Star Wars Episode 9: The Rise of the Safe Space

Rating: 4/10 (21 December 2019)

Nobody who endured the letdown of The Phantom Menace will ever forget it. From the laughable dialogue to the monstrosity known as Jar Jar Binks, TPM was one of the biggest disappointments to a sequel since The Godfather 3. Attack of the Clones wasn't any better, and Revenge of the Sith, while not awful, did not measure up to the original trilogy. How were the sequels to avoid repeating this mistake?
Their opening title, The Force Awakens, overcorrected this mistake. In case you've been living under a rock for the last four years, the parallels between TFA and A New Hope are so many that it would be a shorter list of how the two films were different than how they were the same. But this criticism fell on deaf ears to the executives after TFA became one of the biggest box office hits of all time.
The Last Jedi shook all that to the core. The most polarizing Star Wars ever made, it subverted just about every expectation we have for what Star Wars is. Fans either loved that or hated that with little room in between. It also did well at the box office, though not as well as TFA.
So. With two radically different approaches to choose from--JJ Abrams' safety, or Rian Johnson's subversion--which way would the executives go for the final act? They decided to go with safety. And oh my God does it pervade every aspect of The Rise of Skywalker. TRoS feels like nearly every scene was shot with one goal in mind: Don't offend Star Wars fans, and if you do, apologize profusely for it. We can see this, for example, at the appearance of characters who should have been only memories by now (I'm referring to one scene in particular). Or how Poe Dameron is right back to his aggressive flyboy self from TFA, as if his smackdown from Leia in TLJ never even happened. Set aside for the moment whether you feel Poe's character was treated fairly in TLJ: It's jarring to have him start one way, then radically depart from that, then return right back to square one. If TLJ had never happened then this wouldn't be an issue, but it happened, it happened.
Those aren't even the biggest issues in TRoS. What I said earlier about Abrams' not wanting to offend anyone? Well, he did. Get ready for some major retcons. Without spoilers, TRoS reverses not just some canon from TLJ but the entire Star Wars universe. This isn't throwing down a pillow to soften the blow from TLJ: This is taking away the entire bed, replacing it with a bunch of pillows, and calling THAT a bed.
Worse, TRoS didn't even follow its own advice! Face your fears? Forget it, let's capitulate to them! Let's make sure that we appease every bruised ego from TLJ instead of picking up the pieces and building on the new normal. That's the opportunity that TRoS, an opportunity it threw away.
Save your money and wait until this is out on Disney+. At least you'll get some answers to your questions about the saga, if you haven't been spoiled already.