The Rise of Skywalker SPOILER REVIEW

Okay, I did not HATE this movie. I truly didn't. But man does it flub the landing of both this trilogy and the 9 film Skywalker saga.

My big issues break down into a few areas.

1. The return of Palpatine. Look, Ian McDiarmid is a terrific actor. He was one of the highlights of the prequels for sure. But why is he back here? The film really doesn't even bother to explain how he is here, or where he has been since ROTJ, or how he managed to somehow amass a whole fleet of Sith. Not to mention that his inclusion really cheapens the ending of ROTJ. 

2. The use of Leia. Look, it obviously sucks that Carrie Fisher died, and that it left JJ Abrams and company with an admittedly impossible task in a way to use her in this film and not have it come off as cheap or exploitive. But the Leia scenes here(largely made from TFA cut footage) are uncomfortably awkward and rather clumsily shoehorned in. Plus, the way Leia dies in the film is so bizarrely quick and unmotivated that it does feel very cheap.

3. The retconning of The Last Jedi. They let the whiners win. This movie is basically a middle finger to TLJ. I have no way to ever prove this, but it seems pretty clear that Disney and Lucasfilm decided to let the vocal whiny Last Jedi haters dictate a lot of what they did with this film. Character motivations change, such as Luke's entire reason for being on that island. Rose is barely in the movie, after being such a major character last time. They even introduce a couple new characters whose purpose in the film could easily have been filled by Rose herself. And some things, like the last scene of TLJ hinting at force users and the Skywalker legend, are completely dropped. 

4. This has almost certainly the messiest plot of any saga film. It has too much plot period. The sudden introduction of Palpatine and his "final order" is way too elaborate to shove into a film that also has all this other stuff going on.

5. Abrams did it again. Just as TFA hugely mimicked A New Hope, this movie basically just copies Return of the Jedi.  But at least the previous film was in a way about nostalgia and legends. This movie's 3rd act just does not have the gravitas and emotional power that ROTJ had.

I was certainly never bored with this film. I was never not engaged. And the film does have a lot of good in it.

More than ever this is Daisy Ridley's movie and she is absolutely phenomenal in it. Adam Driver is great again. I wanted more Kylo Ren, and his scene with Han was terrific. It almost redeems that clunky Han death scene. Almost. The movie at least brings back the thing where Rey and Kylo can talk across space, and all those scenes are very good.

Lots of good 3PO stuff. I liked some of the new side characters. I really liked that Rey, Finn and Poe are together for much of this film. There is plenty of good action, including this trilogy's 1st actual lightsaber duels. I think the score for this one is a step up from the previous 2. There are some great callbacks (Chewy finally go a medal!). 

It's not a BAD film. But it's part of a franchise for which being just okay feels worse than it should. We will see how this ages, and I freely admit that repeat viewings could alter what I think.

I wish we could have seen what this trilogy was originally intended to be. Before director changes. Before Carrie Fisher died. Before a bunch of fucking losers made it their life's mission to spend 24/7 online raging about The Last Jedi. I feel like we ultimately got a trilogy of films that taken together are a lot less than what they should have been.