Tragic end to an iconic franchise

Rating: 2/10 (23 March 2020)

Personally, I was never a fan of the writers developing Lucas' plot, taking place years after "Return of the Jedi". I would have been more interested in an entirely new narrative apart from what already was. Perhaps a look into something that occured centuries prior to "The Phantom Menace". This could have paved way for something truly exciting and with real potential without making any attempts to match or even outmatch the original franchise.
This new trilogy, however, has proven that its only appeal to a fan like me is based solely on the usage of incredible visual and auditory effects, supplemented with gargantuan amounts of nostalgic moments. The problem is that this trilogy only invokes these moments through the implementation of rehashed elements originally used in Lucas' franchise, which is a disappointing fact in itself. Without these explicit references to the original saga, this trilogy would have had absolutely no other foundation than that of the special effects. Low and behold, this trilogy portrays the most vague and dissatisfying writing and execution of a benal "work of art" that does not even live up to the title of mediocre.
The result of films 7 through 8 made for low expectations for the third installment of the trilogy. Nevertheless, my expectations were most definitely not as low as they should have been. "The Rise of Skywalker" has such a directionless and indecisive plot that I was watching myself from an "out of body" perspective constantly cringing throughout the film. Not to mention the immensely superfluous inclusion of "one-liners" that was such a drag to be forced to endure. To top it all, the disclosure of Palpatine's return (as well as Rey being his granddaughter) was so abrupt and explicit that I could taste the cheese at the back of my mouth based on the film's monumental level of cheesiness. Of course, his return (and family history resulting in Rey's birth) is not even remotely explained in the film alongside so many other rather significant elements like Snoke's character, the Knights of Ren, General Hux being an apparent spy, the child who uses the Force in the epilogue of "The Last Jedi", etc. Then you have the film's dialogue, with such cliché expression both in writing and execution alike, which evokes the idea that this film was some project that just simply needed to be finished by a specific deadline and be done and over with. The overuse of side-stories carried out made me feel as though I was watching eight different films simultaneously.
The implicit elements of this film, as well as its two predecessors should have been more explicit, and the explicit elements more implicit. This would have saved the trilogy at least somewhat.
I rate this one star for special effects, and a second for nostalgic moments.
The largest cult film franchise of all time deserves better than this.