Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoiler Review

So, the latest installment of the always non-controversial series, Star Wars, just got released. What were my thoughts on it? I have to say, I seriously didn't like this film at all. Rise of Skywalker is, without a doubt, in my bottom third of Star Wars films, including the spinoffs.

Starting with my positives, John William's score is brilliant, per usual. It's essentially a given that the score in any Star Wars film will be beautiful. Hell, even "Phantom Menace" has a great soundtrack. The cinematography was also solid, especially during wide-shots. I did have a problem with how dialogue-heavy scenes were shot, however. Kylo Ren is, without a doubt, my favorite character in Rise of Skywalker, as well as the Disney trilogy. Adam Driver delivers a fantastic performance as always. His character seems the most consistent during this disjointed trilogy. Though I had many problems with Palpatine being in the film, I thought all of his scenes were brilliantly shot. His scenes were straight out of a horror film; the use of lightning was fantastic.

My biggest negative with Rise of Skywalker has to be the screen-writing; it's down-right lazy. A character's ship gets blown up? The character lives because a carbon-copy ship actually got blown up. Are our heroes captured? Let's reveal that General Hux has been a spy and allow the heroes to escape. Does someone get hurt? Let's let the Force be able to heal/revive people. The Force has become such a plot-convenience in the last two films. It seems as if the Force has just become a deus ex machina of sorts. Let's talk about Palpatine's inclusion in this film. It makes no sense! It is extremely obvious that Snoke was supposed to take the role of Palpatine, and it would have been acceptable. Making Palpatine return ruins Anakin Skywalker's entire character arc. It seriously bothers me. He brought balance to the force by sacrificing himself to kill Palpatine in "Return of the Jedi". This makes Vader's death unnecessary. Rey is also a major negative for me. Rey, as a character, is fine. Daisy Ridley is good in the role. I think that she's a great hero for young girls to look up to, but she is another product of lazy writing. She is so overpowered in "Rise of Skywalker". Rey truly is a Mary Sue. She makes every other Jedi look extremely under powered. She gains a majority of these powers off-screen. We are just supposed to accept these major changes to the powers of the Jedi. Finn is another extremely disappointing character for me. In "The Force Awakens", he was set up as an extremely interesting, conflicted character: a Stormtrooper defector. He has been pushed to the background in both Episode 8 and 9. John Boyega is a great actor, however, he is so underutilized in this film. All he does in this film is scream character's names. Seriously, I'm pretty sure this happens at least four times. Another minor nitpick I have is with the film's cinematography. Dialogue-heavy shots are extremely similar. They're all shot with extremely low aperture. This is more of personal preference, but I found it personally unappealing.

Let's talk about the pacing and plot of this film. Rise of Skywalker's pacing is horrible. The first act is especially messy. We jump from place to place so quickly; it's extremely jarring. Star Wars is no stranger to a black-screen fade to switch locations/scenes. Rise of Skywalker, however, abuses the transitions. The plot is also extremely boring. It's a fairly boring; it's a classic plot with McGuffin.

Love or hate "The Last Jedi"; it had new ideas and concepts. Rise of Skywalker has nothing. It plays everything extremely safe and brings nothing new to the table. I seriously did not see a single thing that was actually compelling during the film's run time; I can't pinpoint a single scene that I want to watch again. "Rise of Skywalker" spent so much time trying to retcon/change "The Last Jedi" that it ended up not crafting a strong narrative. This film suffers from an overly-long runtime.

In conclusion, Rise of Skywalker was a gigantic disappointment for me. This film seriously should have been similar to "Avengers: Endgame". It sadly never came close to being satisfying. I feel like this film, on its own, isn't horrible. However, given that there are eight other films in the franchise, it seriously harms those films. That's Rise of Skywalker's biggest sin.

5/10