JJ did it (no spoilers for Rise of Skywalker, 9/10)

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2019)

The Force Awakens was a film that I think most people could agree wasn't terrible but too much of a remake of New Hope to be considered great. I actually enjoyed it and thought JJ did a good job of setting up a new trilogy with it's own questions. Who is Snoke? Who's Rey's parents? Why did Luke's lightsaber call out to Rey in the basement of the cantina? What will Luke do if he he's found? Etc.
Then came Last Jedi. That was a movie that people either loved or hated. I was of the latter. It had great visuals, yes, but Rian Johnson didn't respect a thing that JJ had set up for the new trilogy. It felt cheap and seemed that he went out of his way to make it all a bit of joke. From Luke throwing the Lightsaber over his shoulder to snarling as he drank milk from an alien, it was a little more Spaceballs than Star Wars. The build up of Snoke was ended when he was easily cut in half and laid their with his tongue out for a cheap laugh. The build for Rey's parents was simply thrown out with the reveal that they were nobody. I could go on and on about everything that was wrong with Last Jedi, but I think you get the point.
That all being said, JJ Abrams was rehired to close out the trilogy. He had the task of doing damage control from the Last Jedi, finish out what he had started with his original intentions from Force Awakens, make a movie with it's own new story, and ultimately close out, not only this new trilogy, but the entire Skywalker saga.
That's quite a daunting task and I didn't know how anybody could do all that within a span of 2.5 hours. Well, when the movie ended I couldn't believe that JJ had managed to do just that. Questions were answered, the new and old characters had satisfying conclusions, and it gave you the classic Star Wars feel without feeling like a remake. Were there some plot holes? Of course, but he really had to cram everything into 2.5 hrs. Had he directed Last Jedi, I think both character and plot development would have been a little deeper and better established, but unfortunately he cannot go back in time and fix reality. He had to deal with the cards that were dealt to him and I think he pulled it off in the best way possible. In the end, JJ managed to save the new trilogy while paying homage to the old ones.
I wrote this review because I couldn't believe there were so many negative reviews when I got out of the theater (I didn't read any beforehand so that I wouldn't have any preconceived notions.) I felt obligated to write my own review to help out the score because this movie doesn't deserve the hate it's getting from a lot of people. I would give it a 9 out of 10 because, of course, it wasn't perfect, but there was no way it could be with the damage control that had to be done. The 10/10 score is to help out the overall score.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the film!