#77 - Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (Rage4Media 6th Anniversary)

It’s the Rage4Media 6^th anniversary

And I can only apologise for how few Rage Reviews there have been this year. My focus has shifted away from smaller direct to DVD films with weird quirks and annoyances to big budget blockbusters and franchises, more over I’ve shifted away from older films to more recent stuff, not entirely but this is largely down a work benefit that gives me a discounted cinema pass that means I’ve seen a lot more recent films there.

Beyond that, I can say assuredly that less films annoy me in quite the way things used to, perhaps it’s down to me. I was 21 when I started this blog, and my opinions are hopefully becoming a bit more nuanced.

But don’t think for a minute this format is going away. If Cats taught me anything last year, it’s that bad exists in ways I’d never imagined before and I still can ignite passionate rage when I want to.

Speaking of which, let’s start with that thing that will get me hate comments: Star Wars: The Last Jedi is not a bad film. It’s a good one, though not without its problems, some of which are massively overstated by critics of the film and some are just bad faith nonsense because they don’t like what a character did and have a creepy feeling of ownership over a character, often to the point where they forget that the character has flaws.

It’s very difficult to say something goes against Luke’s character when there’s at least a 30-year time gap from the last time we saw him. A lot can happen in 30-years, is all.

But enough defending the Last Jedi, I have a whole review dedicated to that, let’s get instead to what this review is ultimately leading up to, bashing the Rise of Skywalker. 

Colin Trevorrow was originally set to write and direct this film but left owing to creative differences. This is becoming an all-too-familiar pattern, Disney. Then again, given that his last film was the abysmal Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, maybe they did us a favour.

Replacing him is JJ Abrams… The Force Awakens had its moments, and I honestly like both his Star Trek films, against the popular grain on Into Darkness, I know. The problem is he’s very safe and he’s following up on a director who had a more out-there approach, an approach that had divisive feedback. Also, judging from what I hear about Lost, he’s good at setting up interesting mysteries but sucks at paying them off.

Probably not helping is Chris Terrio being his co-writer. What happened to Chris Terrio? He won an academy award for Argo, then he wrote Batman v Superman, and then Justice League. To reiterate again, however, I do not bring up the writers by name to shame them, I merely do it to provide some context as to what might’ve been going on behind the scenes and how a combination of factors lead to the bafflingly awful product we ended up with. It’s entirely possible Abrams and Terrio had a brilliant script and it was messed up through editing and we don’t know the degree of contribution each writer gave, so it’d be foolish to lay the blame squarely at anyone. Disney and LucasFilm president Kathleen Kennedy are not off the hook here either, I will get to them at the end as this preamble is long enough already.

The end result was the film being the first $1bn disappointment in recorded history, making less money than either of its predecessors; with a 52% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest rating of any live action Star Wars film, prequels included.

One last thing before we start this proper, the novel: I haven’t read it and if the book explains a plot-hole in the film, it’s still a plot-hole in the film. The fact that the novel spawned several articles explaining what should’ve just been explained in the movie is in and of itself a major problem.

OK, so let’s see where we are the opening crawl

“The Dead Speak!”

OK… Can the dead shut up? I’m trying to watch a bad Star Wars film, not the music video for Thriller. What’s actually happening is that the galaxy has been subjected to a threat of revenge, somehow broadcast through the entire galaxy in the voice of the Emperor. OK… General Leia has dispatched agents to… places to gather intelligence whilst Rey trains for battle against the First Order. Oh yeah, they’re still a thing, by the way, only took till 2/3 of the way through the text to mention them.

Meanwhile, Kylo Ren, now Supreme Leader “rages in search” ok, interesting choice of words. I suppose I, given my pseudonym, should be a foremost authority on whether that makes any sense, and I decree that it doesn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t it be “races in search,” or are we just making reference to Kylo Ren’s infamous temper, you’re trying mine, movie, and we’re not even through the crawl yet.  Kylo Ren is searching for the Emperor to destroy him, because he wants power and will destroy any threat to… did they even watch the Last Jedi?

So we open with Kylo Ren and strormtroopers murdering their way through a battleground and picking up… I know they call it a wayfinder but it’s a holocron and any fan of the animated Star Wars shows knows it. He uses it to head to the planet Exogol

What? Sounds like an ad for something. Kylo Ren descends into an ancient temple and hears the voice of the Emperor, who was apparently also the power behind Snoke because they couldn’t let that one go. Just to pile it on, apparently the Emperor was every voice inside his head, because heaven forbid he have any agency of his own.

