TOO EASY! (But I liked it)

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2019)

Make no mistake, boys and girls! This is a Disney movie. Maybe we wish it could be different, but ... the only thing left for us to do now is just enjoy it the best we can.
(Or, if you want, there's the other option. You can spend your time and money feeling mad/sad/whatever. I decided not to go that way.)
This movie has a scale that only a Star Wars finale could, with some serious eyebrow-raising moments. The "spaceship" battles are just gorgeous. The lightsaber duels channel a surprising amount of emotion. Palpatine is incredible.
And man, I love that Rey/Kylo dynamic. It's just so damn cool.
But ... despite some *truly impressive* fireworks on the part of the bad guys, at no point in this movie did I ever feel like the good guys could actually lose.
I mean, c'mon. Would they ACTUALLY end this saga with the bad guys winning? No, of course not.
I feel they could have taken a lot more risks here. They could have easily gotten away with making this a 3-hour movie, and adding some "sophisticated adult" content to make it more emotionally compelling. I DEFINITELY would have slowed down the first 10 minutes... holy moley, that was frantically-weird.
With all the above said, I certainly didn't end up feeling disappointed. Personally, I plan to see "Skywalker" in theaters at least one more time, and I'll definitely be buying the Blu-ray. (I'm hoping for a behind-the-scenes look at how they got Leia to look so amazing?! It can't all be reused footage...)
And hey! Threepio gets a little moment of actual character development here. That only took 9 movies. :)
I'll leave you now with a few quotes I agree with...
"The Rise of Skywalker provides about as competent an ending as one could hope for from such a sprawling, weird saga." - Nick Johnston, Vanyaland
"It should surprise no one that a mixed bag of a franchise ends with a mixed bag of a final chapter." - Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects
"Abrams and company get around the Last Jedi fanbase blowback the easy way ... essentially pretending there never was a Last Jedi." - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune