An improvement for sure.

Rating: 6/10 (26 December 2019)

I actually quite enjoyed the movie but being honest, whilst it is a massive improvement over tlj it still can't hold a candle to the prequels or the original trilogy. This is my opinion not fact but just how I saw it.
I loved Palpatine, was definitely a bit of fan service bringing him back but he just didn't get enough screen time for me and it was all over rather quickly. Id have rather had a story with him creating Rey rather than being her grandfather, could have been an awesome sith power and tied the story in around the "he could create life" line from ep 3.
I like the Kylo story of redemption but again it all happened rather quickly and felt rushed. The death was quick and that was the story done. Definitely should have spent more time around this storyline and built it up more. With the Rise of Skywalker title, for me it would have made much more sense for Kylo to be the last man standing.
The main grievance for me was the total lack of Anakin/Vader full stop. After all Star Wars is the story of the Skywalker's/ Anakin. His mask is shown quickly in TFA as if to signify this will be a big part of the new trilogy and he is nowhere to be seen, if you are going to base the movie on fan service at least give us some of the main character.
The end scene on Tatooine completely confused me, we have force ghost Luke and Leia but nothing of Kylo or Anakin, who are both Skywalker's.
Basically I enjoyed watching the film and it is a massive step up from TLJ but I'm not happy with the end result and clear omission of some big character's, especially Anakin. For me, delete TLJ from existence, split Rise of Skywalker over 2 movies and expand more on Palpatine/ Kylo's redemption and we have a much better trilogy.