He descends further into the temple, finding Palpetine hooked up to a load of machines, go read the novel if you want to find out why. Anyway, he quotes word-for-word his line from revenge of the sith about the Dark Side being a path to unnatural skills. Then raises his hand and thousands of Star Destroyers rise out of the ground. I’m sorry but this is too many Star Destroyers. There’s no believable way the Resistance can beat this, especially after the battering they took in the last film, if I recall there were only like 5 Star Destroyers in that film.

Palpetine offers all this to Kylo Ren in exchange for killing Rey but warns “she is not who you think she is” and you will wish she was once you find out who she is. Thankfully we’re spared that mercy for a bit, as we cut (and not wipe) to the Millenium Falcon and Chewbacca, Poe and Finn en-route through an ice base, they get a message from its occupants and is Mark Hamill voicing that guy, huh

Anyway, the First Order somehow got wind of this and make their attack in Tie Fighters, which now have the ability to make lightspeed jumps independently of Star Destroyers, so they modified the engines and didn’t think to upgrade their armour? So they engage a practice known as lightspeed skipping which basically involves jumping through the finest CGI Disney can offer, could you name any of those worlds, do any of them serve a purpose in the plot? No… but they look pretty, except the one that was coated in green fog.

Meanwhile Rey is practising her earth-bending, where’s Toph when you need her? And we’re reintroduced to Leia, played this time by deleted scenes from the Force Awakens. Props for trying here, I suppose, Carrie Fisher’s untimely and tragic demise lead to the need for some compromise when it comes to her role here. For what it’s worth, the special effects team did a good job superimposing her into a scene and making it look reasonable. And the writing and editing team did a good job matching her dialogue to fit the scenes she’s in. And that’s the last time you’ll hear me compliment the writing.

Rey isn’t able to hear the voices of the past Jedi yet, but Leia urges her to be patient, she heads through an assault course but before she completes it, she’s interrupted by some visions, happening at the same time Kylo Ren is obsessing over the Vader helmet again. HE MOVED PAST THIS IN THE LAST FILM!

The Falcon returns in pretty bad shape from the firefight and lightspeed skipping and Poe and Rey are the first to converse, and I’ve just realised this is their first conversation in the trilogy. How did that happen? The way they’re talking implies that they know each other well, wish we’d seen them together before now is all. Poe is mad at Rey for spending all her time training instead of putting her skills to use in the fight. He’s kinda got a point, but I suppose they couldn’t superimpose Leia on the Falcon.

Most of the intel is stuff we already know, but we get a time-frame of 16 hours before Palpetine’s ships make their move. We hear the name Exogol

And whilst C3PO can only confirm as an ancient Sith world, Rey recognises from one of the Jedi texts she stole whilst on Ahch-To. Oh and Maz is with the Resistance now for some reason, she wasn’t with them in either of the other two movies, she’s just kinda there now. Apparently, Luke was already searching for Exogol, somewhen between running a school and hiding from his own sins.

Basically, to get there you need a sith way… sith holocron. Rey helps get the ship up and running to resume the search from where Luke’s trail went cold, the “Hidden Desert” of Pasaana. Rey wants to go alone but she’s outvoted by Chewbacca, Finn and Poe and BB-8 and C3PO. Rose is left behind because she needs to study…

OK, can we diverge a second to talk about online harassment. Kelly Marie Tran, who plays Rose was subject to a campaign of harassment and abuse following the Last Jedi. She quit social media because of the toll it was taking on her. Of course, it’s never acceptable to abuse someone online like that. But the problem is that this film is so determined to walk back anything the Last Jedi did, including Rose, that they end giving validation to the harassers and bullies and that is inexcusable. I do not believe this was intentional by Abrams, but it shows what happens if you listen too closely to critics, something this particular trilogy has done far too much of.

C3PO says his goodbyes to R2-D2, who will not be joining us on this mission because… and we say goodbye to Leia for a bit because well, they only have so much footage. So, the Falcon’s off on it’s latest adventure. Meanwhile, back with the character regression of Kylo Ren, he’s having his mask rebuilt for some reason. Oh, and the Knights of Ren are here also… They serve no purpose in this story. 

