A worthy ending to the saga

Rating: 7/10 (18 January 2020)

First of all I have to respect JJ Abrams for at least trying to conclude the whole sage using the mess of a universe Rian Johnson left him with after episode 8. For a star wars fan, the movie is great because one thing it does and does well is fan-service. But there are flaws in this movie. Some bigger, some less important, but all of them are worth talking about.
!SPOILERS AHEAD!
If you haven´t seen any trailer to this movie, you might be a bit shocked at the beginning. Because the title scroll tells you that Palpatine(Ian McDiarmid) is alive and that he has told the galaxy he´s seeking revenge, even though he fell down a reactor shaft and exploded during episode 6. The time span between the original trilogy is estimated to be around 30 years. Palpatine is revealed to have always pulled the strings from the back as he used to in hte original trilogy. He founded the first order, he created Snoke(Andy Serkis) in an attempt of cloning himself, he has been building a ginormous fleet of star destroyers, each of them with the power to destroy whole planets. It´s always been him.
Exagol, Palpatine´s base of operations was one of my personal favorite locations in the entire movie. The grim music combined with the lightning and the horrorish atmosphere inside the emperror´s new home were just great! And how could you introduce Palpatine better than with his arguably most famous quote? :"the dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural." When the emperor lifts up his new fleet, the last order, a more threatening, epic version of imperial march(by John Williams) can be heard to make the viewer aware of the fact, that this is the biggest menace ever seen in the whole saga.
Might I also add that the imperial march, one of my most favourite theme in the whole universe of movies and by far my favourite star wars one was used excellent in this movie and I really enjoyed every time it appeared. One scene which is one good example of this is when Rey(Daisy Ridley) ascends the second death star, we see Palpatine´s old throne and a silent version of it can be heard in the background to remind the audience of the original trilogy and curent location of the story.
Another great thing which caught my attention was the dynamic between Rey, Finn(John Boyega), Chewie(joonas Suotamo) and Poe(Oscar Isaac). Finally they go on a mission alltogether and we don´t have several side stories like in The Last Jedi.
In episode 7 the force connected Rey and Kylo Ren(Adam Driver) or at least we thougt so. Because in episode it was established, that supreme leader Snoke had connected them using the force, and not the force on its own. This concept known as Force-Skype is a strange one to me. In The Rise of Skywalker it seems to be a merging of two dimensions with effect on the reality that can only be seen by Kylo and Rey.
Talking about the force, it seems to be as powerful, as the screenplay wants it to. There can be things done with the force, that have never been established before. The most discussed is of course the power of transmitting force power from being to another to easily overcome lethal injuries and even cheat death! With this now being cannon, nearly every death of a main character could have been prevented.
One thing which confused me a bit was the situation with the sith-wayfinders. It says there are only two in existence but if you count them throughout the movie, three can be seen. The first one in the beginning aqquired by Kylo Ren, the second one located on the second death star and the third one in the posession of Luke Skywalker(Mark Hamill).
After Kylo had found Exagol with his sith-wayfinder, it must have remained inside his ship which is the same one, Rey flew to Luke´s island with. And now I´m asking myself the question: Why the heck did she not use the wayfinder inside Kylos ship and instead burned the whole thing?
Back to Luke Skywalker: In episode 8 it was established that Luke came to the island to die and suddenly in episode 9 it was his goal all along to find Exagol and confront Palpatine one last time. That´s a prime example for episode 9 telling excuses for the movie that came before it.
One thing which has now been used more than enough times before in the Franchise is the short death of main characters. A voice in one trailer can even be heard saying:"No one´s ever really gone." We had an emotional death of our beloved C3PO(Anthony Daniels) in this movie which was of course teased at in the last trailer. But once 3PO meets R2D2(Jimmy Vee) again, R2 revives him using a backup. When Kylo Ren pushed Rey to her limits on desert planet Pasaana, which was also a clear hint at her parantage, she seemed to just have killed Chewbacca in his transporter. But just a few minutes later, she feels his presence and everything´s fine again.
One character who died, but just one half of him was Adam Driver´s Ben Solo. After Rey just took his personal the "TIE Whisper" as it´s called and left him Han Solo(Harrison Ford) appeared in front of him. And after a short but heartwarning chat with his father he killed, he threw the weapon he commited the murder with in the ocean and concludes Kylo Ren´s story arch. "Let the past die, kill it if you have to, that´s the only way to become what you´re meant to be" like Kylo said himself in Episode 8.
At the end of the second act, I had great hopes for the final battle and I was not disappointed at all with what I received. I most enjoyed the scenes which Rey and Palpatine, or should I say Rey Palpatine and Sheev Palpatine shared. My most favourite however was the final battle between them. There was a particular moment which was just a few seconds short, but remained the best scene of episode 9 for me. After Palpatine sucked out Rey´s and Kylo´s force essence and transmitted it over to himself, he was fully restored and more powerful than ever, which of course he had to proof to the audience by presumably killing the last Skywalker and thowing him into a bottomless pit. Than Rey somehow stands up again and the final showdown begins. At the beginning we can hear Palpatine´s theme "the emperor arrives" to synergize who´s having the upper hand right now and after he says:"You are nothing! A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me. I am all the sith!" the positive part of Rey´s theme, that resembles hope starts playing and Rey answers with:"And I... I am all the Jedi" then she overpowers Palpatine by using two lightsabers and the power of all the Jedi past her and finishes the emperor off for good.
While I was watching this spectacular moment in cinema, it reminded me of something I saw only a few months ago: Avengers Endgame. If you watch Star wars Episode IX:The Rise of Skywalker the next time, think of Iron man and Thanos´s showdown during the final conversation of Palpatine and his grand-daughter.
the energy and sheer power must´ve been too much for a human´s body. Because even Rey, arguably the most powerful Jedi or the Jedi with the highest potential didn´t survive the final showdown. Well she was dead for a few moments. Suddenly a hand can be seen gripping onto the edge of the hole Ben was thrown down. Then Kylo Ren´s theme plays and more than half dead Ben Solo is crawling his way to Rey to revive her with the last bit of force he´s got left in him. After this they share an emotional moment which also was one of the most discussed considering this movie:they kiss. I personally think that it was not a necessary but well executed conclusion of their story.
At the very end Rey returns to Tatooine to bury Luke and Leias lightsabers and call her self a Skywalker. That´s just ridicoulus. The whole movie was about her accepting she´s a Palpatine and at in final scene she suddenly is a Skywalker?
In conclusion I would say that Star Wars Episode IX is a good movie with great ambience, a lot of fan-service but also a few flaws which cannot be overlooked.