Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

Rating: 3/10 (7 January 2020)

The Rise of Skywalker proves to be film of many disappointments and frustrations. It's plot is full of never-ending dull moments, wasted character potentials and has no scope for something rather intriguing. These are the main outlines of what the film failed to bring out to the audience.
The return of Emperor Palpatine. Now in order to bring an old favourite character back to the Star Wars film franchise, considering that everyone thought had died, requires a lot of attention to detail and some type of story to why he has returned. JJ Abrams not only inexplicably fails to bring some background story to why our good friend Palpy does return, but also makes his return seem very rushed. The fact that he appears talking to Kylo Ren right at the start of the film just gives his new appearance a more frustrating turn. It's as if JJ Abrams was saying, "Here Star Wars fans, you wanted Palpatine back into the film franchise, have it." Overall, Palpatine's return is very rushed, and the way Abrams decides to use him in the film seems quite unsettling and confusing.
The problem with Ray as a Jedi. Now this is not to say that she does not make a good one, because in fact she kind of does. However, there is not a single Jedi in the Star Wars franchise that has never been tempted to join the Dark Side or at least to abandon the Jedi ways. Anakin Skywalker or Darth Vader is a good example of this. Even Luke Skywalker was tempted by Palpatine to use his hatred to kill his own father, Darth Vader. However, Rey proves time and time again that she can resist any form of manipulation by Palpatine with ease. After Palpatine tries to persuade Rey to kill him so that she could become "Empress Rey", Rey, with the help of Kylo manages to easily kill him. However, this is not very effective or realistic, as firstly Palpatine should have known already that firing lightning at a lightsaber from his previous battle with Mace Windu was not a good idea. Secondly, Palpatine was trained by Darth Plagueis the wise, who at that time was one of the most powerful Sith Lords in the galaxy. Surely, Palpatine must have got some of his wise advice and used his powerful ability of manipulation to win over Rey. Overall, Rey's character is too perfect and precise. Is this because she was Palpatine's granddaughter? I don't think so. She seemed not to have known about this in the new trilogy and was wanting to find out about her past. However, with Katherine Kennedy jumping all over the fact of making a female Jedi, she could not make the character believable or truly someone magical, but just another over rated hero.
The many new characters that had wasted potential. It is as if Disney brought in so many new characters just to make new toys and gain profit from them. Where do I even begin. The Knights of Ren were absolutely pointless in the film. They not only had no decent screen time, but there only actual fight was against their master Kylo Ren himself, which resulted in their deaths in less than two minutes. Secondly, the red stormtroopers. The only time they were seen was in a little cameo when they were fighting the rebels on the Star Ship destroyers. Apart from that, they were no where to be seen and no real emphasis or development on their characters were actually made. Thirdly, the relationship between General Hux and General Pryde. When General Hux admitted to Finn and Poe Dameron that he was the spy, it not only seemed unbelievable, but it just didn't work. In the two previous films in the new trilogy, we see him completely mesmerised and full of anger and disgust towards the rebels and anyone who would try to defy the New Order. He seemed like a true patriot and leader to the Dark Side. Surely Snoke would have been able to see through his "actual intentions" with the amount of power he had, even though he was made by Palpatine. General Hux is also little seen in the film, and even though we get to see Pryde killing him, there was nothing that we ever really understood from Hux as a person. Overall, JJ Abrams brought in either characters that we so looked forward to see that had absolutely wasted potentials in the film, or just plainly dull ones that had no real impact on the movie.
The final disappointment about this movie is the fact that it did not seem to be a real movie at all. To me it felt like a two and a half hour trailer, that tried to expose all the things the audience wanted to see, really quickly so that they would be left happy. No real character development, a too-perfect Jedi, Palpatine's unexplained return. Do I have to say any more? The problem is that Disney can make a good Star Wars movie, like Rogue One, Han Solo's Story, and the new Mandalorian Season episodes. Yet they put quantity over quality into this final movie, trying to put as much as they can into it to try to make it work. Yet all that did was expel the magic and grandeur that these Star Wars films used to have.