Regarding Rose

Episode IX misses an opportunity to bring balance to the fandom

SPOILER WARNING FOR THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

NO REALLY, WE’RE GOING RIGHT TO THE THIRD ACT

TURN BACK

Film Twitter has their knives out for J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio tonight because of the sidelining of Rose Tico, the member of the Resistance played by Kelly Marie Tran in The Rise of Skywalker.

Rose made her first appearance in The Last Jedi, a film that split the collective fandom seemingly into two parts — although I’ll argue later elsewhere that the fracture lines are more complex than that — with a very vocal segment of fans driving Tran off social media because of their anger at the film. A move which betrays an ignorance of the filmmaking process and a complete inability to get the point of Star Wars, but again: that’s for another time.

It feels a bit like deja vu all over again and we are already in for a wave of takes that range from the producers being accused of “moral cowardice” to protestations that her character had nothing to contribute.

Laying at the heart of this is a lack of imagination about what to do with Rose… a lack of imagination that I’d argue actually begins in the theatrical cut of The Last Jedi.

In that film Rose is robbed of her first big hero moment: shutting down the hyperspace tracking device that is keeping the Resistance fleet from escaping the deadly First Order armada. Like many of that film’s choices the decision was made to keep heaping loss after loss on the heroes, in order to create a sense of inevitable doom.

Yet it could have been possible to give Rose her moment — let her use her skills to shut the signal down only to have the First Order overpower the team before they could get word out.

Her next opportunity to shine was left on the cutting room floor and can been found in the deleted scenes. Captured by the First Order and being lorded over by a gloating General Hux, she takes the opportunity to bite him when he dares to lay a hand on her. Hux freaks out and runs away, basically. Losing even when he’s won. It’s the kind of scrappy, spirited moment that makes Star Wars, well, Star Wars, much like Poe Dameron’s “Who talks first?” line endeared him to audiences at the start of The Force Awakens. But no. DVD extras only.

When Rose finally gets her big damn hero moment it comes in the form of saving Finn, who was on the verge of sacrificing himself. She gets to deliver the thematic line of the film that the Resistance wins when they save what they love, not by killing what they hate. (I’m paraphrasing here.) It’s a beautiful moment that is complicated by the action of the film: Rose’s action means the bad guys get to open up the Resistance base like a tin can. Only Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, can save the day by swinging his lazer sword and taking the whole damn First Order on by his lonesome.

(Luckily Luke is also living the principle, but that can be missed by a casual reading of the film. There are a lot of casual readings of The Last Jedi, which is one of the reasons that the film causes so much friction to this day.)

So there was a real opportunity to heal the past — which is, um, kinda the theme of The Rise of Skywalker — by giving Rose a big damn hero moment.

And there’s actually something in the third act of TROS that needs some work as it is: the attack on the signal towers.

For some reason — read: a cool visual — the Resistance decides to take out the signal towers directing the Sith Fleet using a ground assault instead of just blasting it with proton torpedoes. (Which, um, duh.) But Star Wars directors often go for big visuals — The Last Jedi’s “Holdo maneuver” is a stunning moment that also kinda, sorta writes future storytellers into a corner. (To be fair, J.J. Abrams is just as guilty of breaking storyworld logic with trans warp beaming in Star Trek Into Darkness, just to offer up some deeper balance here.) Yet this one grates because, really: why not just blow it up?

What would make sense would be to go reprogram the signal. To set the Fleet into a series of deadly jumps into the red nebula surrounding Exegol. Or smashing into each other. Or the planet. Or whatever.

Reprogramming the signal would provide a thematic balance to Palpatine’s “message of revenge” that we learn about in the opening crawl. It would drive home the idea the we need to take the narrative (signal) out of the hands of the purveyors of hate and put it into the hands of the freedom loving peoples of the, um, galaxy.

And whom amongst the Resistance would be best suited for this part of the mission?

Maintenance Chief Rose Tico, that’s who.

Would things go wrong? Would Lando and the civilian flotilla have to come in and save the day? Maybe. Probably. But it would let Rose close a loop she was denied in Episode VIII while simultaneously making the Act Three set piece make more damn sense. Seriously: the Resistance sucks as a military.

It’s probably like five of six different set ups from what’s already in the movie. A small change that would have done a lot to heal the past and bring balance back to our little family.

I don’t want to imagine the pressure that Abrams and Terrio were under to turn this movie around and get it released in two years. To jump into a process and start from scratch when one of your intended leads had passed away and you were determined to write around leftover footage so that you could honor the arc you had set up for her, an arc pretty much everybody wanted. It’s crazy that what is in theaters isn’t just two hours of porg cries and outtakes from the Holiday Special. (And yes, here is where some folks would say that it would be better than what is in theaters, but I don’t agree. I liked the big dumb thing. Its heart is in the right place even if it’s sometimes eating paste. Every Star Wars movie eats at least a little paste, even your favorite.*)

But I do wish that more care had been taken by the team with Rose, much as I wish that more care was taken with Finn** — my personal favorite character in this trilogy — in The Last Jedi.

Because Star Wars can be, and should be, for everybody.***

I’m going to have a LOT more to say about Episodes VIII and IX in the days to come, because I can’t stop thinking about them even though I have loads more to do. I didn’t choose this life. It chose me.

*My favorite is Empire, and being able to walk around the space slug with just a breath mask reaaaaaaly stretches credulity.

**Finn still isn’t given great material here, but I really love that he’s basically now the Leia of the hero trio — starting to wake up to the voice of the Force. Finn as the “everyman with the Force” works better for me than Episode VIII’s broom boy for reasons I’ll delve into another day. Sorry, broom boy fans.

**Except fascists. Seriously: these nine movies are about how fascism sucks and that you need to be vigiliant in preventing its rise, resolute in wiping it out, and ready to fight back against it when it rears its head again even though you were totally sure you wiped it out a generation ago.

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