Star Wars: Episode IX the Rise of Mediocrity. The Skywalker Saga has fallen so low.

Rating: 6/10 (24 June 2020)

It's clear now that this film franchise was doom from the start when Disney buy out Lucasfilm. Nobody had a clue how to further tell the story. So, director JJ Abrams and producer Kathleen Kennedy closely just rehash the same formulaic tropes of the original trilogy again with a few lazy reconstructing twists. They didn't even bother using with any of the establishing lore from books that could had made the films seen somewhat unique and new. Look, as much as people hate the prequels. At least, they gave us somewhat of a beginning tale that somewhat fit into the continuous story of the originals. As for these sequel series, they really do hurt most of the canon lore. This movie being the worst. It ruined the whole Skywalker redemption arch by having Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid) return with yet again with the over clichÃ©s easy to pick off out of nowhere planet killing ships rather than going all in with more complex well-acted Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). It also gave the whole Chosen One prophecy to somebody else. Perhaps the biggest let down in the movie was finding out that semi alright Rey (Daisy Ridley) does indeed have a grand gifted lineage rather than the idea that great power within the Force can manifest in anyone. Don't get me wrong, having Rey be related to the real villain is not a bad idea. It just shouldn't be biological parental because it's a bit off putting that somebody pork her grandfather. Instead she should be one of the many female Sith cultist clones that was model after Sidious including trailer fodder Darth Rey. Emperor Palpatine that died previous should be the male clone also separate from Sidious. It would better explain why the ancient dark lord look like in bad shape as he made copies upon copies of himself over time and why he can heal himself back once a clone like Rey dies. As for the old Supreme Leader. I would love to think that the reason why he looks rough was because he was one of the very few copies of the demise Darth Plagueis. It can explain why Sidious was able to gain control of him so easily. All this would make more sense than what the film gave us. Another thing that was disappointing is having Ren work with Sidious and Rey trying to burn the lightsaber. It dropped the ball with Rey's beliefs of preserving the past to gain knowledge and strength was counterpart to Kylo's wants to destroy it as he felt that it binds people to weakness and ignorance. The film also ignored their dyadic idealistic understanding that future peace can only be made with the meager of the cookie cutter light and the dark side of the force into the grey area way. It sucks. Also having Rey fall in love with the man that killed all her mentors is an unhealthy forced romantic relationship. Such a turn off more than the last movie. That was one thing that should had been retcon! At least Abrams keep the good thing about their communicate. The idea that they can move items through their mental and physical force powers despite not being in the same location was cool to witness even if it never established or used in the original or prequel series. Yet the used age of the new half-baked force healing was not well done. It makes demise seem like a game of hot potato. Likewise, if the force can straight up heal people and even bring them back from near death. Why would Jedis forbid the practice? It sounds like they could had saved the universe all this problem if they taught a certain Skywalker how to do it many moons ago. To add onto that the idea that most of the dead Jedis would be alright in helping Rey rather than any of the previous heroes like Luke (Mark Hamill) is such a cop out. She is more prone to use her anger and fear. Also, the idea that Sidious is able to use all the powers of all the Sith to knock out all the whole fleet through force lightning is over the top silly more than the Holdo maneuver, not only because every dark lord in the past has betrayed each other but as well their long history belief to limited their numbers to a very few. It makes no sense. Along with that, the whole 16 hours ancient Sith dagger wayfinder fetch quest really felt like wasted nonsense filler. The idea that the blade edge lines up perfectly with still surprising mostly intact wreckage of the Death Star was outrageous dumb luck seeing how the explosion burn it up nor the tough waters eroded the metal over time. The story pacing is kinda hard to believe like Rey fixing Luke's old ship in a few hours after years being underwater. It kinda like how they never explain how Maz Kanata voiced by Lupita Nyong'o got a hold with Luke's old lightsaber or what Finn (John Boyega) had to say to Rey. It's really bad editing. While the performers are great, their characters are wasted along with less annoying Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac). Also, the death of Carrie Fisher in late 2016 caused major problems in production as well. The repurpose unused footage of Leia was kinda jarring. The visual/special effects from ILM were still impressive along with the sets & costume but some of the action scenes does cause dangerous photosensitive epilepsy. Not good. At least the film score by John Williams was still amazing. Overall: This movie is a mess from start to the cheesy name changing finish. I can't act like the previous two were perfect, but this seems especially maclunkey. I didn't like it. At least 'the Mandalorian' TV show is giving new hope for Star Wars because this movie certainly tries to kill it.