Member review

Stylistically, The Rise of Skywalker returns to the aesthetics of The Force Awakens, juggling rocket-fuelled action sequences – dogfights, desert chases and saber-battles abound – with straight-faced “dark v light” standoffs, retaining the thread of humour that dates back to A New Hope while still taking the unfolding events deadly seriously. While Rian Johnson delighted in wrong-footing viewer expectations (Luke comically ditching a sacred talismanic object in Episode VIII raised laughs, gasps and shrieks of dismay in equal measure), Abrams keeps things closer to home, reviving that strange sense of quasi-mystical cod-reverence that was the hallmark of Lucas’s original productions.