A sad explotation of what used to be great

Rating: 2/10 (19 December 2019)

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
A review (I wrote this on my FB page and posted it here likewise.)
No spoilers.
When you read a comic book, there are certain ACCEPTED limitations on the medium. You only have panels to work with, every panel must advance the story, and thus going from panel A to Panel B doesn't necessarily have to make sense in the FLOW OF ACTION as it does in the flow of storytelling.
When you read a book, the author winds you on a tale of details, most of which matter. BUT... some of them don't. That's generally called "Character developement". As in reading Harry Potter and finding out that he likes tuna sandwiches. It has nothing to do with the story --- it has EVERYTHING to do with creating a character.
When you watch a movie --- a GOOD MOVIE --- the action has flow and continuity. A great example of this is the car chase scene in Matrix: Reloaded (Matrix 2). In that incredible 14 minute scene, every detail is in place. You follow the flow of the action and you know where every player is. Everything actually makes sense (in the Matrix world) and there is no part of the scene which requires you to say "How'd they get there? How'd they do that?" There is complete flow and continuity to the scene, and it propels the story forward.
I read a review by Roger Ebert once which praised "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" for a single 3 second scene. Ebert said (I miss him, by the way... he was always the sensible reviewer in my opinion) that it was this MINUTE attention to detail which made George Lucas a genius director / story-teller / producer.
Luke drops into the Rancor pit and has to fight for his life with whatever is there. It's a tense fight, as the Rancor is not a beast to take lightly. In the end, Luke defeats the monster and walks away. HERE IS THE SCENE.... you'll miss it if you don't watch closely. The Rancor lays dead under the door, it's head crushed. Up runs the Rancor's keeper ..... crying... because he's obviously grown attached to the beast.
Does it help the story? Does it give "Character developement"? Does it ever come back to play in any future Star Wars movie? The answer is no. George Lucas simply threw it in because it's a TRUE TO LIFE detail. We all love our pets. Lucas did that more than once in his movies, and these little scenes actually serve to make for a great movie experience. They made his movies "REAL". (A kiss for luck...)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has none of that. it's more like a comic book where the action squences make no sense. Where the story is more important than the visuals and you can skip a page or two and not miss anything crucial.
seriously. I honestly fell asleep last night at one point.... and when I woke back up I felt like I missed NOTHING important for the story.
New characters get thrown in.... with no relevance or developement. OLD CHARACTERS come back and feel so tiring and over-worked that you really wonder why they're there (except maybe to elicite that fanboy cheer... which has nothing to do with good story telling). Sadly.... entire new worlds are introduced.... as if they existed in a vacuum and now we're just supposed to accept that 600,000,000 ships can appear overnight.
In the end... you walk away feeling like Disney has stolen a major part of your childhood... took a dump on it... and served it as "Star Wars: New Brown Hotdogs". The movie, in my opinion, was really that awful.