Anyway, he meets up with General Hux and the other generals who probably should’ve been in the other movies, knowing there’s a spy in the ranks. OK, you remember how I said there were 10,000 ships in the Sith Fleet, apparently not as one of the generals says their resources would increase 10,000-fold, which to me implies that there are possibly millions of Star Destroyers on Exogol.

And I reiterate, that is too many. Our heroes arrive on Passana, in the not so hidden desert where a festival is taking place, we see the indigenous population doing dancing, waving flags, blowing smoke, it’s a nice bit of world-building that you don’t see too often, especially in the Disney-era films. Rey gets a visit from one of them, who because they can’t seem to mind their own business asks about her family name, yay, this bit of payoff is happening...

It’s interrupted when Kylo Ren appears in her mind link. NO! She closed that off in the last film! And time for a new force power to be revealed as Kylo Ren somehow steals a bead necklace given to her by one of the locals through the force. I query how that’s supposed to work but we’ve got a plot service and now Kylo Ren knows where they are and plans to turn Rey to the Dark Side. He alerts group troops in the location but they’re saved thanks to Lando? What is Lando doing here? Apparently, Leia sent him a message, guess that clears everything up.

Apparently Lando, who’s a general now, what? Was with Luke tailing an old jedi hunter who carried a clue to the sith holocron’s location because the plot says so, Lando was with Luke for reasons of contrivance. Apparently only 2 holocrons exist because rule of 2, go figure. Anyway, the ship landed here but they never found him and ship remains. Rey gives Lando a recruitment speech as TIE fighters begin an approach.

Poe manages to hotwire some speeders so we can begin a chase scene, but to make matters more interesting, some scouts launch troopers with jetpacks and we get a threesome of

“They fly now”

Back to back because that is so gosh darn funny, except for the fact that even in current canon, jetpacks on troopers has been a thing since the Clone Wars. This kind of thing irritates me more than what than anything they could’ve done with Luke in the Last Jedi, because it’s lazy, no-one in the production thought that line should’ve been cut, not a single one, at least not one with any say.

One relatively uninteresting action scene later the gang find themselves in a what’s essentially supposed to be quicksand, Poe tells Rey he has to tell her something, but we’ll never know because screw you, here’s another mystery box, courtesy of JJ Abrams. Yes, I do lay this squarely on his feet, in interviews past, JJ Abrams has shared his school of thought when it comes to writing and mystery boxes, and it’s a way of thinking I do not agree with.

I do understand that a mystery is a good way of engaging with an audience and keeping them hyped, but when you want to keep your audience invested long-term, you need a workable payoff when you set it up. Long-term planning is crucial to stories set around mystery boxes; else we get another Wedding of River Song. Then again long-term planning has been a consistent weakness across this trilogy, as I’ll get to near the end.

You’ll be surprised to hear, I’m sure, that our heroes survive their dip in the quick-sand, ending up in a series of caverns burrowed underneath. They quickly stumble upon the body of the jedi hunter Luke was following, he had fallen the same way they had and never came out. On his person they find a dagger, the aforementioned clue to the location of the holocron.

There are inscriptions on the dagger that lead to the holocron but unfortunately whilst C-3PO can translate it, he’s forbidden from doing so as it’s in an ancient Sith language. Is this contrived as all hell? Yes? Am I willing to go along with it because this is the best use of the character in both story and humour since Empire? Also yes.

They’re attacked by the serpent creature who presumably burrowed these tunnels, but rather than fighting it, Rey tries to connect with it, using her force powers to heal its injuries. I’m fine with this scene but I am not fine how they expand upon this later. With the creature healed, it reveals to them a path to the surface. Unfortunately, Kylo Ren and his knights are waiting.

Rather than risking capture by returning to the Falcon, Poe decides to jump-start the Jedi-Hunter’s old ship. Rey sense something and heads to confront it but when Chewbacca tries to warn her back, he’s captured by the First Order, and he was the one carrying the dagger. We get the scene of Rey facing off against Kylo Ren in a TIE Fighter before Finn warns Rey about Chewy’s capture, a ship departs and Rey and Kylo Ren tussel over it, Rey eventually shoots out force-lightning that destroys the ship, Chewbacca supposedly included. Yeah, right… We will come back to this when Rey’s heritage is finally revealed, again.

