'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker': Some of the movie's best moments happen offscreen, from Leia's choice to Rey's lightsaber
Spoiler alert for 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker'
'Star Wars' has always been a franchise that has a lot going on in the background, and this has been especially true of the sequel trilogy, what with the First Order rising to prominence so quickly despite the Empire having been defeated when last we saw it.
'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker' takes things to a whole new level, however, some of the most fascinating moments in the movie have all happened offscreen.
There may be a treasure trove of deleted scenes in store for those picking up the Blu-Ray release, but until then, some of the most pivotal moments in the conclusion to the Skywalker saga are things we never get to see.
Some of this, of course, happened out of necessity — with the tragic passing of Carrie Fisher, any plotlines involving Leia Organa would need to be spoken of, rather than shown. Thus, we only see a silhouette of Leia's body double reaching out to Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) instead of her last words to him.
Similarly, we never see Leia's choice to tap into her heritage and walk the Jedi path — what we see is the final moments of her previously unmentioned Jedi training, and a heavily CGI'd version of her wielding her own saber, but never a shot of her as a fully-fledged Jedi, which was the original plan for her character.
That's understandable — the movie did its best with the limited footage it had.
The exclusion of other big moments is less understandable. Like the original of Rey's (Daisy Ridley) gold/yellow lightsaber.
We have never seen a live-action creation of a lightsaber before, and with the inclusion of a piece of her staff as a hilt, and the original color of the lightsaber's energy, how Rey came to create the new weapon would have been quite a moment.
It would have been something that ties her Jedi legacy into the future of the Jedi Order she's literally building with what she has, with scavenged parts.
We miss out on whatever it was that got Lando to convince an entire galaxy to organize and fight back against the Final Order on Exegol. Large armies are apparently a snap to amass in the galaxy, as it's never explained just how Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) suddenly has a fleet of planet-killing Destroyer ships.
The Deathstar, the first planet killer in the 'Star Wars' canon, at least had build-up — it was a running plotline of the prequel movies, and inspired 'Rogue One', whose entire plot revolved around its construction.
We are told about, rather than shown, an entire contingent of Stormtroopers who have decided to desert the First Order when they're asked to kill civilians.
It's a turning point, giving the Stormtroopers a humanity that they've been robbed of through the entire history of the 'Star Wars' films — and it's a story quickly told and almost just as quickly moved on from. The movie is a disappointment on a lot of fronts.
