A very mixed conclusion to the Disney Trilogy

Rating: 3/10 (20 December 2019)

Spoilers!
Where to start with this one... Let me preface this with applause to JJ Abrams, because he managed to turn the trilogy at least somewhat around. There are few movies I hate more than The Last Jedi, not only for a Star Wars movie, but in general. Fans got insulted by a director that puts his own agenda over a 40 year old franchise with no apparent love for Star Wars. Almost every interesting thing from the Force Awakens gets destroyed by Rian Johnson, because he seemed to hate the setup he had been given. While The Force Awakens was far from perfect and a lazy "reboot" of the franchise, it still set up certain expectations that got subverted, because apparently the subversion of established plot points has been a personal favorite of Rian Johnson. Other problems, such as lore breaking actions and appalling attempts at humor seal the fate of the last Jedi. Therefore, the task to fix what came before seems to me like an impossible task and it turns out that it kind of was...
One of my biggest gripes, that ultimately lets this movie fail for me, is the apparent lack of a coherent overarching story, that has been planned before shooting this trilogy. In the opening crawl, the movie reveals, that Emperor Palpatine is back and that he is trying to regain his power. How he survived the Fall into the abyss in Return of the Jedi and the subsequent explosion of the second Death Star is not explained in the movie. This is exactly where everything falls apart. The whole premise of this movie is not coherent with the information that was given prior to this movie. While bringing back Palpatine might seem like a good idea to trigger nostalgia, it starts the problem with everything in this movie being very convenient. Multiple deus ex machina moments in this movie make the whole plot of the movie uninteresting. An example for this is Rey conveniently learning additional powers that ultimately lead to her saving and being saved by Ben Solo.
Furthermore, due to the sheer amount of stuff that has to be fixed, the first hour of this movie is very convoluted and the heroes stumble from one "lucky" happenstance to the next. The movie is also very heavy handed with fanservice, that purely exists to trigger nostalgia. Most cases are very on the nose and take you out of the movie experience. It is JJ Abrams actively talking to the viewer and course correcting The Last Jedi. There are multiple examples like a lightsaber that gets thrown away by Rey and caught by Luke's force-ghost, downplaying the odds of the "Holdo-Maneuver" , as it would break in-universe logic or Maz Kanata giving Chewbacca a Medal which he never received in the New Hope, course correcting a minor detail that some fans were upset about.
The big reveal of Rey being a Palpatine begs the question, how and when Palpatine had a kid and with whom. Obviously it was used to explain why Rey is as strong, but the original plan of this trilogy never had this in mind or it would have been set up better in the past movies. Bens sacrifice and moment with Rey was fine, I was never invested in this love-story, therefore I do not share the problems a part of the fandom had with this scene. Rey ultimately choosing the name Skywalker and abandoning the Palpatine name seems like a good idea in theory, but it really doesn´t make much sense to me. Especially her going back to Tatooine with Poe's droid BB8 seems weird, as this sets her back to the beginning, being alone on a sand planet.
The title The Rise of Skywalker ultimately seems weird, the hero of the saga, the Chosen One Anakin Skywalker's sacrifice did not matter, Palpatine lived and Rey, a Palpatine, is the last surviving force user.
While this seems very negative, overall the implementation was enjoyable from time to time and the humor that was used was just as strong as it was in The Force Awakens. There was a lot of missed potential with side characters such as Finn, but the performance of all the actors was great. JJ Abrams managed to not let this movie completely crash and burn, therefore I have to commend him for overcoming the absolute mess that Rian Johnson created with The Last Jedi.
4/10