The Rise of Skywalker is the 9th and final instalment of the Skywalker saga. It brings about an end to the new sequel trilogy that Disney started back in 2015 but is also meant to be a culmination of the entire franchise which spans over the last 42 years.

There was a lot of pressure riding on this film to perform, both critically and commercially, and unfortunately it fails to hit the mark. In my opinion, this film is merely mediocre at its best moments and terribly cringe-worthy at its absolute worst. It is an utterly disappointing end to a storyline that fans know and love; it really should have been better than this. I’m not saying some people won’t enjoy it, if you liked The Last Jedi you will probably get a kick out of this film, but this new sequel trilogy hasn’t been for me.

A fair amount of The Rise of Skywalker is just course correction for all the mistakes made in The Last Jedi. The plot of the movie is greatly hindered because of this, essentially a great deal of time is spent trying to clean up Rian Johnson’s mess while also telling its own story. The balance between the two doesn’t work at all and this detriments the progress of the film.

I do wonder if anyone at Disney maybe thought to sit down to plan all three movies to establish some sort of coherent plot for the new trilogy. To be honest, I don’t think they did even though they poured in something like $4 billion dollars to this franchise.

Rey and Kylo Ren battle on the ruins of the Death Star

For example, a lot of elements just don’t make sense and are clearly a last-minute addition to the plot, such as revealing that it was actually Palpatine behind all the events of the last two films all along. Palpatine installed Snoke as a puppet and has been manipulating Kylo Ren by appearing as the voice of his grandfather, Darth Vader. The whole thing is super lazy story writing and just trying to play on nostalgia by bringing him back in the first place. So much for letting the past die or whatever the main theme of The Last Jedi was?

This movie also likes to tell the audience things rather than show as the opening crawl just straight up states that Palpatine is back and offers no explanation at all for how he survived. I’m sure Disney have lots of comic books/novels lined in to fill in the gaps though. The fact that Palpatine survived the events of Return of The Jedi entirely defeats the point of the first six films and ruins Anakin’s story arc about bringing balance to the force. But of course, Rey must be the hero of the saga now, not you know Anakin who is literally the main character of Star Wars. At least Rey is somewhat less of a Mary Sue now as it turns out she was Palpatine’s granddaughter, so that explains why she is so gifted with the force.

I cannot believe that one of the most powerful Sith lords to ever exist was killed by having his own lightning reflected into him. Seriously!?!? Why didn’t he just you know, stop shooting lightning? Also if he is the ultimate survivalist, then there would be no way he would be willing to hand over his empire to another. The whole point of his character is he is too greedy and power hungry to trust anyone else. People might say well what about Darth Vader? He used Vader to achieve his own bidding and that was it, he was simply a tool to him. So, did he really cheat death and hide away for 30 years or so to hand over his empire to Rey? Great writing and consistent character choices there!

Before Rey confronts Palpatine, she looks into space and hears the voice of many previous Jedi, this was a bittersweet moment, and they even included the likes of Anakin and Obi-Wan. My main problem with this moment is how come they can use the voice lines but can’t even warrant a physical appearance from the characters. That honestly would have made the film so much better, especially if we could see force ghost Anakin interact and even fight Palpatine. Again just wasted potential and leaves you wondering what could have been.

As Rey is about to kill Palpatine she says “I am all the Jedi”, it was really not as exciting or memorable as J.J Abrams thinks it is. In my mind, he was trying to recreate the snap moment from the end of Endgame and he wants his own epic moment to leave fans in awe. This wasn’t it and there wasn’t one present in this film. It is not even in the same league as Robert Downey Jr’s heroic highlight moment and there is no way this film will achieve the same box office success as Endgame. I would struggle to pick out more than a few minutes of good moments from this almost 2 and half film which really says a lot in my mind.

The difference between this film and Endgame is that one is actually a good cinematic experience (guess which one). Also, I actively went out of my way to avoid Endgame spoilers but I honestly did not care at all once I saw the leaks for this film. I actually thought that the leaks were laughably bad and fake, they weren’t. I’m not sure who sanctioned this film but they are so out of touch with what the fans want. The film is also fairly safe and they just seem to chose the option that will be the least controversial with fans, probably because of the polarising reaction to the last film. There was a narrative being repeated by some critics that this film was bad because of the excessive fan service. To some extent this is true as the film does like to play heavily on nostalgia – which is certainly too much at some points. However, I’m not sure many fans will be left satisfied with the ending.

Rey confronts Emperor Palpatine

Let’s go into the final act in a bit more detail. So after Rey kills Palpatine she apparently also dies, she doesn’t fade into the force though (convenient isn’t it). The then redeemed Kylo Ren, now going by his birth name Ben Solo, gives his life in order to heal her and they finally kiss as Ben dies. Force healing as a whole is an iffy and vague power and it was brave of them to include it here. The secret to cheating death, which canonically only Darth Plagueis knew, is apparently now open to any and every force user now…

What is the point of Kylo Ren being redeemed only to die?. He should have been redeemed much earlier on or not at all. Probably the most interesting new character is wasted by Disney.

Rey returns to Tatooine to bury Luke and Leia’s lightsabers and describes herself as Rey Skywalker to a passerby while the force ghosts of Luke and Leia watch over her. I get the sentiment here, and what this is trying to achieve I’m just not too sure how to feel about it. If Ben faded into the force, why wouldn’t he appear to Rey here, surely that would make sense and give fans a sense of closure? Seeing the binary sunset and the force theme was a very nice and perfect way to end the saga, I’m just not so certain about everything else in this disaster of a movie.

Someone who I empathise with throughout this trilogy is John Boyega. Finn is an interesting character as a defected stormtrooper has never been covered in the films before, but they just threw his character development aside so all he does now is shout “REY!” whenever he can. Interestingly, it is implied that Finn is force sensitive which I’m sure would be cool to explore further if the chance ever arises.

To end it off I might as well talk about the few, and I do mean few, good elements of this film. Firstly, as always, the soundtrack by John Williams is spectacular and a welcome addition. The inclusion, albeit brief, of Han Solo talking to Ben was nice even though it was pretty much the same speech from The Force Awakens. Though, it was good to see Harrision Ford in the role again, despite the fact he hates Star Wars so I’m surprised they convinced him to do appear again. The de-aged training montage between Luke and Leia was nice, although Leia’s face looked a bit off and something from a video game. Additionally, it was great to see Billy Dee Williams returning as Lando and every moment that included him was enjoyable. All of the original cast gives a stellar performance as usual and Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver give all they can with what they are given.

If you are looking for good quality Star Wars content, then I suggested you watch the Mandalorian on Disney+ as it is so much better than any of the recent films produced. Its rampant success does prove that Star Wars fatigue is not real, and people are just bummed out with terrible quality films.

Overall, The Rise of Skywalker is a massive slap in the face to Star Wars fans. It ends the phenomenal franchise on a lacklustre and underwhelming tone. The whole film, hell the entire trilogy, is just a big budget and low-quality fan fiction.

Final Verdict – 4 / 10

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4 out of 10.

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