A safe approach. Abrams will be remembered as the director who did everything bigger, but not better.

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2019)

Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker is a very safe approach to the saga. The movie does not offer many surprises or a deep plot. The plot feels also a bit messy and as it has been fast produced during some parts.
The movie starts by announcing the return of Darth Sidious in the classic opening crawl. We get to see early in the movie, that Sidious has been in control after the Return of the Jedi all the time. It appears that Snooke was just a piece in Sidious plot. By this add Abrams keeps watering down the victory that rebels got in the sixth movie. Sidious has been hiding all this time at his secret sith hideout. Sidious has been building galaxy's biggest and most powerful fleet with his loyal supporters, this add on feels a bit weird. Wouldn't it have been better if Sidious would have taken over First order, which was already superior in numbers against resistance. Did they really need to make up a new fleet, which had no further mention? This feels like something that was made up just to get the fear factor of Sidious to maximum. The audience do not get any longer explanation of how Sidious at this secret planet has been able to put together his massive fleet. Where did he get the materials to the fleet and the personal? How has he been able to keep it a secret from the rest of the galaxy for this long?
It is also mentioned in the opening text, that Kylo Ren is going after Sidious, who he sees as a threat to his role as supreme leader. This is a good thing in my opinion. It would have been boring, if Kylo Ren would automatically been under Sidious rule. It is at the same time a good change that Sidious has been pulling the strings without the knowing of the first order. Naturally Kylo Ren can't defeat Sidious alone, so he has to join Sidious first and start to seek out Rey. I think this is the point very older fans realize that it's Darth Vader and Luke plot all over again.
The next hours of the movie feels a bit like a filler before the long awaited final battle. Abrams is known as a director who wants to make everything bigger. A great example of this is Sidious new star destroyers which are presented in the movie. The star destroyers have now the capability to destroy entire planets. This is lazy writing in my opinion. Who is left to rule if Sidious plans to destroy every planet that shows even a little opposition? It also underlines the epicness of Death Star 1 and 2, which were constructed under a long time. Death Stars were still quite slow and took time to load.
We are next introduced to the hideout of the rebels, who are currently positioned on jungle planet. Leia is helping Rey with her training to become a jedi.
There are many scenes in the movie that feel nearly exactly like scenes from the original trilogy, this scenes has just been made bigger this time. It all starts when Rey decides that she has to find a way to Sidious secret hideout. Poe, Finn, Chewie and C-3po joins her for this quest. They end up at a dessert planet Pasaana. which is introduced in the movie. Chewie is being captured at the planet by the first order. Rey and her company does a rescue mission, which takes place on Kylo Ren's Star Destroyer. These scenes feels like scenes from Episode 4 with Luke&co. Then occurs maybe the biggest surprise in the whole movie. General Hux betrays Kylo Ren and helps the members of resistance to escape, but the reason feels lazy. General Hux did not wat Kylo Ren to win, so there was no deeper plot involved.
A main plot in the movie focuses on Rey, Finn and Poe trying to find the sith keys which will lead the way to Sidious secret hideout. During the seek we are introduced to an returning character, Lando Calrissian who tells that he helped Luke to seek out sith keys on the planet that he is currently living. It is not for once mentioned why Lando choose to stay on this planet and why didn't he return with Luke to the rebels. It glads be that C-3po has a big role in the hunt for Sidious hideout and C-3po is also the character who brings much comedic moments to the movie. I also think the writing of his character is good in the movie. Rey, Finn and Poe have to find a way to get the C-3po to translate the secret message of sith, that reveals Sidious hideout. With the help of former friends of Poe, C-3po manages to translate the message.
It is revealed that the part which leads to Sidious hideout is kept in the remains of Death Star 2 on planet Kjiimi. Before finding the key, Rey has lightsaber battle against Kylo Ren. Which ends in Rey defeating Kylo with the help of Leia who is reaching to Kylo trough force. Rey heals him and leaves him on the planet. This is a turning point for Kylo Renn, who gets a vision of his father Han Solo and at that moment Kylo Ren leaves the dark side. Reaching out with force is also what kills Leia and her sacrifice is one of the most beautiful things in the movie, specially the reactions of Chewbacca got me to tears.
Rey for herself heads to the planet where Luke were hiding during the last years. Kylo Ren has earlier in the movie revealed to her, that she is in fact the grandchild of Darth Sidious. This information was a bit surprise for me. Rey fears that she will turn to the dark side if she confronts Sidious. She meets a force ghost of Luke who advice's her to go to Sidious hideout, because she is the last hope. This part feels like Luke's storyline all over again.
Resistance then makes up a plan for the final battle . Resistance heads up to secret hideout of SIdious to meet up with the troops of Sidious and the first order. Rey is going to meet up with Darth Sidious. The final stages of the movie offers really nothing new. It is New hope, Return of the Jedi and The force awakens revisited. Resistance is highly outnumbered when the battle begins. Everything goes to hell at the start, but Resistance gets help when everything seems to be over for them. This is maybe the worst part in the movie. Lando has somehow got an incredibly massive fleet to join the fight against Sidious fleet and the first order. Rey meets up with Sidious. This scene is just like the scenes from Return of the Jedi. Kylo Ren arrives and betrays Sidious by helping Rey to defeat Sidious. But I have to admit that I like how Sidious is portrayed as a very overpowered Sith. Sidious stops alone for moments the whole fleet of resistance by force lightening. The space battle is not so epic in the movie, it actually gets quite little time and focuses on the usually stuff. Resistance trying to aim for critical points of Star Destroyers, which will help them to make the Star Destroyers powerless in battle.
The review was quite critical, but I still enjoyed watching the movie. It just feels that it had somewhat lazy writing by re-using many scenes from earlier movies and not really adding anything new, beside overpowered Star Destroyers, a old villain, who are more powerful after his return. A bit bitter taste leaves in my mouth after this movie. It feels that Luke Skywalker and the rebel's fight was all for nothing in the original trilogy.