of the Skywalker Saga.
Overall, the film just reeks of studio interference. It appears that some of those issues can be traced back to the writing of the film. According to the upcoming book, “The Art of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (via Business Insider), writer Chris Terrio backs up the stories that the film was constantly being tinkered with.
“I’ve never rewritten a film as much as this one,” said Terrio. “It’s like a tide. There’s a new script every morning. But we just keep going at it and going at it, loosely thinking that it’s not good enough. It’s never good enough.”
He added, “Luckily, the production team is so good that they can shift and adjust. We’re course-correcting as we go – we’re trying things, and some things don’t work and some things aren’t ambitious enough. Some things are overly ambitious. Some things are too dense. Some things are too simple. Some things are too nostalgic. Some things are too out-of-left-field. We’re finding our balance.”
Inadvertently, it appears that Chris Terrio has summed up many people’s frustration with ‘Rise of Skywalker.’ It’s not that the film was constantly rewritten (that’s pretty much par for the course for many of these tentpole blockbusters), but that it feels like it was constantly rewritten, reworked, and generally fucked around with. The film looks beautiful and complete, but that’s all the shine trying to hide a fundamentally disconnected and sloppy film. And when you have a screenwriter at the level of Terrio, who previously worked on films such as “Argo,” “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” and “Justice League,” talking about how ‘Rise of Skywalker’ is a new level of rewriting, that’s saying something.
You can watch ‘Rise of Skywalker’ on VOD now.
