Star Wars: Episode IX – The Fall of Vantus (2020) – Geekscape Review

Rated PG. Dir. David Cronenberg. 175 minutes.

;It was unfortunate that, when “Destruction of the Arc” was released in November of 2018, it preceded the release of James Cameron’s “Battle Angel” by two weeks. ;“Battle Angel,” like “Titanic” and “Avatar” before it, trounced the competition, became the most financially successful film of all time, and left a gloriously entertaining, oddly delirious, and unexpectedly tragic film like Darren Herczeg’s “Destruction of the Arc” in the dust. “Destruction of the Arc” has been, to date – and despite being one of the best – the lowest-grossing of all the “Star Wars” films. This was a huge blow to the new generation of “Star Wars” fans, a crushing defeat for Fox, another ego bruise to the recovering George Lucas, and a boon to that weird Internet-based backlash that has risen around the new “Star Wars” movies over the last year. Fans started making demands, and writing personal letters to George Lucas as to how they could improve the series for its (ostensible) final chapter.

 It seems that, with “The Fall of Vantus,” Lucas did back down a bit, and gave some of the more demanding fans what they wanted.

Don’t get me wrong. I want to state right at the outset that “The Fall of Vantus” is just as gorgeous as the previous two chapters, and, in many ways, just as intriguing, but it seems clear that some compromises were made, and this film doesn’t quite stack up to the quality and freshness and tragedy of the “Rise of the Other” and “Destruction of the Arc.”

The first compromise? Hire David Cronenberg to be the director. Cronenberg is an immensely talented director, and I’m fond of his early films like “Videodrome” and “Dead Ringers,” and even some of his more recent crime films, like “Eastern Promises” and “Far Elsewhere.” He is perfectly suited to take on the reigns of a science fiction franchise that features human/android hybrids, and organic-looking spaceships like The Ovo; a strong running theme of the last two “Star Wars” movies has been the mixture of the organic and the mechanical. Cronenberg has made movies about humans who blend with machines in the past, and I, for one, was looking forward to what sensibility he would bring. What’s more, Cronenberg was once tapped to direct “Return of the Jedi” back in 1982, so this is a grand fan fantasy being brought strangely to life.

 But Cronenberg, who turned 77 this year, has, as a filmmaker, evolved past the need to make big ol’ sci-fi franchise films, and seems to have little passion for the material. He still has the same photographers and SFX wizards on his side, and the Aaron Sorkin screenplay is just as clever and as punchy as can be expected (despite rumors of fan-placating re-writes), but “The Fall of Vantus” feels strangely sedate, and even mildly flat when compared to the old-school bombast of the previous films. Cronenberg has declared several times that physical film is dead, and he prefers working with the quick-to-film and easy-to-alter digital technologies; some may even remember his experimental L.A.-only art-house hit from 2014 “Adventure,” in which he would remix scenes and storylines from his own movie, live in front of the audience. To me, it seems like he approached “The Fall of Vantus” as a chore.

Sorkin also seems to have succumbed to fan demands, as the screenplay for “The Fall of Vantus” seems, only when put in contrast to his last two films, oversimplified. We have now, in the old tradition of “Star Wars” a simple tale of good vs. evil. To be sure, it’s a clever, gorgeous, and rollicking battle, full of fun characters, and eye-popping special effects, but the twisted politics and tragic themes of the last film seem unfortunately subdued. Maybe I’m just nitpicking. Maybe I was just unduly excited by the adult tragedy of “Destruction of the Arc,” and maybe I just can’t get behind a great action film that is great in its own right. Judging by what some of my fellow critics have been saying about the film, “The Fall of Vantus” is the best of these three films.

And how is Michael Giacchino’s score, now that John Williams is no longer with us? It’s perfectly adequate. You can tell that it’s not Williams, but perhaps that is fine.

The story opens a few short months after “Destruction of the Arc.” Vantus (Chad Lindberg, great) has been systematically and secretly picking off all his rivals. He has been framing any remaining Arc members, and even a few other dignitaries in court. Since he is a mutated-looking fellow, no one sees him as a threat. Aaron Skywalker (Max Minghella) is still around, but seems to know he is earmarked for assassination, and spends most of his time hunting strange animals and cooking them for his badgering wife Pruhla (Mika Boorem). It’s kind of refreshing that the weak-willed Aaron has remained weak-willed. Worry not, gentle viewer, he will develop something of a spine.

This film has a sick, weird velocity to it, as most of its first half is devoted to watching Vantus slowly working his way though his hit list, making sure that he has no rivals to his throne. He poisons one rival. He banishes Zvi (Campbell Scott) from the previous two films by leaving him stranded on a life-supporting meteor. He locks Lui (Zena Grey) in a projectile, and “accidentally” fires her into the sun. One rival, an android, he actually dismantles with his own hands as it calmly protests and pleas. It’s a pretty twisted scene.

 Eventually, Pruhla and her boyfriend Bolku (Sam Riely) bully Aaron into leaving the Republic before he is killed, and to fight Vantus. Aaron doesn‘t have the wherewithal to assemble his own army, but he does manage to connect to a droid named Bib Yanni (who was Billy Boyd’s sidekick in the last film, and is created with a combination of CGI and puppetry). Bib Yanni, programmed to be loyal to the memory of Kade-09, manages to track down any and all remaining Arc members, and actually retrieved Lui before she is killed. Again, the film goes out of its way to create real sets, and Cronenberg’s vision of the Arc’s hideout is a gorgeous creation; it indeed looks like they live inside a giant, living creature, and it’s during these scenes that Cronenberg’s promise actually comes through.

