Why Rise of Skywalker Is Too Busy | An Editor’s Take
I love Star Wars. I love the overarching meta-narrative. I love the huge technological advances the Star Wars films have introduced to the post-production community over the decades.
But every now and then, this galaxy, far, far away, churns out a cinematic experience that isn’t great; more often than I would like actually. There’s always a lot of buildup. We get hyped up to explore a new chapter in our favorite saga, and grab our popcorn, our best friends, and wait in a dark theater with baited-breath for John Williams’ musical score to burst forth, followed swiftly by that signature title crawl . . . only to reach the end credits with our expectations dashed. It happens. Every franchise has it’s bad days.
But as a digital editor, I’ve started doing a mental exercise whenever I watch a sub-par episode of the Star Wars saga. Rather than mope, I ask myself, “What is one thing I could do to fix this film if it were in my cutting room?” It's been a healthy experiment that I’ve conducted with multiple movies. The latest entry in the saga, The Rise of Skywalker, is no exception.
If you want a good idea of how I felt leaving the theatre on opening night, Michael McDonald’s review captures it perfectly. I recommend you go give it a read. My emotions were mixed, but one thing I felt sure of: the opening scenes were waaay too busy. Drive-by moments and action spectacle were crammed into the first few minutes of the film like a can of sardines. Why is this bothersome though? Shouldn’t we be thrilled to stuff as much Star Wars goodness into every precious onscreen second possible?
Well, one of the driving concepts in the art of editing is that of tension and release. Dr. Karen Pearlman (author of Cutting Rhythms: Shaping the Film Edit) describes good editing as having a certain ebb and flow. There is an interplay between scenes of tension and the release viewers get from moments of rest. When we’re watching a film, the heightened action of a sequence is often appreciated only when there is a break and the characters (and the audience) have a moment to rest and reflect. Conversely, you won’t always realize how quiet a scene was until a sudden explosion (real or otherwise) interrupts and throws you back into chaos. Tension and release. Ebb and flow. Meaning through contrast. It’s a cycle in the arts that’s vital to observe.
And that’s the problem with the opening sequence of RoS; it never takes time to practice the very advice Master Luke gives in The Last Jedi: “Just. Breathe.” It’s an onslaught of moments that seem cool, but are never allowed time to develop into something meaningful. The movie, in it’s eagerness to rush to the rest of it’s plot, leaves us short of breath before we even get to the first act climax. So how could we fix this?
RoS makes it evident that there are two main story arcs to focus on: Rey’s and Kylo’s. But in the opening sequence, we’re following three arcs: Rey’s, Kylo’s, and “the side characters.” I love Po, Finn, and Chewy, and they’re meaningful characters, but they’re not the main focus of this film; nor are they intended to be. From a narrative perspective, we don’t need to see their opening intelligence-gathering mission. It feels more like a rollercoaster you might ride at Galaxy’s Edge than a movie scene anyway. So let’s cut it entirely from the film. Done. Now we have our opening sequence, with a 3–5 minute gap in the middle. Let’s fill that gap with more story from the two arcs that matter. The extra screen time we’ve been granted allows us to create better-paced opening scenes for Rey and Kylo; scenes that have room to—you guessed it—breathe.
I’m now telling two stories instead of three. Our audience can better digest what is happening in the setup for our two main characters and the opening plot unfolds in a more even and enjoyable fashion. Moments that are supposed to be meaningful have time to be meaningful. Moments that are supposed to feel emotional have space to feel emotional. We can have a longer, unsettling meeting between Kylo and Palpatine. Rey can spend longer meditating, training, and pondering the old Jedi texts. She can even have a little longer to have a tear-worthy goodbye with Leia (rather than the iTunes-preview of a hug that we actually received).
Here’s an added benefit of cutting the Falcon crew’s opening: Just a little later in the movie, someone at the Rebel base mentions that they haven’t heard any word from Po and Finn about their mission, yet we know they’re fine because we just saw them. The rebel’s statement is somewhat meaningless to us. However, if we were to remove the opening scene, then this comment from the rebel carries a dramatic question with it (which is always a good thing). We too begin to wonder, “What’s going on with Po and Finn?” and we have to wait with suspense along with the Rebels until they arrive back at base and share their information.
The opening moments of a film are critical to convincing the audience that they’re in for their money’s worth. It helps to set the pace, build the world, and accrue a little leeway with the moviegoers just in case the filmmakers fudge the narrative later on. Unfortunately, the opening of RoS struck out on all three of those things for me. I was really, really looking forward to this movie on opening night, but the confusing rush of the first few sequences left a bad taste in my mouth that didn’t wear off until about halfway through the film.
Sometimes, less is so much more. Breathe.
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