Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker *****SPOILER THREAD*****

[SharkyMcShark]

This was not a good movie.


The Good:
- The opening scrawl gave me hope. It sounded genuinely interesting. In practise it was abandoned almost immediately.
- Some parts are gorgeous. The Death Star 2 bits look great.
- I liked the Han Solo cameo. I thought that was well done.

The Bad:
- Hux. An odd waste of the character. He was the spy because he didn't like Kylo? He didn't leak them any meaningful information, and really really obviously existed to free Poe and friends before dying. His death meant nothing. It developed no one's character.
- The whole final confrontation was kind of... generic? The arena looked generic, the way it was visually presented was generic, the format was generic. One of the things I was excited about after TLJ was that this trilogy wouldn't end with our protagonists offing an old wizard in a cloak. This trilogy then went on to end with our protagonists offing an old wizard in a cloak.
- Most of the Leia scenes. It was quite obvious that they were working with dregs in terms of the live action stuff.
- The rules for Palpatine dying (and surviving death) seemed oddly loose. There's a bit where he's trying to get killed because that's how the Sith pass on their power, then he realises he can just suck the life out of Rey and Ben, and then she kills him anyway, but presumably doesn't get the Sith spirits passed on to her?
- Likewise whatever it was that Leia did with Ben when she died seemed to be played a bit fast and loose. I get that they needed to remove her from the film somehow, but it was put together in a very odd way. My first reaction was that Rey caused her death by stabbing Ben while he was connected to Leia, but I'm assuming that this isn't the case because that's never touched on?

The Ugly:
- Palpatine being reinserted into the plot with no finesse or build up. The scene almost literally involves him going 'I did all of that shit and I'm alive for reasons. Don't ask any questions about any of that, just go with it'.
- Rey Palpatine. Awful. Unnecessary. Ultimately meaningless. Would the plot have been any different if she had not been a Palpatine?
- The metric shit ton of fan appeasement. Awful.

Things that didn't fuss me either way:
- Finn is Force sensitive now. Weird flex, but alright.
- Knights of Ren not amounting to anything. It would feel hypocritical if I said this bothered me, because I literally did not care that they weren't in TLJ.
- The copious fan service. Nice that they got all of the actors back to voice the Jedi. It didn't really add anything.

Next time Disney, can you plan this shit before starting the trilogy? Or at least not give it to the world's most generic director to resolve.

[Omega Metro]

I thought it was great. Much better than I thought it would be. There were a few cringey moments like Han Solo cameo and lightning coming coming from Rey’s hands. But yep, I liked it which was a relief.

[Paulbot]

You sum up most of the like and dislikes I had with this film. The lack of planning hurts because it doesn’t feel like the nine movies are one story and there was a better story there that could have been told.

But in some ways it very much the same problem the OT had so it’s tradition.

I don’t think Rey’s attack killed Leia, Leia just spent her energy reaching Kylo Ren which really just was a distraction.

The fan service bothered me, so did the lgbt content which felt forced and token. (Honestly would have preferred they just left it as subtext and didn’t force heteronormative moments on the main characters)

But there were things I liked. The Last Order feeet was stunning reveal (I believe it was in the trailer but I hadn’t seen that) and Lando leading the charge of ‘civilian’ ships fighting back actually brought tears to my eyes.

[shockNwave]

Felt a certain ROTJ (my favorite of the saga) nostalgia while watching this one. It certainly opens like ROTJ.

In giving an overall view it's a movie that ranges from uninteresting to excellent. But is better than The Last Jedi.

PS. If it turns out that Darth Maul from Solo is genetically engineered like Palpatine then I won't be surprised.

[SharkyMcShark]

PS. If it turns out that Darth Maul from Solo is genetically engineered like Palpatine then I won't be surprised.

Unless they decide to ignore Clone Wars (which is canon), the story is that he simply didn't die after being bisected.

[Lord_Zed]

This film is all over the place, I'm not sure what to think, It had some good moments, but I found it hard to care or invest in anything.

My initial thoughts are that Rise of Skywalker is a better 'Star wars film' than Last Jedi, but Last Jedi is a better 'film' than Rise of Skywalker.

[klystron]

I really enjoyed it and was pretty happy with how it wrapped up. I'm satisfied, but none of it was surprising - Rey being a Palpatine was a heavily discussed theory the opening week of TFA; and I was always pretty sure Snoke was a puppet.
For my mind, the issue with the sequel trilogy was the off-track TLJ. Now I'm not a TLJ hater, but I think some of the Rise of Skywalker story could have been told in the second movie. Or at least had its foundations laid. Instead (and this is my only real gripe) Ep9 feels like it had to do too much of heavy lifting. But having said that, I guess there are some parallels here between ESB and TLJ in this regard. Anyways....

Can't wait to watch it a second time!
Always knew that bloody staff would end up as something significant.

[VERT]

Totally loved it. Fan since 77 and it was a good ending for the saga. Ticked all my boxes. With two awesome cameos to boot.

[Miss Kitty Fantastico]

The dysfunctional planning between TFA and TLJ really showed - I liked both films plenty on their own merits, but you could practically see the duct tape where their leftovers had been jammed back together. If it could be done in a spirit of affectionate mischief rather than malice, this'd make an excellent MST3K episode just for the sheer opportunity for snark in how many cracks there were in the plot.

But still, in the end I was satisfied. I didn't expect that - I expected to be entertained, because you can trust JJ for that, but wrangling the well-meaning mess of the sequels into a finale that, for all its flaws, made my little saw-Jedi-at-6 heart feel good about the journey coming to an end at last... that's not a bad result.

[Tha_Phantom]

Saw it last night. Overall I felt it was a good ending to the saga, but definitely not without its flaws.

Some things that bugged me:
Hux betraying the first/final order and dying was random.
Lando felt like forced and unecessary fan pandering. Didn't hurt the movie, but didn't really help it.
Rose was a waste and what happened to her relationship with Finn?
What was Finn going to say to Rey?!
The chemistry between the three leads was barely there. I guess in part that's because we've only seen two of the three together at any one time until the last scene of TLJ.

Can't really critisize Leia scenes as they only had limited material to work with. It is what it is.
Rey being a Palpatine literally made me facepalm in the theatre, but I grew to accept it over the course of the movie and it does tie with bringing Palpatine back.

My biggest issue with this movie was the writing and editing of the first half. Very choppy and things just happened way too conveniently. There was very little build up to the issues that came up and then overcoming them. From the second half onward it seemed to flow a lot better.

Now for the positive:
I really, really liked the ending. It felt like proper closure to the saga.
Reylo is a thing! I totally called it and was happy with the way it was done. There was build up to this in TLJ and I'm glad JJ carried through with it.
I was glad to see Kylo turn to the light and his scene with Han echoing that in TFA, but with a positive outcome this time, was really good.
So glad Rey finally got her own lightsaber. I'm not even sure why there was a need to have the Skywalker lightsaber play such a prominent role in this trilogy after it disappeared in ESB.

I'll be seeing it again on Saturday and I may like it more the second time, but my current view is it deserves a 7/10. Overall I enjoyed it, but it is a bit of a roller-coaster the way it is now. I do think a directors cut would benefit the film immensely.