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I've been watching a lot of Rise of Skywalker reviews today (Thursday, 19/12) and they've been pretty mixed. I haven't seen the movie yet myself but I have looked at an awful lot of initial reactions and spoilers for the final act of the Star Wars epic. Don't read on if you don't want spoilers.

Whilst I disagree with many of the criticisms about the plot structure of The Rise of Skywalker (and I actually like some of the big reveals that other people have criticised), Episode 9 gets one thing massively and unforgiveably wrong which I don't think anyone else has really commented upon yet. The Rise of Skywalker is the first ever Star Wars movie to be misnamed. Yes you read this correctly. The Rise of Skywalker is indeed the first ever Star Wars movie to be misnamed. In fact, the lack of any logical connection between the plot and the title reminds me of an old South Park episode in which O. J. Simpson's lawyer gets him off with the argument that: 'Chewbacca was a Wookiee who lived on Endor. This does not make sense.' It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that the disjunction and mismatch between the plot and the Rise of Skywalker title makes the whole thing about as plausible as the Book of Mormon, or the claim that my homework ate my dog.

If you've seen the movie or you know the plot already, then you'll know that Rey is both who and what rises in this movie. Luke is dead and both Leia and Kylo Ren are dead by the end of the movie so there aren't really any other people of the Skywalker lineage around to rise. If we look at Rey's journey in the trilogy, in The Force Awakens she sees Han Solo as a father figure, then Luke as a mentor in The Last Jedi but not exactly someone who's name she'd take. Ren also tells her that she's a nobody; the type of rootless person like Han Solo in the Solo movie who might have to invent an identity for themselves. Finally, in The Rise of Skywalker we discover that Rey is actually a Palpatine. The theme of Rey's search for identity has run all the way through this third and final Star Wars Trilogy and it has been rather well handled thus far. I even like the contrast been the revelation that Vader is Luke's father in The Empire Strikes Back with this revelation that Palpatine is Rey's grandfather in Episode 9. Both of our heroes in their respective trilogies come from Sith origins and that is rather neatly done.

At the end of The Rise of Skywalker Rey visits the Lars Homestead back on Tatooine to ceremonially bury Luke and Leia's lightsabers and here she suddenly decides (probably influenced by the visitation of a bunch of Skywalker Force ghosts) that she's a Skywalker. She is not. Suddenly she is an impostor, and a cuckoo. In short, a Skywalker has not risen, a Skywalker has not restored balance to the Force and so forth. Kylo Ren might be able to pick and choose his identity between his Solo heritage from his father and his Skywalker heritage from his mother but Rey doesn't really have this same luxury. Rey has just chosen a name for herself which enables the plot of the movie to awkwardly fit the Rise of Skywalker title and the premise that all nine movies together form a dynastic Skywalker story. The disjoint between the title and Rey's actual identity pretty much manages to mangle the entire plot arc of all three trilogies in one go.

Moreover, whilst Rey might have been taught the ways of the Jedi by Luke and Leia, and thus we might think of them as father and mother figures, we still can't buy into the idea that the whole premise of the Rise of Skywalker is that Rey gets to determine her own identity by some sort of galactic Force-induced deed poll. It just doesn't work that way. Moreover, Ren has spent the entire trilogy grappling with his Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader heritage. The idea that Rey just picks herself the same grandfather that had been the source of Ren's identity problem as her own identity solution is just too flimsy. You can't hang the entire title of a Star Wars movie upon such a shaky premise.

In short, The Rise of Skywalker is only about the rise of a Skywalker in the most awkward and shoehorned way imaginable. This sets it apart from every other Star Wars film ever! A New Hope did what it said on the tin and ended on a massive note of hope and optimism; the tides turned in the struggle between the Rebellion and the Empire and the audience rode the waves of elation. In the Empire Strikes Back, the Empire struck back. In the Return of the Jedi, the Jedi returned. In the Phantom Menace, a galactic menace which was shadowy, sinister and even a little bit phantasmogoric started to emerge. In The Force Awakens, the Force most definitely awoke. I won't exhaust the list.

What's more all eight of the previous Star Wars movie titles describe in a very self explanatory way the most significant plot arc of the film in a way that encapsulates a distinct epoch of galactic history. The title of The Rise of Skywalker does not sit well with this pattern when the only way it fits is by a key character changing their name to one with which they have no clear hereditary ties at the very end. Surely there must have been a better name and, if not, why not just call it Blue Harvest? Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker and Rey were all guided to percieve a world, a philosophy and a Force much bigger than themselves, and from this perspective the concept of the rise of a Skywalker seems very reductive indeed.

Perhaps the only way we can redeem the idea that Rey is a legitimate Skywalker in any sense at all is to perhaps look back at The Revenge of the Sith. When Palpatine discusses his old master Darth Plageius's ability to influence the midichlorians to save and create life, he teases us with the idea that this is one explanation for Anakin's immaculate conception. Palpatine brings in to the realm of possibility that he might have influenced the midichlorians to bring about Anakin's otherwise unexplained conception. From this point of view, the avuncular Palpatine of the prequel trilogy was Anakin's real father, and thus in some way, as Palpatine's granddaughter Rey is simultaneously both a Palpatine and a Skywalker and perfectly placed to restore balance to the Force. Moreover, if we accept this interpretation then we are now in a place in which all three of the main heroes in all three trilogies come from Sith origins. This is really very neat and opens up all sorts of questions. Whilst this might be the case though we really shouldn't have to dig so deep to justify the Rise of Skywalker as a title when all the other Star Wars movie titles are so self-explanatory.

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