Good closure but will divide viewers (no spoilers)

Rating: 8/10 (22 December 2019)

I watched clips from all previous movies before going to the theater. I am glad I did because Rise offers many moments of nostalgia and tries its best to close out 42 years of story telling. Did it accomplish this mighty task? I think mostly yes, but this will be subjective and open to much debate. Star Wars fandom is clearly divided ( as to be expected) based on reviews I've read and rightly so. Even if you are not a big Star Wars fan you cannot ignore it's impact on pop culture.
Without getting into specifics I really enjoyed the relationship between Rey and Ren that continued to develop from The Last Jedi. Also, the movie moves at a fierce pace from the beginning (almost too fast) with a sense of urgency to 'get into it'. This was not a surprise considering how much this movie needed to accomplish.
I usually only stick with watching the trailers and let the movie unwind the plot. This time I read spoilers/theories over the past year but stopped the week of the movie release. I am glad I took this approach because it was fun to see just how much all of the blogs got right and wrong. In the end about 60% of what I thought would happen did which was fine with with me.
Be sure to see this movie in a theater with the best possible sound and picture. We decided to do IMAX and it was well worth it.
Bottom lines -
Should you see this movie? Yes
Is it the best of ALL the Star Wars movies? No
Is it the best movie of the new trilogy? Yes