Muddled and lacking any tension, The Rise of Skywalker is the representative dud ending to the sequel trilogy

Rating: 4/10 (15 January 2020)

TROS combines the obvious, simplistic conclusion to an arc that Return of the Jedi had with rushed and emotionless attempts at character development. I think when evaluating the sequel trilogy, the issue of a lack of a consistent narrative across the trilogy hurts all three films in the larger story, so I mostly consider each film on its own merits. Each of them and the trilogy would have been much better off with a single writer and vision of the direction the trilogy should go, but since we didn't have that, each movie should just be judged on its own merits. On those grounds, The Rise of Skywalker fails to convince the audience of its character arcs or generate any investment in the inevitable outcome. Rey is severely underwritten, as we don't know to what extent she's really tempted by the Sith or her reasons for and against; all we get is fear of a vision and her family backstory. Kylo had a crucial arc in the previous film which was promptly thrown out the window here in favor of literally the same arc, just done worse. Once again he is told by a higher power to kill Rey, and while he initially tries to turn her, he eventually sides with her. We get a bizarre scene with Han where Kylo is sad and apparently coming around, but it rings hollow because we've seen it before and none of the reasons behind the turn this time are shown. Plenty of plot points don't make sense (how does Palpatine return? lazy writing anyways; how does Rey using a second light saber give her the upper hand? Why doesn't she have all the Sith rush into her as she was assured would happen moments before?), but even beyond that, no emotional beats in the film hit because it's all so contrived. This film feels most on the side of personal rather than true galactic stakes, as we only see effects on others when all the ships come in at the end, and those personal stakes never feel real because of the inevitability of the ending. The Rey/Kylo romance felt really strange, death is toyed with repeatedly for no reason (Chewbacca, Palpatine, Rey, and that girl Poe is into are all examples of this), and Rey going to Tattooine and calling herself Skywalker was the perfect nonsensical bow on top of the absurd film. I think some of the directions they try to take the movie are reasonable, but are poor choices given the decision to retcon the previous film and how little time they have to build different character arcs. Rather than build on VIII or set more realistic character goals for this one, they went all in and made a film that's hollow from start to finish. While it's representative of the disjointed trilogy overall, it's a shame that such a beloved franchise ended so underwhelmingly.