Lack of Agency

Rating: 2/10 (24 December 2019)

To put it simply the Rise of Skywalker was bad and looking at the film I think this is true for one simple reason. Everything happens to the charters and the charters do nothing. Everything that happened to the happens out of luck and not there own wit. For example early in the movie Rey, Finn, Poe, Chewbacca and C3PO get shot down by some storm troopers and the happen to fall into a pit that just happens to have the knife they need. If they had just had Rey scene it would have been fine but without anyone doing anything it just seems that the mean characters aren't getting what they deserve. Also the rescue mission to save Chewbacca was very stupid. Or in better words a lack of plan. It just doesn't make much scene for them to go there blindly and go shoot it up the place. However it could've made sense is if Rey simply knew they needed the knife before they got to the ship instead of figuring that out half way though the mission. Then it would've been completely logical for them to try to go to the base and get the knife and simultaneously save Chewbacca. This also could've eliminated a lot of screen time with C3PO getting repaired because it's not really essential to the plot. Then when they arrive at the ocean plant Rye easily fines the rock formation. If they just had them struggle more and figure it out after a bit it would have been fine. You could have just had Fin and the girl who's name I don't know have the same conversation about being storm troopers to eat up the time when they are trying to figure out where the object the need is located. Now the scene where Rye stabs kylo Ren is very well done not just because it's a good fight but the charters in the movie are actually making sone sort of choice in that moment. That being said the ending is silly. Fin just guess where they sent the single too? It just him being lucky again if he can use the force or not. And to defeat the Final order the main characters just send a message and that's it. It's not like they come up with a great plan they just get bailed out. And then many of the characters choices are mitigated. Like when it looks like Poe's girl friend died she's ok. When it looks like Finn had sacrificed him self he gets out of it. Even C3PO (granted not nearly as bad because this made some scene gets) gets his memory back. Which leaves us with only kylo Ren having to face his actions and dying. By making the main characters have little to no agency minimizes the ability that we are able to relate to the characters in thus making it harder to get invested into the movie. Same goes when there few actions don't have any consequences. It's hard to feel ingrained watching the movie.
Also a other problem I be not as large was the amount of fan service that was in film. It just wasn't needed and lots of it really should have just been put into the cutting room floor.
Also the action was just meh. It wasn't bad or anything but for a action film there wasn't anything that made say that was a good fight. The closet it came too was the fight between Rey and Kylo Ren on the water planet but even that wasn't great.
For the viral effects/cream work and some parts of the story that weren't that bad I'll give this movie a 3.4 out of 10.