Hearken to the Jedi Rune

Jan 17, 2023 | Star Wars

Three years ago, more or less, I went to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker at the cinema, back in the days when I went to the cinema (a bit more on that below). I wasn’t greatly impressed with the film at the time for the reasons I wrote about here.

The Recumbancy of Skywalker

I watch a lot of Star Wars stuff on TV and have been known to read the novels as well, continually searching for a really good Star Wars book, but the one thing I haven’t done is go back and rewatch The Rise of Skywalker. In the past few days I’ve watched it twice, albeit that I hit fast forward a lot during the first viewing. And … I’ve warmed towards the film somewhat.

I watched it because for ages I’ve had a notion of a Star Wars story sketched in a notebook. I probably won’t write the story because I can’t do the technobabble, but every so often it creeps out of my subconscious. I rewatched The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and the Rise of Skywalker with an eye on one particular character who would be the protagonist of the putative story.

I still think that the film has significant flaws – the side-lining of significant characters such as Rose and, to a lesser degree, Finn, the fan-service of the denouement in particular, and the general cheesiness of the narrative. More importantly, it ran away scared from the opportunities that The Last Jedi opened up and reverted to a boilerplate Star Wars story. I agree with younger me that there is probably a much better movie in there waiting to get out, but, I concede, The Rise of Skywalker isn’t as bad as my memory told me it was.

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I haven’t been to the cinema since before the pandemic. This isn’t entirely due to the pandemic itself. I mentioned here in passing 5 years ago (here) that I have some high-frequency hearing loss. I had an updated hearing test yesterday and the loss has spread to the fringes of mid-frequencies. It is not enough to justify hearing aids because the effect of the loss is only obvious in some situations, but it’s also why I have avoided the cinema. Generally speaking, the sound presentation in a cinema is such that I sometimes have a hard time working out what is being said. It is much easier to watch films at home with headphones on (and sometimes subtitles).

I got a recommendation that I should now be getting my hearing tested annually, which I’m happy to do (the tests are free.)