With more TIEs inbound the group to have to leave and Kylo Ren makes no effort to stop them. Rey tells Finn she had a vision of her and Ren on the sith Throne. It’s quickly revealed that Chewbacca was in a different ship and is still very much alive. Look, with 2 of the original 4 dead in canon, and the other dead as an actress, there was no way they were gonna kill Chewbacca. This film lives on iconography and nostalgia, as will become tragically clear as we get to the finale. Also, the Falcon has been brought aboard for some reason.

With Chewbacca gone as well as the dagger their only hope lies with C3PO, and their only way to access forbidden memories is with a memory bypass procedure. Poe knows a black-market droid-smith on the planet Kijimi

What’s with these planets sounding like product placements? Anyway, unfortunately a First Order ship, likely piloted by Kylo Ren is following them. BB-8 comes across a small droid, and powers him up, it doesn’t like being touched, implying that it was mistreated and somehow has the capability to be afraid of its master despite that not serving any function in its programming. Hey kids, this droid was abused and doesn’t like to be touched, buy one now, only $30.

The First Order are all over Kijimi, raiding houses all over the place. Our heroes sneak around, avoiding the patrols but eventually bump into Zori Bliss, an old acquaintance of Poe who naturally hates his guts at this point, he needs a droid-buster named Babu Frik (incidentally the closest this franchise has ever come to swearing) to deal with C-3PO. Turns out Poe was a spice-runner before he became a pilot. OK, so that’s Poe’s backstory checked off the list, what next…?

Babu Frik says he can retrieve the memory but the process will wipe his memory completely afterwards. R2-D2 might have a backup which is going to be their dues ex-machina to this later. Rey asks him what the odds are if they don’t do this and he agrees, and we get that trailer about him taking one last look at his friends which would make more sense if this wasn’t the first movie, he spent a significant portion of time with any of them.

One of the Knights of Ren spots Rey and company and reports to Kylo Ren, general Hux recommends destroying the city when Kylo shuts him up for. Zori and Poe talk about where they are now, Zori having got a device that allows her through First Order blockades and Poe making reference to how they sent out a call for help whilst on Crait during the Last Jedi that no-one responded to. Which will make the response to the next call for help all the more ridiculous.

Rey gives the droid from earlier some oil for his wheel, according to Wikipedia, the Droid’s name is D-O, as in DO purchase this toy, please? The memory override is complete and they’re given co-ordinates to the imperial vault where they holocron. A sith artefact in the imperial vault, who would’ve guessed? The vault is in the Endor system but they need the blade to proceed further.

Kylo Ren’s star destroyer has entered the system and Rey senses Chewbacca on board. Zori gives Poe the badge to help them sneak aboard as the first order ramp up their raids. They break surprise in no time at all, but somehow manage to sneak around anyway. Rey uses a mind trick to get information from two stormtroopers and they begin taking out cameras. Rey senses that they still need the dagger and heads off in search for it.

It’s soon all out war with the stormtroopers. Poe gets hit and they’re soon captured. Rey finds her way to Kylo Ren’s quarters and she picks up the dagger, Kylo Ren uses the mind link again. And now time for all the retcons about Rey’s parentage. Rey’s parents were no-one by choice, and sold her off to protect her, so you see Kylo Ren was telling her the truth in TLJ, from a certain point of view.

Palpetine was responsible for her parents being taken, looking for Rey, so they’re dead now. Kylo Ren and Rey trade lightsabre blows, whilst not actually being the same room, go figure how this works, and in doing so, Kylo Ren discovers where she is. Meanwhile General Hux rescues Poe, Chewbacca and Finn, saying that he’s the spy. When Finn questions him, he says he doesn’t really care if the Resistance wins, but needs Kylo Ren to lose.

Rey sends the droids to meet up with the others as she faces Kylo Ren again. And we finally get the reveal that Rey is Palpatine’s Granddaughter. Excuse me one moment, I need to go and break everything.

OK, so a lot of the criticism that was aimed at the Last Jedi is that is chose subversion over satisfaction when it comes to the mystery boxes JJ Abrams set up. JJ Abrams decided, in answer to this criticism, to just retcon it all and provide new answers. Rey is a Palpetine now, she’s a special chosen one who can shoot force lightning because of her blood relationship.