Lui and Bib Yanni learn from the few remaining Arc members how to do a mental séance, and actually contact and gain advice from the dead Joan (Amber Heard) who died in “Rise of the Other.” It may feel like placating to the fans who loved her, but it was actually a fantastic move to bring Joan back into the story. I also liked the added twist of the ghost being able to actively influence the story, whereas in the old “Star Wars” films, they would only appear to trade words and give happy, peaceful glances.

Joan tells them how to convert the base – already a living machine in itself – into a warship like The Ovo. The result is larger than The Ovo, and more detailed, but doesn’t feel quite as impressive as the original. They also manage to team up with Pruhla, Bolku, and Aaron along the way; yes, there’s another hugely impressive scene where a scrappy band of outsiders break into a secure location to kidnap or confront someone, in this case to kidnap Aaron. It looks nice and is paced well, but it feels like padding in an otherwise interesting film.

The ghostly Joan also convinces Lui that the Arc needs a leader and, in a truly strange conceit, use their organic machines to merge Bib Yanni and Aaron Skywalker into a cyborg-like being; evidently Aaron had no ability to control The Force, and needed mechanical help. Aaron becomes stronger, more assertive, even wiser. His rebirth scene is painful and gooey and weird, and it adds a visual hope. This new cyberbeing, Cronenberg seems to say, is the hope of the future.

This praise of the mechanical, and celebration of the marriage between the organic and the artificial seems to be the one socially relevant idea that any “Star Wars” film has ever posited. It is seen as a difficult process that can aide people, and give them power, but also as a thing that is hard to do, that is dangerous, and should only be done for the right reasons. What better way to comment on the ubiquity of technology in our own society?

Anyway, the remainder of the film is the new rebels banding together to attack Vantus and bring him down. Vantus has new armies and new weapons, including a beam that acts a lot like the Genesis Wave in “Star Trek II,” and the film’s final battle, which takes a good 20 minutes of screen time, is long and noisy, and feel kind of compulsory, but is no less technically marvelous and emotionally stirring than the battles in the other “Wars.” Eventually the cyborg Aaron, newly confident and powerful thanks to his cybernetic elements, regains control of the Republic (I don’t think I’m giving anything away by telling you that).

Vantus’ fate I will leave you to discover, but, like in “Destruction of the Arc”, the film’s last shot is a close-up of his face, while he looks over a rather unexpected sight, and his ambivalence to what he has done and has experienced. Lindberg, again, knocks it out of the park with a subtle and sinister and morally ambiguous man. I was upset that he did not win the Oscar last year. When he is, mid-battle, crying up to the heavens, renouncing his power for a simple ship, is not only a display of virtuoso acting, but is a moment that might remind you of another deposed tyrant.

One thing I feel I have to address, even though it’s not, strictly speaking, criticizing the movie, and addressing instead various Internet rumors, is the use of the Genesis-like device (called, bluntly enough, the Viver, in what is, I suppose a dark mirror of The Death Star). The beam is fired at rebel ships, and the ships become large masses of living tissues and plants that freeze in the vacuum of space. The beam is fired at full power in the film’s climax, and the Arc rebels manage to dodge it. The beam is shown, in a single, two-second shot, drifting off into space. Then, after the credits, we see a shot of deep space, and a single blip of light appears. Internet fans have posited that the Earth – our Earth – was created in that blip. Lucas has even implied, vaguely, that this is what happened. This is a neat idea, and will perhaps be explored if Fox ever decides to continue this ongoing series, but, I will have to say, there is nothing in the film to support this. That life was created from fighting and chaos is, though, a strange theological undercurrent to an otherwise differently bent movie. Again, maybe I’m just nitpicking.

This film wraps up the series pretty well, I think. It implies that the turmoil of politics in this universe is always in a state of upheaval, and, in a very mythic way, that heroes are constantly rising, and tyrants constantly falling. It gives an almost Arthurian feeling to the storyarc, and gives a large feeling of epic revolution, rather than just a thrilling adventure about a few choice characters. I did like that the rebels from “Star Wars” kind of changed into the bad guys, and new rebels were needed to replace them; it warns us against corruption, indicates an un avoidable entropy, and reminds us that heroes are always going to be needed.

This sort of destruction of the promised Utopia at the end of “Return of the Jedi” does not, necessarily, cheapen that film’s victory. It does what, I think, Lucas had in mind this entire time, which is to tell small chapters of a large, large story. Now, rather than being the definer of “Star Wars,” the story of Darth Vader, The Emperor, Luke Skywalker, Yoda, and all the rest, is just another step in this galaxy’s enormous groundwork. In that regard, “The Fall of Vantus” resembles actual history.

“Rise of the Other” was a great sci-fantasy film. “Destruction of the Arc” was a greater sci-fantasy adventure tragedy. “The Fall of Vantus” is an exciting adventure that whimpers more than it bangs, but is still a grand film in a huge mythology. Having now seen every “Star Wars” film, I can finally say that the series entire is a huge, wondrous endeavor that now feels strangely complete. Good on Lucas.

The final Star Wars trilogy begins in Star Wars: Episode VII – Rise of the Other (2017). Read the review here!

The final Star Wars trilogy concludes in Star Wars: Episode IX – The Fall of Vantus (2020). Read the review here!

Witney Seibold is an imaginative writer living in Los Angeles with his lovely wife. He enjoys reading old books, watching movies, and talking endlessly about the sorry state of Hollywood. He harbors a deep love of great donuts. For nearly a decade, he has been maintaining his own movie review ‘blog, where he writes astutely about recent releases, classic films, entire film series, and other, more trifling things. You can access his ‘blog here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com

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