The perfect ending to a flawed trilogy

Rating: 9/10 (20 December 2019)

I have been a Star Wars fan my entire life, and to say I had been disappointed in where Disney had been taking the saga is an understatement. I went into this movie with lower than low expectations, thinking it would be the final nail in the coffin after The Last Jedi. Oh how wrong I was. The beginning was a bit slow and chalky, but I'd just chop that up to trying to write around Carrie Fisher's old scenes. Even though it was chalky, the way they used Fisher for the film was much better than killing her off screen or pushing her off to the side. She actually mattered. The reveal that Rey was a Palpatine too was ingenious. It gave her that link to the Skywalker saga while not giving into the super popular fan theories just for the sake of it. The Skywalker's started with a Palpatine and ended with one. A Palpatine gave the Skywalkers life and a Skywalker finally returned the favour. Ben's sacrifice of his life for Rey at the end was a perfect conclusion for his character, he came back to the light just as Vader did. In the words of George Lucas, Star Wars is like poetry. It rhymes. But out of all of this, my absolute favourite part was the vision like scene with Harrison Ford that absolute blew me away. This was certainly a well kept secret that he was in the film, and that completely paid off in the end. I couldn't stop crying because of the beauty of the moment. My favourite character, back for one last goodbye, to complete the task he failed to while he was alive. That is the theme of this film. It completed the task of making a great Star Wars film that has failed to be done since Return of the Jedi. You did it, Disney. You made a fan's heart melt with joy. You made a fan's night. You made a fan cry tears of joy. And that's what should matter when it comes to these things, not pleasing some washed up critic, not attempting to swoon the general public with bland uninteresting rehashed garbage, but with a story made for the people who love that story the most. What else is a sequel for?