Hello everyone and welcome to a special film review and discussion for the latest Star Wars film in their trilogy of trilogies: Episode 9, The Rise of Skywalker. I avoided spoilers going in but just saw review headlines calling it either the greatest or worst Star Wars movie ever. If I were to answer whether I like it or not in the form of a yes or no question I would say yes. It was a fun, action-packed adventure that took us to a range of stunning locations. The character and set designs were top notch and the amount of detail was beautiful. The John Williams score was as good as ever, mixing familiar sounds and themes in with some strong new additions to the soundtrack. Despite its run length things were fast paced (where the previous film struggled with various scenes dragging throughout) and I was never bored or looking at my watch to work out how much time there was left. There were a few nitpicks I had along with a couple of points which can greatly effect your enjoyment depending on which way you take them. There was plenty of good though and we shall get into it all soon enough.

Let’s get the nitpicks out of the way first though. These were the little things that didn’t effect my overall enjoyment but just niggled at me a little bit, each knocking around 1% off of a perfect score. I’ll just list them as they don’t really need (or deserve) much more elaboration:

Don’t kill off Admiral Ackbar and then replace him with a sillier looking version occupying basically the same role.

Rose was so pointless in this film.

The Chewie fake out was stupidly explained. We clearly saw which cruiser he got on!

As much as I enjoyed the Han Solo cameo it should have been Anakin talking to Ben explaining that it is never too late to change to the side of good. I just wanted Hayden Christensen!

With that out of the way, what I really liked was the sense of comradery and seeing the Po, Ray and Finn work together as a team. They have never really done this before so seeing them work together and bounce off of each other made the first half of the film a fun ride around the galaxy. It was enjoyable and balanced the tone well. C3PO was a great addition on the initial excursion too, with the four showing great chemistry with one another. C3PO’s memory being wiped was sad but also led too humorous consequences later on and although I was annoyed to see it actually happen, I came to accept it as it showed that there were stakes and consequences. That’s why I now feel that it was a slight cop-out to have R2 just restore his memories fully at the end.

There did end up being stakes for Kylo Ren who finally transformed back into Ben Skywalker after something involving his mother dying which I didn’t 100 percent get. Without looking too deep into things it was a great feel good moment and seeing him wield the blue lightsabre and come to Rey’s rescue at the end was amazing. He really was what the “Rise of Skywalker” title was referring to as he finally embraced the light side of the force. He gave his life for Rey at the end, performing a selfless act while paying the price for all of the pain that he had caused. I didn’t like or “get” between him and Rey but I’ll just leave it at that.

They used Leia a lot more than I thought in this as I was only expecting one quick scene with just one or two lines. We got a good bit more and while some of the editing together was a bit patchy, it was nice to see her be involved in the story and get an ending. I didn’t find it too sad but bloody Chewbacca got me with his reaction to the sad news! They were the only tears that I shed as well! It was fun to see Lando back in what was admittedly fan service but it was great all the same. I just wish he could have met Leia again. What is it with Disney and not having the old characters interact with each other? They at least got the original trilogy pilot who went on to be a detective in BBC drama New Tricks back at least. Money well spent!

And then we come to Palpatine…which is the big thing that I am still in two minds about. What they did with him was fine and it was a great way to end the saga by establishing that it was indeed Palpatine pulling the strings for all nine films as the true big bad. His relation to Rey was a twist I didn’t see coming and a clever subversion of the original expectation that she would be in some way related to Luke. She shared his lightning ability and the end confrontation was gloriously tense. Ian Mcdiarmid was brilliant in his return, perfectly capturing the villain in his final grasp for Sith rule. You just kept asking the question of whether he really needed to be in it or was it a little too much “fan-fiction”. They just announced right at the beginning that he was back with no real explanation because obviously they didn’t have one. The off hand line of making Snoke (as well as the sight of growing loads of him in a jar) just felt like he was further being tossed aside for the sake of a returning Emperor. Snoke could have done this and established himself as a powerful villain in his own right, even if they had him do it in Palpatine’s honour. Or at least have him resurrect the Emperor or work along side him.

I wasn’t overly fond of the way that killed off Hux, be given Richard E Grant as a decent enough replacement, then having him killed off in unspectacular fashion too. On the whole though it was a fun, adventurous romp of a film. Not everyone will like it. In fact, some people will absolutely hate it. For me though it was probably the most fun and wild Star Wars film for better or worse. Just don’t think about things too much: take it at face value and you will enjoy it much more.

DD Rating 7.25/10