Such pain, Such anger

Rating: 5/10 (4 April 2020)

That's mostly what you feel when watching the end of Saga. I had low expectations after Last Jedi, which was awful, but I heard that Disney actually listened to fans this time around and fixed many issues that riddled the previous one. There were many references to earlier episodes, like pod racing. So yes, Episode IX is definitely better and was pretty entertaining... if you ignore some weird plot choices.
Why is the movie titled Rise of Skywalker? What did Luke or Leia do to end the war? Both had very minor roles. Leia didn't appear in the latter part of the movie, and Luke appeared as a ghost to Rey and said few lines of hardly anything convincing enough to turn the dramatic events in favor of the resistance. So who is the returning Skywalker? We learned that Rey is actually emperor Palpatine's grand daughter, but for some reason Rey thinks she is a Skywalker. Talk about denial, or a bad writing. It has been evident ever since the prequels that dark side is indeed stronger. So powerful that I am now pretty much convinced that Sith is the path to choose, and Jedi are the oppressor. Jedi unceasingly chase the Sith, and Sidious was just trying to hide from them. He had to defend himself and that's why he used politics and an apprentice for any unavoidable confrontations. It's not like he had an organized religious cult or anything, unlike Jedi. Moreover Yoda and Mace Windu, who were supposed to be the most powerful Jedi, were both unable to stop Palpatine, and it took Vader, a Sith, to defeat him, but only to be returned again. Whereas Anakin, Yoda, Kenobi and Luke appear as ghosts, Palpatine is able to take physical form after demise. So Rey now must defeat the emperor. Only she can do it because she is a Palpatine and allegedly the most powerful being in the universe. How could anyone otherwise explain her sudden lightning, healing and life creating powers of a Sith that she used effortlessly. She obviously needed zero training or knowledge, since no Jedi could teach these abilities anyway.
Many of the returning characters were utterly wasted. Lando had nothing to say, and only thing he seemed to be interested is Leia. The way he says "give Leia my love" was disturbing. Eww! Also most of the side characters from previous movie had very little screentime not even worth mentioning, and the more recognizeable characters had almost zero character development. Poe was turned into a comic relief, Finn finally realized that Rey was waaay out his league and had a fling with a fellow black female, but the worst was Kylo Ren who made even less sense than before. What was that kiss in the end with Rey? So forced and totally unbelievable. Honestly, throughout the trilogy I felt no chemistry between the two. To me they came out more like siblings, and they were bound by the force not by feelings, which is why the whole scene was very awkward to watch. Desperate effort to write a romantic scene. Apparently Kylo had some healing powers too all of a sudden, no idea where he got them. Too bad his powers didn't spare himself, but on the other hand... meh. Kylo/Ben was such a bad character from the start, a poor villain and a pathetic human being not worthy of being called a Jedi or let alone a Sith, which he wasn't. He was a pawn of Palpatine, not an apprentice, with nonexistent charisma or backbone. Anakin/Vader would have been ashamed. Han turned out so gullible and blinded towards his son that it sickens me. Even Leia preferred Rey over Ben, which is justifiable. Daisy Ridley was charming as Rey, just too bad the character felt so detached from Star Wars universe.
One thing I was very annoyed from the beginning was the blatant infusion of cultural and racial factors. The colour diversity of the cast was, again, painfully visible, and the patronising cultural presentation in the scene of Pasaana, whose people were obviously referring to Arabic.
Poe and co were very reckless with the Falcon. I thought jumping to light speed required careful calculation of trajectory for not to hit anything in space, but here they jerk the jump switch like a car clutch. Also since when did Ties have lightspeed? They were able to follow Falcon all the way through jump sequences. I guess Falcon is not that fast afterall. Any law or logic simply does not apply anymore.
Where did Palpatine get the resources for his huge armada? In the prequels it made sense since he ruled the senate, the republic and used the trade federation for his advantage, and the troops and fleet were already there. The star destroyer cannon design was stupid. Why were they built like a medieval cannon bulking outwards? They were an easy target for resistance fighters and would have been better to be built inside, like that of a Death Star. And how come a big chunk of Death Star remains were descended into planet surface? That thing is huge, a moon basically, and was blown to dust in Return of the Jedi. The debris would have more likely set on an orbit of the planet than being pulled down by the gravity.
There were more things to rant about, but I don't really care anymore. The latest trilogy does not make any sense no matter how hard one would try justify its existence. Nevertheless, this episode was the best of the three, similarly as episode III was the best of prequels, and mostly because of the Sith. I like Sidious, he practically saved ep III, but sadly he is very weak here. There was really no proper confrontation, as Rey is simply too powerful. All it took was two lightsabers to walk past the emperor! Wow. I was moderately entertained, though, and this is not too bad of a movie in itself, but just confusing, irrelevant and forgettable as concluding episode to the Star Wars Saga.