A Lightning Storm in Space

Rating: 4/10 (11 January 2020)

J.J. Adams back with another Lightning Storm in Space which happens all over Palpatine's face, it is sophomoric filming to be honest, and a let down, how prescient. The Rise of Skywalker ultimately fails because of their new heroes; Rey Palpatine! Hey girl, cool lightning fingers and what a neato reveal, but it is highly probable she was Palpatined so The Man would stop calling her a Mary Sue. Let's be honest, nowadays you can't be A Natural (unless you're like a baseball player or something) without gene editing. By the end Rey is a self-proclaimed Skywalker...I mean Rey should've been a Solo, because all the Leia bonding took place off-screen, it was all tell and no show. Kinda like when Han dies and Leia hugs Rey and NOT Chewbacca, talk about the force. And I've read Resistance Reborn...all bonding happens off-page as well.
Finn, the traitor Stormtrooper with The Force-love it! How does he know? Because he didn't kill a village of people...great! I have it too, on Earth we call it humanity. No Canto Bight this time so they had to set up a joke for Finn that even the Director forgets e.g. Finn's I-gotta-tell-you-something-Rey...but I mean, if J.J. Adams didn't care, why should I?
And don't get me started on the poor man's Han Solo - Poe Dameron. I must!!! He killed the Rebellion Army! He KILLED them! And while he gets demoted, it is all rather cheeky, "you're demoted you murderous, glory-seeking little rascal you." (I've seen Oscar Isaac sing-adorable(10 Years). I've seen Oscar Isaac dance-hot(Ex-Machina)) but Poe Dameron is the worst! #NotMyNerfherder. He rectified it though, he's a self-proclaimed General, Finn's a General too! It was a real Oprah moment there.
This movie is depressing. I am very well aware that this is a story about Rey, I love Rey, I believe in Rey, but man I really wanted to know about Kylo Ren, the real Skywalker. But then he dies, just as Vader did. There is no one to mourn him though. Don't look at Rey as she certainly doesn't appear to be sad. Besides she had to kiss him and smile, isn't that enough? His people are dead. He was a nothing. He says nothing, wait, in the remaining half of the film Adam Driver emits, "OWW." Really? That is what this movie does me for, Oww! I mean, the man can deliver lines though, am I right? So...they end with Rey alone with a droid and force ghosts. Depressing. Does this mean she stays there? No, she has the Falcon. But that's it, the end, that is what the movie showed me. But better to have just ended it in the jungle.
A trilogy should be able to stand on its own, but let me be blunt with stream of consciousness; the originals are outstanding with bombastic, if not incestuous, reveals, the prequels are dark tales with cornball lines (one could ask if they should have ever made it. I mean, nobody wants to see how the hamburger gets made...calm down I only kid, there's a lot to love in the prequels) and now we have a discombobulated trilogy that is at war with itself. The Force Awakens was too much a regurgitation and hey! they killed Han, thus we got The Last Jedi that had a lot of heart but adhered to no rules (there was no confab to warplan as Mon Mothma once did, because Holdo is all like, "nahh, I ain't telling The Plan 'cause we need a story line for Finn," thus Canto Bight ) and at times Johnson's movie came off irreverent (milking sea-cows...rethink that bro). But here is why it ALL fails; they sacrificed the OGs of Star Wars; what was Princess Leia became General Organa, who at first appears to be just a bad mother who chose the Rebellion over her own child but later it is revealed Leia knew Ben would die so...so much for lost causes and died, Jedi Luke Skywalker contemplated murdering his nephew #SaveTheVaterKillTheNeffe and died, and a forceless Han Solo kowtowed to it all, effectively abandoning his son and died.