2019 – Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Here we are with chapter nine of the main Star Wars franchise. And when it comes down to it, I believe that, as pertains to the visual effects, being the culmination of the Skywalker Saga has both its advantages and its disadvantages. So I must do my best to leave the shortcomings of the script aside, though I actually liked the script more than most people seem to. On the plus side, they certainly gave us that big epic visual climax that we wanted. But on the minus side, it is Star Wars. How visually stunning is yet another lightsaber battle going to be?
As you’d expect, the laser-sword effects were up to the franchise’s normal high standard. They looked great, but why wouldn’t they? They’ve had eight other films to practice the same effect to get it looking fantastic. I think they actually had it perfected by the time The Return of the Jedi came out in 1983. In other words, nothing new there. There was a really cool scene where Rey and Kylo Ren had a lightsaber duel while they were both in different places. I loved how it kept cutting back and forth between the two locations, mixing and blending them together in a visually awesome way. However, as I think about it, that probably had more to do with some pretty innovative directing and great editing, than mere visual effects.
And the same could almost be said of the space ship battles, though I think those were looking pretty darn good in The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. They were just as expected – fast paced and thrilling. The Millennium Falcon looked as cool and iconic as it always does… in five other Star Wars movies, six if you count Solo: A Star Wars Story.
But I think what this film had to offer was the new and unique digital environments that served as fabulous backdrops for the lightsaber battles and the spaceship battles. For example, she saber duel on the narrow platform in the middle of the raging ocean was really cool. The way the splashing water interacted with the actors and the sabers was awesome. And the final ship battle where thousands of small ships arrive to fight against the fleet of planet-killing Star Destroyers was something that we had never seen before, and I appreciated that.
And I have to make mention of the really unique way they used the evil Emperor’s force-lightning effect. You see, here, he has become so powerful that he is able to shoot his blue bolts of electricity from the surface of a planet up into space, destroying rebel space ships. If that’s not grand and epic, I don’t know what is. And when it was turned back on him, it looked fantastic – so much better than when the same thing happened in Episode III. It was so much more realistic. Here, you can actually see his flesh burning away, not just a shriveled head. In all, the effects were perfectly executed, even if we’ve seen a lot of them before.