One of the many fruits of Star Wars is the seemingly endless nitpicks one can find when combing its epic depths of lore. Sometimes, one does not have to dig too deep to hit gold. Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker includes one of those nuggets of nitpick glory. In this case, it is the crucial driving point of two thirds of the movie: the hunt for a Sith wayfinder. The necessity of which was promptly destroyed by false dramatic tension and then conveniently replaced to fill the hole - twice. The discovery of the wayfinder, and the scavenger hunt surrounding it, hinges on enormous coincidences that are also promptly wasted.
The Rise of Skywalker is the lowest rated Star Wars film in the saga and the lowest box office intake of the Disney Trilogy. Critics fault it for its unfocused storytelling while fans deride it for backpedaling and an unimaginative resolution to the trilogy. Rise was Disney’s “make good” for the rancor it received after The Last Jedi and Solo two years prior. The Rise of Skywalker centers around Rey, Finn, Poe, C-3PO, BB-8, and Chewbacca adventuring to find a Sith wayfinder to locate the hidden planet Exegol so they can confront the revived Emperor Palpatine. A Sith wayfinder is a pyramidal mechanism designed to attach to the navigation system of a starship and provide coordinates. According to Lando Calrissian, there are only two of them. One is with Kylo Ren, the other is seemingly lost.
Suddenly Lando
Rey learns from ancient Jedi texts that Luke Skywalker was looking for a wayfinder to Exegol. He discovered the last known location of someone who might know where it could be. This takes the heroes to the desert planet of Pasaana and to an unexpected, and enormous, coincidence. While there, they bump into Lando. He happened to have been with Luke Skywalker when he was originally looking for the wayfinder.
The funny thing about this is that Luke and Lando were last on Pasaana twenty-five years ago. Why would he still be there? Either Lando happened to be attending the Burning Man party at the exact same time Rey and company came to visit, or he stayed there and waited, alone, in the desert, for some reason, for twenty-five years. It would be as if Luke and Lando went to a grocery store for a carton of milk, but they were sold out of the milk they wanted, so Lando decides to stay in the supermarket for twenty-five years until someone he is familiar with comes to buy the same carton of milk. Does he not have anything better to do? Surely, there is a galaxy of romantic interests waiting for Lando to spoil, or gambling dens to visit, or anything ordinary for him to do with his life.
Then, once he passes them the crumb of info, he decides to continue partying. Only later do we see Lando join the Resistance as he flies the Millenium Falcon with Chewbacca like old times.
But Wait, There’s Chewbacca
After they find the Sith dagger on Pasaana, they are attacked by Kylo Ren, his boy band, and First Order Stormtroopers. Kylo and Rey have a force tug-of-war over a ship supposedly containing a captured Chewbacca, who has the dagger. Rey force lightnings the ship and blows it up, believing she killed Chewbacca and lost the dagger to boot. This throws them for a tailspin, as they no longer have the ability to find the wayfinder because they lost the dagger.
C-3PO says he has it memorized but is forbidden to repeat it, which causes a rigmarole over wiping his memory and making him translate the coordinates. None of that is necessary, since the moment C-3PO reveals the data, they learn Chewbacca is alive and the dagger is safely unguarded on the flagship anyway. The Sith dagger is an artifact of supposed evil and power. It was the instrument of Rey’s parents’ murder. It is the very thing they are searching for. Is that something Kylo should just leave around his bedroom? Would he not put it in his pocket? Keep it safe on his person? It is not that large an item.
Smells Like Elderberries
C-3PO’s translation takes them to an ocean planet called Kef Bir, which hosts the wreckage of the second Death Star. Here, Rey turns the Sith dagger into a protractor and locates the Emperor’s throne room where she finds the lost wayfinder. Immediately after that, Kylo Ren bursts in and destroys it. The entire scavenger hunt for that item was for nothing. They duel some more, she fatally wounds him, changes her mind, heals him, only to steal his TIE whisper and flea to Ahch-To, the same hideout Luke used in The Last Jedi.
Here, she torches Ren’s ship and is then visited by force-ghost Luke, whom she confesses her misery to. Her true identity is that of a spawn of evil and she has no wayfinder. Fortunately, much like the Monty Python scene where King Arthur asks the French knights to join them in a quest for the Holy Grail, Luke tells her she already has one. There was a wayfinder in Kylo’s ship all along. Good thing she did not burn the ship to pieces, oh wait. It is a good thing the wayfinder is non-flammable.
The wayfinder leads to a warp hole to the hidden planet, where the Resistance fleet battles the Final Order armada over top of a land incursion that pits Rey and Ren against the Emperor.
The Sith wayfinder was nothing but a zig-zag scavenger hunt where the target object was destroyed twice, and conveniently replaced. Its pursuit was pockmarked with coincidences large and small, with one enormously incomprehensible character decision.
Fans of Rise of Skywalker could appraise it as another fun thrill ride, full of flashing lasers and soaring music, mixing the heroes of old and new in a final Skywalker adventure. Its merit may also earn its place at the bottom of the Star Wars pile, below The Phantom Menace.