Released 20 years apart, Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace and Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker have a lot in common. They are the bookends of what is now called the Skywalker Saga, the beginning and end of a legend, as highlighted in each film’s marketing campaigns. Both films were highly anticipated but ultimately met with mixed to negative reactions. The Phantom Menace and The Rise of Skywalker films are often regarded as the weakest entries in their respective Star Wars trilogies and have left a lasting impression on the series’ legacy, for better or worse.
Director J.J. Abrams, who also co-wrote The Rise of Skywalker with Chris Terrio, made a lot of frustrating choices in the epic conclusion. Yet there is one specific moment in the movie’s climax that not only is rousing within the context of The Rise of Skywalker, but also ties back to a small line of dialogue from The Phantom Menace, whose meaning ripples across the Star Wars franchise. It was a mother’s words of wisdom to her son, urging the galaxy to help each other more.
People Coming Together in ‘Star Wars’
In The Phantom Menace, a young nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) offers to help Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman), Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best), and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker), four strangers he has just met. When his mother, Shmi Skywalker (Pernilla August), says she can’t allow Anakin to risk his life in a podrace, Anakin tells his mother these powerful words, persuading her to let him help the strangers:
“Mom, you said the biggest problem in this universe is that no one helps each other.”
This line obviously carries a lot of weight through the subsequent Star Wars films. The big heroic moment in the original Star Wars is Han Solo, a character who, for most of the film, is defined by self-interest. He returns to the fight and offers Luke Skywalker some much-needed cover during his Death Star trench run. Because Han Solo cared, Luke Skywalker was able to destroy the Death Star. Throughout the saga, the heroes triumph because they care for others, but the series always focused on the micro-character level. The Rise of Skywalker would pay off this line 20 years later (or 67 years within the Star Wars universe).
In the final Skywalker Saga entry’s climax, the Resistance leads an assault on Exegol and the Final Order’s Star Destroyers, which are equipped with Death Star cannons that can destroy entire planets. Despite the Resistance’s best efforts, its forces are outmaneuvered and outgunned. All hope seems lost when suddenly Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) says over the mic, “But there are more of us, Poe.” Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) banks his X-Wing over a star destroyer to see the largest fleet of ships from across the galaxy assembled, led by the Millennium Falcon.
The Final Order is taken by surprise, as these ships from all across the galaxy quickly mobilize and start taking out their Death Star cannons attached to their Star Destroyers. “Where did they get all these fighter craft? They have no Navy,” says General Pride (Richard E. Grant). A fellow First Order officer simply responds:
“It’s not a navy sir, it’s just…people.”
Ships from starfighters to cargo ships to even the travel destination, Starspeeder, from the Star Tours rides at Disneyland show up in the final battle to lend a hand. Not only does this pay off Zorii Bliss’ (Keri Russell) earlier line — “they only win by making you think you’re alone” — but it also fulfills Shmi Skywalker’s belief decades later, long after her death. In the end, the galaxy came together when it needed to fight off the threat of the Sith and the Final Order. It wasn’t the Jedi Knights returning, or the magic bloodline, but people from all across the Star Wars galaxy, from the core worlds to the Outer Rim.
An underrated element of this moment is that, amid the ships all showing up on Exegol, composer John Williams sprinkles in a part of the traditional Star Wars end-credits theme. It is the first time in the Star Wars movies that those iconic notes are played outside the credits. It’s fitting to use a musical motif associated with Star Wars‘ ending during the Skywalker Saga’s final battle — music that usually celebrates the people behind the films, now underscoring the galaxy uniting to defeat the First Order.
Bringing the Skywalker Saga Full Circle in ‘Star Wars’
The sequel trilogy was often accused of overlooking, and sometimes ignoring, the prequel trilogy. Despite how some Star Wars fans might want to rewrite history, the prequel era was a very controversial one. When Disney first announced they were making more Star Wars movies, many of the franchise’s current harshest critics were more than happy to move on from the prequels, which were seen as deviating far from the Star Wars formula. The Force Awakens‘ mission statement was to evoke the spirit of the original trilogy, obviously by bringing back the original cast of characters, using iconic elements like Stormtroopers, Tie Fighters, and X-Wings, and mirroring the original Star Wars‘ plot.
However, with The Rise of Skywalker, it appeared that J.J. Abrams wanted to acknowledge the entire saga and bring everything together, which meant calling back to the prequels. This certainly led to the movie’s most controversial decision to bring back Emperor Palpatine and handwaving his return with the line from Revenge of the Sith, “the dark side is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.”
Yet the moment when the galaxy unites, fulfilling Shmi Skywalker’s wish, is arguably the film’s strongest scene. Using a line of dialogue from the first entry in the Skywalker Saga chronologically to visually pay off in the final film shows a level of thoughtfulness and thematic coherence. With this, the Skywalker Saga is now about much more than just the family lineage of the Skywalker family, but about a galaxy slowly shifting from apathy to collective action. There are peaks and valleys, dark moments where hope seems lost, but in the end, the people are greater than any army.
Like The Phantom Menace, The Rise of Skywalker is a deeply flawed film. Where The Phantom Menace earns goodwill through the “Duel of the Fates” sequence, The Rise of Skywalker‘s fleet arrival on Exegol delivers a similarly powerful moment. J.J. Abrams approaches greatness, if only for a moment. The entire Star Wars Skywalker Saga is available to stream on Disney+.
- Release Date
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May 19, 1999
- Runtime
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136 minutes
- Producers
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Rick McCallum