Thank you, Han Solo. The Last Jedi’s answer to the question about lineage is that is doesn’t matter, anyone can be born with abilities but dedication to them is what makes them strong. Rey is not special because of what she is, but what she chooses to be. The Rise of Skywalker’s rebuttal to that, and it’s obvious even from the title is SCREW YOU, LINEAGE IS EVERYTHING TO THE POINT WHERE WE’RE MAKING THE MAIN VILLAIN ACROSS 6 MOVIES RETROACTIVELY A VILLAIN FOR THESE 3 AS WELL. LOVE US AND OUR ICONOGRAPHY, DAMMIT, this movie made over $1bn

I’m not a fan of this twist, is what I’m saying. Kylo Ren offers his hand but the Falcon arrives just in time to save her. Hux is executed immediately after this, despite his attempts to cover himself, this honestly eliminated a lot of potential this subplot had but this film’s already pretty busy so I’m not gonna shed tears over it.

Palpetine talks to Ren and tells him to kill her as our heroes arrive in Endor, finding the wreckage of the mark 2 Death Star which is where the imperial vault is? Thanks to some stupid contrivances involving the dagger I’m far too tired to go over, Rey finds where the holocron is. But they encounter a small group of people, lead by Jannah, who were contacted by Babu Frik. Turns out the group are of former First Order stormtroopers, in case you wanted reminding that all those stormtroopers that were gunned down by our heroes in the last scene were in fact abducted as children and went through heavy mental torture and conditioning, thanks for that.

And as for how they broke conditioning, get this, they’re force-sensitive. You’d think someone as powerful as Snoke was might’ve noticed force-sensitive stormtroopers in his own ranks, and there was an entire battalion of them? Jesus Christ

But in all this talk, Rey is gone, using a skimmer similar to the ones they used on Crait to navigate the harsh waters between her and the mark 2 death star. There’s some kind of blowout between Finn and Poe because of reasons but there’s a second skimmer for Finn to go after her. Rey goes climbing around the inside of the Death Star. Lot of stormtrooper helmets, not a lot of bodies, not even the armour. She enters the room where Luke beat him the first time and a door conveniently opens for her, leading her straight to the holocron.

Inside she finds a dark red version of herself who she fights briefly, dropping the holocron into the hands of Kylo Ren. How did Kylo Ren cross the… never mind, he crushes the holocron, claiming the only way for them to reach Exogol is together. Leia senses something and decides to make one last attempt to reach her son.

I will say something about the lightsaber fight here, it’s not the best choreographed fight but the impacts feel weighty in a way the prequel fights just didn’t, maybe it’s the amount of raw emotion they’re putting in or maybe it’s just the slower overall speed and sound effects. Leia uses the last of her strength to get through to Kylo Ren, finally, Rey uses his momentary distraction to drive a fatal blow onto Kylo Ren but she senses Leia’s death soon after.

Rey uses her force healing to heal a fatal injury and this is where I draw the line when it comes to force-healing because if you can cure death with the force, what is the point of anything, how do you create drama? How do you create tension? And how can you explain every time they could have but didn’t use it?

Rey heads off on her own, I feel like that’s happening a lot in this film, as Poe, Chewbacca and Finn plus droids return to base, to the news that Leia as dead, and as Rey is not with them, they can’t use the force-powers to revive her, how convenient. Kylo Ren gets some visions, Harrison Ford makes a cameo and this is Kylo Ren’s redemption as he throws his lightsaber away. I have mixed feelings about Kylo Ren’s redemption. I get it, and I’m glad it was Leia that did it but he’s rejected so many chances before that honestly, no matter conflicted he’s been, that it worked this time just comes off as a bit cheap. Han died trying to turn him, guess he didn’t try hard enough.

It turns out that General Pryde, the only other General other than Hux to get speaking lines, has direct contact with the Emperor, and is told to meet him on Exogol, I thought you needed a sith holocron to navigate to Exogol, guess that’s out the window. He orders a ship to be taken to a world they know and demonstrate their power, as the Emperors’ new ships each have a planet killing weapon on them. Oh for the love of Christ, CAN WE GET PAST THIS ALREADY! This is the 4^th planet killing laser in a Star Wars film, come up with another doomsday weapon already!

Also, there’s the simple matter of how. Using what I remember, planets had to mined to destruction just to get the materials for the original death star, including the kyber crystals needed to make it work, I thought it was getting silly with Starkiller base but apparently thousands if not millions of them can be made now.

