The Rise of Skywalker: Let Your Characters Shine

Love it or hate it, Star Wars is undeniably a big part of our culture. The original trilogy sent shockwaves through the storytelling industry that are still reverberating today, nearly half a century later.

So when LucasFilm announced that, after 42 years of movies, prequels, and sequels, they were finally closing the nine-part Skywalker movie saga, most people were excited to see a thrilling finish to the series. They looked forward to a fresh yet nostalgic tribute to a saga that has meant so much to so many.

But what many of them felt after walking away was… disappointment.

I remember when I first heard the news, I was shocked. Almost fifty years of buildup, dozens of characters, tons of cannon material to possibly pull from, two movie sequels with a lot of potential, and somehow the writers ruined the end of the Star Wars series? I couldn’t believe it. I had been looking forward to watching the final movie that would hopefully close off the loose ends left from the first two movie sequels in a way that explained them all. I wanted to root for Rey, Poe, Finn, and Rose. To mourn for Leia and celebrate victory with the rebels.

But something was missing.

And it can absolutely make or break your climax.

So if you have an action-packed conclusion coming up in your work, or if you’re just looking forward to understanding what to look for in a successful climax, buckle up. Because the reason The Rise of Skywalker  did so badly isn’t what you think.

The Rise of Skywalker

The Rise of Skywalker is an action-packed film, full of new revelations about the Force and our protagonist Rey’s past. It takes place one year after the previous movie, The Last Jedi, and thirty years after the conclusion of the original trilogy. A new tyrannical government known as the New Order is seizing control of the galaxy, and the main plot of the sequel trilogy encompasses a small rebellion’s attempts to combat it.

The first movie in this sequel trilogy opens with the revelation that Luke Skywalker is missing and resistance fighter Poe Dameron may be the only one with the map to find him. As the New Order, led by the desperate Kylo Ren, chases Poe across the galaxy in an attempt to stop him from finding a highly powerful ally in Luke, they leave a mass of destruction and death in their wake. One soldier, overcome by the horrible steps the regime is taking to find Poe, deserts his post to join the rebellion. Meanwhile, Poe gives the map to his droid, BB8, to protect it, and the two end up separating. 

Rey, an orphaned scavenger growing up on the desert planet of Jakku, was discovered to have incredible abilities with the Force after meeting BB8. Eventually, all three characters meet the mechanic Rose, Maz Kanata (a pirate who protected Luke’s discarded lightsaber for years), Chewbacca, Han Solo, and Jannah, who leads a battalion of renegade stormtroopers. Rey finds Luke to teach her to control her abilities, and the others join Leia Skywalker, the leader of the resistance, as they face off against the First Order and flee from Kylo Ren, Leia and Han Solo’s son.

The Rise of Skywalker, the last film in the saga, follows the rebellion’s final stand against the First Order. Rey, trained by Luke and prepared to face Kylo, is on a search to discover who is truly pulling the strings behind the First Order. Kylo is on a mission to kill Rey before she can uncover any of the First Order’s secrets.

Rey and Kylo repeatedly clash throughout the movie, and Rey feels conflicted about killing Leia’s son and the last remaining Skywalker. As a new force, led by Emperor Palpatine himself, rises to threaten both Kylo and Rey, their aggressions wane. Kylo begins to question his true destiny, and after Rey saves his life, he decides to reclaim his identity as Ben Solo and face the rising challenges with her.

 The climax is action-packed, full of new revelations and uses of the force and new abilities that Rey develops. The movie ends and the Skywalker Saga concludes when Palpatine is defeated and Kylo sacrifices his life to save Rey’s.

That description doesn’t seem too bad. Certainly, it is not the highest form of literary art, but it is exciting and offers something new to the story. But unfortunately, the writers forgot to do something that is crucial to any good story.

They forgot to keep their promises.

Keep Your Promises

As Sophia pointed out in last week’s article, whether you like it or not, you are constantly making promises to your readers. The way you set up anything comes with certain implications — whether it’s your characters, a scene, or a theme.

Throughout the first two movies, Poe, Rose, Chewbacca, Fin, Maz, and others played a vital role in the story. Poe’s perspective actually opened the entire series, and from there we followed two separate points of view as Fin and Rey eventually found each other in their search for Poe and Luke Skywalker. The writers were not afraid to follow side characters, or dive into what drove relatively minor characters to make the decisions that they did. Rose, Poe, Fin, Maz, and many others pushed the story forward by adding their own unique touch to the series. Without them, it was a rather common “Chosen One” storyline, complete with training sessions, a Mary Sue protagonist, and a stereotypical anger-driven villain.  

But when we reach the climax, the only truly crucial characters seem to be Kylo and Rey. 

This broke almost every promise the writers had been making throughout the series. They had promised a multi-perspective climax from a diverse cast of characters we had seen desert the First Order, find their place in the rebellion, or sacrifice everything for the cause they were fighting for. They had at least attempted to give them varying personalities, desires, and roles. Whether or not they did this effectively isn’t the point — because an awesome climax with this much material, buildup, and potential could cover almost all the flaws of the last two movies and even the entire franchise. 

But instead, the last movie was possibly the worst in the series.

You can have an awesome climax that focuses on two of your characters, but that’s not what the last two movies had been building up to. No one in the audience wanted a romance between an optimistic hero and a twisted, villainous antihero who slowly comes to understand that he cares for her. They wanted to watch each character get a chance to take a stand against the First Order in their own way.

Think about the impact it would have had if Rose had gotten a chance to craft a device that would sabotage Emperor Palpatine’s plans? Or if Fin had gotten a chance to face a villain on his own and give a speech that pulls together the themes of the last eight movies? Or if Maz had pooled all her resources as a pirate to raid Emperor Palpatine’s base as a distraction to cover the real attacks on his forces? 

In the end, readers just want to see their favorite characters’ pain pay off, even if it isn’t done especially well. Plot holes, deus ex machina, and inconsistencies will all be put up with if you have readers who want to see your characters win. And the audience for this movie definitely wanted to see their characters win! But they weren’t given that chance. Instead, Rey and Kylo take the Skywalker saga over the finish line while the other characters are lost in a sea of rebel faces — just one more in the crowd.

So don’t break your promises. Bring your readers full circle to the concepts and elements that you hinted at from the very beginning by ending your story with a climax that’s worth waiting for. Let all of your characters, elements, and themes clash in an action-packed finish that shows your readers exactly how everything your characters have endured is worth it. 

What stories have you seen let all of their characters shine in the climax? How did they let each character add their own, unique flavor their ending? And how was this article? Too sweet? Too sour? Just right? Comment below and let us know!