The only reasonable thing left to do is try ignore that the original trilogy ever occurred and judge this new saga on its own merits, although that too is a fairly pointless endeavour because like the prequels, everything is intrinsically linked. I guess we can just do our best though, right? Whatever you do, definitely ditch the fanfic shenanigans rolling around in your little noggins, because JJ Abrams does not want what you want.
Rise of Skywalker then. I mean, as much as I hate spoiler warnings, you might want to go ahead and watch this one before someone ruins it for you. There are obviously some important twists and I'm duty bound to throw my two cents worth in; I'm not going to sugar-coat anything, it's not my bag, but I'm not going to deal with people getting pissy with me in case they were under the impression I give any sort of number of hoots.
First things first, Rise of Skywalker is not a bad movie. It's not a very good movie either regardless of how much of a Star Wars fan you are, but it isn't bad. I can see how people might enjoy it on a superficial level; there are blasters and X Wing dogfights and lightsabres and all manner of flashy effects but all that pleb dazzle struggles to hide the fact that the story underneath is absolutely paper thin. What Rise of Skywalker is ultimately is a hunt for a Macguffin and very little else; right off the bat in the opening scroll we get told Palpatine is back somehow and everything else from there on out feels like a scramble to fix the stuff Rian Johnson did his best to piss all over in The Last Jedi. Stuff like...
Snoke
Snoke was a huge let down in TLJ. They built him up as an Emperor substitute, then just offed him unceremoniously and the payoff? Just tossed off casually as a cloned puppet for the apparently ever-present Palpatine. Incidentally, that was the first fan theory that came out of The Force Awakens and the most vehemently denied by the producers, so maybe Abrams does want what you want...
Finn, Poe and basically everyone not in the original trilogy.
Does characterisation not count any longer? Do people not care about arcs? Can anyone explain what Finn actually does during this trilogy? Other than flounce around not really knowing stuff about First Order schematics and rescuing some horses from Space Las Vegas. Poe is somehow worse; he goes from being the egotistical star star-pilot of the resistance to being basically the reason half of them died to somehow being promoted to general despite being, well, a bit shit. The Dark Side is little better with General Hux being your standard snivelling, crap Imperial Officer to somehow turning into a spy because he doesn't want Kylo Ren to win? Seems legit, but that's what you get when you promote gingers.
The Force
I get that complaining about the magical powers of the Jedi being too magical is a bit redundant, but Abrams seems to treat it like a 'get out of bad writing free' card. Last Jedi had its Mary Poppins in space moment (I still maintain that to be one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in a movie, fight me), Rise of Skywalker has its dubious quantum teleportation moments where connecting across the galaxy via the Force now allows you to transfer physical items, somewhat akin to Nancy TWOC'ing Freddy Krueger's hat in whichever terrible Nightmare on Elm St that was (trick question, they're all terrible). The Force had gone from mystical power source to millions of microscopic critters in your blood to convenient get out clause when you realise you aren't half as clever a screenwriter as you thought you were. Also, bringing people back to life is something you can just pick up on your off days apparently, to the point where everyone is doing it.
Rey's parents
The biggest reveal and spoiler so far is that not only that everyone was right in that they were a Saga-important family, but also somehow Johnson was right in that they were nobody. In an absolutely inexplicable move, Rey is the Grandaughter of Palpatine. So not only did the Emperor father at least one child, the offspring of the Emperor of the Galaxy managed to slip off into anonymity, pretend to be junk traders and drop off the most potentially powerful Force user in a generation in the desert without once tipping anybody off. Not to mention that he must have canonically been at least 60 or so during the prequels when he had his own kid; I don't remember seeing him accompanied by a wife at all, I guess she must have busy dropping/raising his sprog while he was out doing his whole Sith/ruler of the Galaxy thing. Seriously, they weren't even disguised in the flashbacks. It'd be like Ivanka Trump dropping one of here kids off in the Middle East somewhere and expecting nobody to bat an eye.
D-0
Short one this: that little puppy dog droid is just such an obvious and cynical little piece of marketing shit put there for selliing toys and merch. Burn it with fire.
So many unanswered questions
You know, considering this is the last installment in the saga, there is an awful lot left hanging. Remember when the awful little Yoda stand-in with the bottle cap glasses told us that how she found Luke's lightsabre (last seen spiralling into nothingness out of Bespin, attached to/accompanied by Luke's severed hand) would be a story for another time? Yeah, not really. Surprise. Finn seems intent on revealing some sort of deeply held secret to Rey when they're all about to die, but never gets round to it. Turns out it's that he's Force sensitive but I never got that from the movie and its not something that makes a shred of difference to the plot anywhere. Why does every challenging situation the heroes face go like this: heroes meet someone who doesn't trust them, heroes need a thing, someone has exactly the thing the heroes need, heroes ask for it, everyone trusts them immediately and implicitly, gives them all the stuff. This includes half the galaxy rocking up in their ships to help attack hundreds of Star Destroyers equipped with Death Star lasers just because you know, someone asked them nicely. Imagine that conversation...
Rebellion: can we borrow you and your ship?
Space person: what for?
Rebellion: there's this fleet of massive Star Destroyers...
Space person: say no more, I'm in.
Yeah, perhaps not.
The thing is, I say all this as a Star Wars fan, but not as the Star Wars fan I've been accused of. I wanted them to make good movies. I had no expectations, no fan theories, no wishlist save for one. I wished that rather than make crap movies, they just didn't make anymore. Obviously I was never going to get the second part because there were billions of little green sheets of paper to collect, but I can't help but be disappointed by what we've got. Too much fan service, too few ideas, too much set up and not enough pay off. A friend said something recently about not taking it so seriously, it's only make believe and I completely agree. I just don't think it's too much to ask for good make believe and I don't feel like that's what we got. At least The Mandolorian is meant to be decent.
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