Oh and the planet they chose was Kijimi, I’m crying here… We’ll miss you, Babu Frik and your 2, maybe 3 lines of dialogue. A message is broadcast, surrender of die, the usual Star Wars stuff really. Poe is promoted to acting General, which has him worried, but thankfully Lando is there to say a couple of words of advice, and then he turns to Finn for actual support, Finn has learned from D-O that its former master was sent to bring a child back from Jakku to Exogol.

Rey meanwhile has landed back on Ahch-To, burned Kylo Ren’s old tie-fighter and is about to throw away her lightsaber but a force projection of Luke catches it and says this

“A jedi’s weapon deserves more respect”

Oh f*ck off! I get it, a lot of the fanbase weren’t happy with how they portrayed Luke in the Last Jedi, now he’s just a massive hypocrite, well course-corrected there. She says she saw herself on the dark throne so is planning to do what Luke did and never leave. Luke says he was wrong to do so and was consumed by fear.

It feels like they’re trying to course correct Luke, but to me this feels him expositing what his arc was in the last film. Luke knew about her heritage and so did Leia but they chose to train her anyway, only kinda in Luke's case but whatever. Rey is gifted Leia’s lightsaber which Leia gave to Luke when she sensed the death of her son at the end of her training. Guess her senses were poor then because he’s still alive.

She decided to give up her saber in order to prevent that, I think. Luke now gives it to her, so she can pass it onto Kylo Ren, spoiler alert I guess. Rey retrieves the holocron from the wreckage of the TIE fighter and Luke summons the ship he flew in in long ago, I thought it was disabled but whatever.

R2-D2 provides C3PO with his memories back as they receive a transmission from Rey, she’s leaving course-markers on her way to Exogol so the Resistance can follow. Lando and Chewbacca are going to be making a call for help as the rest of the resistance attempt to engage, the ships are still on the planet with the weather screwing over their navigation, a tower is used to help, which is their primary target.

So the resistance, crushed to maybe 50 members in the last film fly off in maybe 100 ships (go figure the math there) to start their attack on Exogol. Rey arrives and upon her arrival, the ships begin their ascent. Rey lands and descends into the temple as the Resistance begin engaging the ship, encountering heavy fire. TIE fighters are launched and just to make things worse, Pryde has worked out what they’re doing and changes the navigation source from the tower to the lead ship. Finn launches a ground assault with his fellow ex-stormtroopers and BB-8 on the surface of the Star Destroyer.

Rey comes face to face with Palpetine, revealing he actually wanted her alive and here because if she kills him in anger, his spirit will pass onto her and she’ll become Empress Palpetine, leader of the fleet, which they’ve dubbed the Final Order, cute. So yeah, we’re doing this, again… Right down to him showing how utterly screwed the Resistance is. We did this scene in the Last Jedi.

Somehow Ben Solo lands in all this and races his way into the temple, armed with only a blaster. Unfortunately, the other Knights of Ren now stand in his way. Rey raises her lightsaber but passes it onto Kylo Ren to use battle against the Knights of Ren she draws her second sabre to use against the red troopers that are there now. Both win their respective battles and stand together, but Palpetine uses the force to disarm and then begins to suck on their spirits to heal his own body, I think.

The Final Order are annihilating Resistance ships left and right but help arrives in the form of… Oh, come on! That’s too many ships! Assuming, as this film does, that the Resistance calls for help on Crait went unanswered, there are tens of thousands of ships who respond to a call from Lando and Chewbacca?

Oh and it turns out whatshername and Babu Frick survived… yay…

They begin turning the tables and annihilating the Star Destroyers. The Emperor stands again, as Ben Solo rises and his pushed into the Abyss. The Emperor decides to shoot out force lightning so powerful it downs all those ships. What is the point of this escalation? What random crap are we gonna pull out of our behind next. Rey begins to recover, watching the second wave of the fleet being destroyed in front of her, she calls for the Jedi to be with her and begins hearing their voices, including a few familiar voices and vocal cameos they made far too big a deal out of in late promotion.

