A closure for a trilogy - not the saga

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2019)

JJ Abrams is back to close shut the new trilogy and the saga as a whole. But it also feels like he's back to mend the errors of The Last Jedi - whether you feel it needs mending or not. I personally didn't enjoy the latest trilogy as much as I had hoped. In essence, this trilogy lacks the sense of scale and grandeur the previous installments had. The characters are believable and have the necessary depth to care about them, but not so much that you want to see more of them.
In many ways I wish I hadn't seen any of the installments in the last trilogy. I applaud their (Disney and Abrams) attempt at Star Wars. I think they would have been great at creating a new trilogy within the universe but in a different storyline. Their attempt at the Skywalker saga feels rushed and small in scale and ambition.
We know from interviews that Ian McDiarmid was contacted after the release of the Last Jedi. This would indicate that bringing him back as Palpatine was a measure of correcting or changing the direction. I would have hoped that the trilogy was laid out before shooting of the force awakens began. But the fact that Ian came on (and according to himself was surprised) so late, helps paint a picture of the movies being made "one the go".
The act of killing off Snoke was bad, but bringing back Palpatine was, perhaps, even worse. The Rise of Skywalker feels like the rollercoaster ride that was the last jedi, was in vain. Having Palpatine back suddenly shifts the entire trilogy to be about him and then also changes the entire saga to center around Palpatine. This is in many ways his saga - not Skywalker's. That he, all along from The Phantom Menace to his obliteration in The Rise of Skywalker was the one pulling all the strings.
I think most fans would have settled for a Snoke that was a clone of a sith lord or even an unknown son of Palpatine. It is very much the fault of the last jedi that the rise of Skywalker struggles, but it is ultimately the premise and the incoherent storyline of the entire trilogy that fails the fans.