The final episode in the sequel trilogy, and the overall Skywalker Saga, is finally out! Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019, J.J Abrams) will hopefully answer the questions that have been set up since the beginning of this trilogy in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015, J.J Abrams). But due to fans being displeased with this new trilogy, such as the highly negative response from fans after the previous instalment Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017, Rian Johnson) and with the latest anthology movie Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018, Ron Howard) being a financial disaster, can this movie live up to the success of its predecessors and redeem the franchise in the eyes of fans?
First Thoughts
This movie is good, I liked it as a movie. The action's good, the visuals are great and the characters are fun to watch. But as a finale to the overall Skywalker Saga, it's quite disappointing. The story feels more like it's trying to make up for lost time rather than tell a good story, there are things that just don't make sense, especially in the first 5 minutes, and some of the character conclusions are just disappointing.
My Review Of The Last Jedi
Before I get into depth about my opinions on this movie I'd like to address my review for The Last Jedi. When that movie first came out I gave it a glowing review and thought it did a great job with the characters and the plot threads of The Force Awakens. And after rewatching the movie a few times over the years I can honestly say that I was wrong. That movie actually did a poor job with the story and the characters. Why I thought the opposite at the time I don't know, perhaps due to a need for it to be good as a Star Wars fan. But my opinion has completely changed for that movie. Perhaps I'll do a re-review of The Last Jedi later this year expressing how I now feel about it. The reason I'm mentioning this is so you can understand my criticisms for this movie a bit better.
Rey and Kylo Ren
This trilogy clearly had no idea what it wanted to do with Rey and Kylo Ren. These have had some of the laziest writing and character development in the whole saga, which is very disappointing because they also had the most potential out of all the characters. The only reason that it's worth getting in these two is the actors. I really like the performances from both Daisy Ridley (Murder On The Orient Express) and Adam Driver (Logan Lucky), because the chemistry between them is so good! Any scene that they're in together is electric and intense. It's not their fault that they're stuck playing these poorly written characters.
Finn and Poe
You know who else has great chemistry? Finn and Poe (John Boyega and Oscar Isaac)! These two are like the buddy cops of Star Wars, and I love it! While at times their banter together doesn't entirely fit the mood of the scene, I still enjoyed them a lot. Finn benefits the most from this movie, after being given a bad sub-plot in The Last Jedi he's finally given something good to do in this movie, almost as if he's been given new life. This is without a doubt the best Finn has been in this trilogy. As for Poe, he's definitely improved since the last movie. Becoming more of a responsible leader, but still keeping that Han Solo-type he was in The Force Awakens. Seriously, these two were great in this movie. If they ever wanted to do Finn & Poe: A Star Wars Story, I would watch it!
Princess Leia
The Sequel trilogy has done a poor job with the original cast. But the scenes with Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) are so poorly done that I was shocked as a Star Wars fan. Carrie Fisher's death was a very sad moment for the fandom, and at least Abrams tried to give Leia a proper send-off for the final movie. But it wasn't really well done. The writing around Leia's lines from old footage is quite janky and awkward that it makes the character seem quite detached from the situation, something that goes against her character. And due to the amount of screentime, Leia has it really feels like Disney and Lucasfilm are really milking Fisher's passing, which I think is horribly exploitive.
New Characters
This movie does have some new characters in it and a fair few of them are really unnecessary, and others are just disappointing. The characters played by Kerri Russell (The Americans) and Naomi Ackie (The End Of The F***ing World) were good in concept but weren't really fleshed out that well and didn't serve the plot. And as for the Knights Of Ren... Talk about a letdown! They've been hyped up since The Force Awakens and in this movie, they're just a bunch of guys in masks and rags with Melee weapons. I was very disappointed in the Knights Of Ren.
Story
The story of this is a mixed bag. I did think there were some interesting and cool ideas presented by the writers. But the story is way too long (I noticed several scenes that could have just been cut out), oddly-paced, full of fan service and had elements in it that simply didn't make sense. At points, it felt like the story was trying to patch up some of the issues caused by The Last Jedi which were a little jarring and felt like a waste of time. But there were some good points with the story, for example, the story actually gives Rey an arc and some character flaws that help to make her just a little more interesting, which I was happy to see even if it wasn't a great arc. But overall, the story felt like it was trying to scrape together a big finale for the entire saga but sadly doesn't succeed.
Action
Despite this movie's flaws, I must say the action has never been better in this trilogy! Even from the beginning, you can see an actual increase in quality when it comes to action. The space scenes are more intense, the chases are actually thrilling and we finally get a proper Lightsabre fight that's visually interesting and very character-driven. So fans at least have that in store for them.
VFX
The VFX in these movies is also really good. From both digital and practical elements, the effects really sell how big and incredible this universe really is. There were hardly any moments where I disappointed with the visuals. There were a couple of moments where I don't think the practical effects were working, some of the aliens you could tell were puppets, looking like something on a Disney theme park ride, so maybe CGI could have improved it. But other than that I was blown away y the stunning visuals that this movie presented.
Conclusion
This is a mess of a movie, it's oddly-paced, weirdly written and doesn't really work as a finale to an entire saga of movies. However, there are still good things about this movie that fans and other audiences will enjoy. The actors still do a great job in their roles, the action and visuals are incredible and the best that this trilogy has ever seen and some of the fan service actually works, granted not all of it works but there are points where it sticks the landing. So, overall, this is a fun movie to watch but it should have been better for a finale.
So that's my review of Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. What did you think of the movie? Do you agree or disagree with anything I've said? Leave a comment down below, and if you liked this review then you can follow this blog for more content. Thank you for reading!
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