Time to wrap this trilogy up.

Rating: 7/10 (29 December 2019)

For the last two years, the fan base of the STAR WARS franchise has been a contentious place in the wake of THE LAST JEDI, the middle film in a new trilogy that began with THE FORCE AWAKENS, the first films in George Lucas's epic scifi world after he sold his company to Disney. THE LAST JEDI was a polarizing film, as director Rian Johnson seemingly threw out the groundwork J.J. Abrams laid in the first film, and took the franchise in a different direction, and in the process, seemed to enjoy confounding the expectations of devoted fans. This was true right from the start in the opening scene of JEDI, when an aged Luke Skywalker tosses away his light saber right after Rey had traveled far to give it back to him.
Abrams is back in charge for SKYWALKER, and seemingly determined to undo the damage of the previous film, and give this trilogy a wrap up that would please the fans. And I can say that to a large extent, he has succeeded, as this latest film has everything a fan could seemingly want: brilliantly rendered alien worlds and creatures; epic light saber battles; epic battles between Imperial battleships and rebel spacecrafts; quests to find MacGuffins; narrow escapes; fortuitously timed arrivals; emotionally satisfying callbacks to the original trilogy; satisfying final appearances by beloved characters; lots of villains; long hinted at secrets finally revealed; and a final shot that truly does come full circle. The heart of this new film is the relationship between Rey, the rebel girl with the awesome power of a Jedi, and Kylo Ren, the inheritor of the Skywalker line, now seduced by the Dark Side, and I thought their character arcs were the best thing in the film, a battle between good and evil worthy of Lucas's original work. I was glad that Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron finally got to go on an adventure together, something promised since the FORCE AWAKENS. I especially liked it that C-3PO had something of an arc of his own in this film, even if some other interesting characters (Rose Tico and Maz Kanata) got short changed. The acting was good, as Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, and Daisy Ridley clearly gave it 100%, and the supporting players, including Richard E. Grant, Domhnall Gleeson, newcomer Keri Russell, Abram's regulars Dominic Monaghan and Greg Grunberg were excellent. Who wasn't happy to see Billy Dee Williams back as Lando Calrission; he might be older and slower, but the man still has tremendous screen presence. For me, the real star of the movie is Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, the one consistently fascinating character in this third trilogy. The pace is fast, almost frantic, and sometimes it feels like everyone is in a hurry to be in a hurry, but I thought once the "Ghosts of Star Wars Past" show up, the story kicks into high gear. There are three big confrontation scenes with Driver and Ridley that are on par with the best of Lucas. And who isn't happy to see Lando and Chewbacca show up in the nick of time once again? I can firmly say there is a lot to like in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER.
But this film has some big problems, ones not easily fixed by Abrams's retconning from the previous film. The return of Emperor Palpatine, which occurs very early on, feels like a desperate move to get the series back on familiar ground. It's nice to see Ian McDiarmid back in the role he owned, but does not the resurrection of The Emperor then negate the finale of THE RETURN OF THE JEDI, and dilute the redemption of Darth Vadar? The appearance of Palpatine and his new fleet of planet killer battleships feel like a comic book twist, and not in a good way, as it has been barely foreshadowed in previous films. And once the return of the original Big Bad was leaked out, it was very easy to solve the mystery of Rey's origin. It also felt like lazy plotting when, after apparently manipulating Kylo Ren and Rey for decades, Palpatine just decides to do it all himself when they balk at going along with his possession scheme.
Looking back, I feel it was a mistake to make the character of Rey central to this third trilogy, in that until the final quarter of SKYWALKER, she has consistently been an underwritten and undeveloped protagonist. A young woman with a traumatic past, whose personal conflicts are emotionally internalized, and whose true identity and origin was only hinted at for more than two films, made it hard to genuinely invest in her character. I'm not knocking Daisy Ridley's acting, she did everything asked of her and more, they just didn't give her enough to work with. Contrast Rey with Luke from the first trilogy, and how much we learned about him early on, even before his true parentage was revealed in one of the greatest cinematic plot twists of all time. In my opinion, it would have been much better to have built these later three sequels around Ben Solo (aka Kylo Ren), and his journey through the Dark Side of the Force, as he was just naturally a more interesting character.
I was not a big fan of the CGI Princess Leia, but liked the flashback to a young Luke and Leia in Jedi training.
And in the end, too much of SKYWALKER, with its twin themes of self discovery and redemption, felt like it was covering ground that the first trilogy covered, and done better the first time. I think when all is said and done, these last three movies will be seen as a missed opportunity, one where we could have gone deeper into this unique universe, explored its conflicts and cultures more, and given us a far richer tale of good and evil. I wish that Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher could have come back to the iconic characters we will always associate them with, and been given better material.
By all accounts, THE MANDOLORIAN, playing on the Disney App, has given fans the Star Wars saga they have craved in the movies, and were denied. It's time to let go of the icons of the past, they've done their job, let them rest. The universe of Star Wars has outgrown George Lucas's original concept, a simple morality tale, and it is past time move on to brand new characters, and brand new worlds, and find a brand new magic to dazzle us once again.