Rey makes her stand and Palpetine, unsurprisingly turns the force lightning on her, the same the lightning the downed a million ships is stopped by a single lightsaber blade. With the lightning on the ships stopped, the remaining ships regain composure and resume their attacks. Finn’s plan to destroy the command ship works and it’s destroyed, trapping the fleet, the Falcon arriving just in time to save Finn and Jannah

Rey summons both lightsabers and manages to redirect the lightning back at Palpetine, killing him but at the cost of her own life but because of Ben’s redemption having to mirror Vader’s, he gives his force-energy to heal her. Perhaps I was too early with my rant about force-healing basically being a death cure and how fundamentally stupid that is. The two kiss and I want to puke. This is not earned, get it off my screen, ah, he dies, perfect.

With the Galaxy saved, there are rise ups against the first order, Ewoks show up for some reason and yet another Star Destroyer crashes on Jakku. Poe and whatshername flirt because we can’t have Poe being gay, can we? Just these 2 random and easy to edit out Resistance members. Can’t have our film bombing in China now, can we?

Oh… Maz gives Chewbacca Leia’s medal, which is honestly the most plot related thing she’s done in the film. Lando and Jannah agree to do something together as Rey, Finn and Poe hug it out. We end the film where this saga began, on Tattooine. Rey returns to the home where Luke grew up, the moisture farm, or what’s left of it. She leaves their lightsabers buried in the sand for reasons, as she’s finally crafted her own, yellow saber.

An old woman passes by and she finally gives her name: “Rey Skywalker”

Whilst everyone knew from the title that this was coming, doesn’t mean it’s a good ending. Rey has for so long been searching for her own identity, that her latching onto another one, no matter well-intentioned, doesn’t feel right for her at all.

That was The Rise of Skywalker and I am exhausted. And this film is exhausting too.

It’s not all bad news, the visuals are great for the most part, the music is fantastic, and it’s respectful to Leia, given the tragic death of Carrie Fisher. But the writing really lets the side down here.

It certainly feels like an attempt to course-correct from the previous film. Retconning revelations from that film to something more akin to what the complainers were hoping for. Much like the Last Jedi intended to subvert expectations when complaints came in about its predecessor being too familiar. Can’t keep Star Wars fans happy, can we? This entire trilogy has been reactionary which is indicative of a core problem

There was clearly no plan for what this story was supposed to be, sure JJ Abrams may have had ideas for a Force Awakens sequel, but someone had to sign off on Rian Johnson’s work too. A consistent plan would’ve removed the need for constant retcons. And yes, I know that the original Star Wars trilogy did not have a plan either, and retcons were definitely made, but the original Star Wars was an experiment, they didn’t plan it as a trilogy from the outset like this one was. This lands on the doorstep of LucasFilm, not on the individual directors, given a lack of structure backing them up, of course they’d try and put their own spin on things.

What I don’t understand is why Disney look to their other most popular franchise, Marvel, I mean they took its sense of humour, why not take its approach to narrative and connect dots within films that each stand on their own whilst also playing a part in a larger narrative.

The action has its moments, the lightsaber battles, but the climax feels overly busy and lacking any sense of dread, it certainly doesn’t top anything from the Last Jedi or Rogue One when it comes to space battles. The ridiculous increase in scope here is probably the biggest weakness, and even if you hate The Last Jedi, shows like the Mandalorian show you can make an entertaining product, whilst keeping the stakes low. JJ Abrams’ direction is pretty bog-standard, lacking any visual flair that Rian Johnson, for better or worse, did bring to the Last Jedi.

The one thing he brought to the table was references, and sure, I like references as much as the next Star Wars nerd, but so many of them fell flat for me, because they serve no purpose to the narrative. The fact that Lando was brought back in a role so empty not much would’ve changed if he’d been written out is indicative of the problem.

Bringing back the Emperor with a role this size was not a great idea in helping this series stand apart. For better or worse, the prequels stand as their own trilogy without relying on overt references to the originals, these sequels, and this one in particular, don’t.

The other problem is how the film is paced, it feels like 2 different movies were smushed together, the entire mcguffin quest in the middle feels really disconnected from everything else, and then we get introduced to a half dozen new characters in the span of maybe half an hour, so the kids have new toys to buy, meanwhile established characters from the series like Rose, Maz and R2-D2 all get minimal if any screen-time at all.

Is it the worst movie I’ve ever seen, no, I wouldn’t even call it the worst Star Wars film, but it is the most frustrating.

Rage Rating: 250%