At the end of last year's finals, the story of the Skywalker family living "long, long ago in a galaxy far away" was released. If you missed this event, or would like to relive it, just check out the latest DVD release. After all, it's a shame not to have the finals of Star Wars on your shelf ... right?
As is probably quite common knowledge, the new Disney trilogy divided the fans quite strongly – some delighted, others indignant, while the rest turned a blind eye to the shortcomings and decided to just have fun. However, it cannot be denied that it undoubtedly caused a lot of emotions and finishing it with class must have been a real challenge for the creators. But how did it finally turn out?
Two scenarios in 141 minutes … I can’t do it ?!
The first thing that catches your eye immediately after launching the movie is its frantic pace. Something is happening all the time – although it is sometimes difficult to say what – the stage is chasing the stage, the plot is chasing the plot. And no, this is not due to the Guy Ritchie-style music video montage, but the number of various ideas stuffed into the knee in too limited a movie duration, like clothes in a too small tourist bag. Watching it, it’s hard to resist the feeling that Abrams previously wrote his own Episode VIII, and now pulled it out of the drawer, shortened it, and stuck it to the Skywalker script . Revival , no matter what the consequences.
This evokes very mixed feelings. On the one hand, some of the appearing side characters (Zorii Bliss, Jannah, DO droid) or threads (Hux’s betrayal, Jedi Lei training, Poe and Finn’s promotion to leaders) seem intriguing and you can imagine that the director did not want to give them up, on the other hand … almost nothing of them remained. Potential is not everything, and unfortunately even the best idea of all time will not sound properly for 5-10 minutes of the film, which is what most of them have at their disposal. Episode IX is largely a cluster of tiny storylines that close before they begin in earnest. Whenever we start feeling into a situation, we can be sure that in a moment we will move on to something completely different, and that topic will not come back. My wild fantasy visualized it as a voice behind the camera,
It may not make sense, but at least it looks nice!
Skywalker. Revival is certainly a spectacle that cannot be accused of lack of momentum. In the entire gallop, on average, every third scene gives us a spectacular escape, a short but fierce duel with lightsabers or a skirmish in space. It makes a pretty good impression at first, but the farther into the woods, the more it looks like Abrams is constantly trying to outdo the previous track with something even “better”. As a result, we completely lose scale, and the whole thing starts to resemble shounen anime , in which the characters making the impossible, and their power seems to grow exponentially.
So we’ll see how Rey jumps on a dive TIE fighter and cuts it in two with his sword, arranges a tug of war with Ren with the Force and a starting transport, and the reborn Palpatine shoots lightning at an undefined direction, then precisely hits each of the Resistance units without harming their own henchmen. Yes, it looks front, but it makes it harder and harder to believe in any coherence and “reality” of the presented world. Well, if the Emperor can paralyze an entire fleet by himself, why didn’t he show off this ability by defending the Death Star?
There are a lot of things in this movie that you just don’t want to think about if you want to have a good time. For example, above a squad that rides space horses, which, without the slightest difficulty in keeping its balance, navigates the outer armor of an airborne Star Destroyer …
Nostalgic references – good! Copying the backbone of the plot – wrong!
Episode IX unfortunately proves that JJ Abrams has drawn no conclusions since The Force Awakens . Some of his nods to the original trilogy are really good and can put a smile on the face of a longtime fan, such as Luke’s ghost pulling the X-wing out of the water, or Billy Dee Williams’ return to glory as Land Calrissian. Such treatments show sympathy for older films and their fans, which was not even tempted by Rian Johnson in his Last Jedi . It’s just that it would be appropriate to stop there, because if we wanted to watch the same thing again, we would reach for a New Hope or Return of the Jedi .
However, if we ignore some details and focus on the most important points of the story and its final, Skywalker. Rebirth is the Return of the Jedi 2.0. Regardless of all the pomp and “epicness” of the last great battle – and in fact the entire last part of the Saga – I find such an end disappointing. We end the whole adventure in an atmosphere of chaos, a mixture of insufficiently developed side threads and a solemn reheating of a metaphorical chop, which deprives the main characters of the last chance to achieve significant personality development and obtain their own identity. So they will remain only uninteresting cardboard figures or worse copies of the iconic Star Wars heroes and will probably not have a chance to survive the test of time.
A few words about the release
However, who would like to judge this title on their own should definitely reach for the DVD release mentioned here. We find in it – a surprise! – the movie Star Wars: Skywalker. Revival in brilliant picture quality, Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and widescreen resolution. We will not come across any technical problems or cases of unpleasant pixelosis, regardless of whether we fire the plate on a laptop or a large wall TV (I tried both options!).
The publisher and the Polish distributor took care of giving us several language versions, so we can listen to the voices of the original actors, or let Polish or French dubbing specialists show us. If we prefer to read, nothing stands in the way of starting Polish, French, Dutch or English subtitles (prepared with hearing impaired people in mind). It is also possible to turn on dubbing with subtitles in the same language, so you won’t miss any spoken words, even amid the hustle and bustle of battle.
As is usually the case, we won’t see behind-the-scenes additions reserved for the Blu-ray version, but if we just want to see a movie in very good quality without investing any serious money in this venture, the DVD release will be perfect!
