Second Skywalker is the charm

Can I start talking about Star Wars yet?

I'll give you a spoiler warning before I delve into anything really serious in this post, but I've got a few more paragraphs before that time rolls around.

One thing you know for sure, whether you've seen The Rise of Skywalker or not, is that it has been divisive. Some people do love it, but more seem to hate it -- or at least those who hate it have taken command of the narrative around this film.

One thing you may not know, though, is that it's better the second time.

The conventional wisdom should state that a film has its greatest impact on you the first time, as you are being freshly introduced to its winning elements and have the thrill of surprise in your corner as well. With a Star Wars movie, though, it may be a little different. You need one viewing just to comprehend the new information being fed to you, and to wrap your mind around the fact that what you're witnessing is essentially new threads in a sacred text.

But new anything does not always go down well the first time. Sometimes you have to see it a second time for the incorporation to be complete.

I got that chance yesterday morning in Devonport, Tasmania, scarcely an hour after disembarking from the ferry that brought my car and me over to this island from mainland Victoria. I camped out last night and have joined my wife and my sons (who flew down today), as well as my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law, in the southern part of the state on the Tasman Peninsula, where we will spend Christmas.

I knew I wanted to see something, and I thought that thing would be Frozen II at 9:30. (It was an all-night ferry ride.) But in killing some time before the start of the movie, I listened to the Filmspotting guys do their own discussion of The Rise of Skywalker, and that made me realize that I wanted to see it again. Not only that, but now was the time, or never. After Boxing Day, I'll have a half-dozen new releases to consider seeing to add them to my 2019 list. There'll be no time for Star Wars then.

The first showing of Rise of Skywalker of the day was starting just 15 minutes after that, and would leave me all afternoon to do some last-minute shopping before arriving at my campsite.

Upon completion, my 3.5 star rating of the film shot up at least a half-star, and I'm inclined to say it'd be a full star if that didn't seem to disregard some of the film's undeniable weaknesses. Four point five stars was what I gave The Force Awakens, still my favorite in this trilogy, but Rise of Skywalker ends up in the same ballpark of quality for me after that second viewing.

In a way I think this is crazy. My brief summary of this movie, which I gave a couple others who had also seen it, was along the lines of "Although it had basically everything I wanted it to have, my overall impression was that it was slightly 'less than.'" In fact, after initially convincing myself that it fell between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi for me, I started to wonder if Last Jedi weren't the superior film.

So what exactly did that second viewing do for me?

For one, it allowed me to understand the connective tissue between scenes that had seemed way too hurried the first time, when I was failing to follow each movement in the quest narrative. It's not nearly as shoddy or poorly explained as I thought, it's just that each new wrinkle in the quest is quickly explained without being belabored. It's almost a model of narrative efficiency by J.J. Abrams, despite it seeming to some people like indulgence/inefficiency to have all those different scenes and planets in the first place. Those people are wrong, and my second viewing confirmed it for me.

My second viewing also allowed me to become emotional in scenes where I had not the first time. It was not that I didn't experience emotions the first time, but that they were intensified the second time, perhaps a result of knowing where things were going. There were actual tears at least once.

If I hadn't watched this movie again, I was ready to let it become mired in my 50s or 60s on my year-end list. Now I'm glad to say that it will be quite a bit higher than that ... and that I'm kind of plotting, though not very seriously, how I might even squeeze in a third viewing.

So the message to you is: If you love Star Wars, but you didn't love this movie, give yourself another chance to love it.

Well, I didn't get to any spoilers after all, and tomorrow I think I finally have to write my first Christmas post.

But you won't be sick of Star Wars talk yet after Christmas, will you? And then you really will all have seen it, and this tiptoeing around spoilers won't be necessary.