Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker Review

Hello all!  I’m sorry it took so long to get this post out there, but better late than never!  Obviously, there will be spoilers, so warnings on that.  But hey, even though the movie’s only been out for a little more than a month, I’m pretty sure it’s kind of hard NOT to get spoiled about what went down in this movie.  If you’re still clueless, congratulations, but if you want to stay that way, definitely don’t read this review!

So, I’ve been seeing a lot of mixed responses to Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, and I’ve actually seen more people say they loved Rise of Skywalker than people who said they didn’t.  In fact, I’ve only seen four or five out of the hundreds of responses say that they didn’t like the movie.  I was a little surprised about that after the backlash that The Last Jedi received, but I have to admit, the final installment of the series was a lot better than its predecessor.

I went into the theater thinking I would be disappointed.  The Star Wars series that I had grown up with was coming to an end, and I was terrified that it would be drained from more than forty years of storytelling.  I was terrified that it would leave us with a mediocre ending to a entire world that had shaped lives.

I loved Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker.  It was nothing like I expected at all.  It had plenty of new stuff in it, but enough nostalgia to keep old school fans happy.  Obviously, there are things that I didn’t like about it, but over all I give the movie a 8/10.

The newest trilogy seemed to be completely different from each other and that’s understandable.  While The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker were both directed by J.J. Abrams, The Last Jedi was handed to Rian Johnson to direct, and I’ve got to say, I wish the entire series was given to J.J. Abrams.  The story seemed to completely disconnect from each other.  One second Kylo Ren is telling Rey she’s a nobody.  The next he’s telling her she’s the granddaughter of the most feared man in the galaxy.  There just didn’t seem to be much teamwork.

Because of that, half of The Rise of Skywalker was spent fixing all that The Last Jedi broke about The Force Awakens.  J.J. Abrams clearly had a vision on what was supposed to be happening, and The Last Jedi wasn’t it.  In the theater watching the movie, I felt like the movie had finally begun when Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) mirrored the scene in The Force Awakens and Kylo Ren turned away from the dark side and took up the name Ben Solo once more.  it was a pity that they only had half the movie left to keep going, because after that, it got good.

They could have done more with the Knights of Ren after hyping them up for so long, but I was willing to let that slide.  I was a little confused by the subplot with Hux being a spy within the Empire.  It seemed like something they could have done without, or maybe they could have had someone different be the spy.

But I loved that Kylo Ren turned to the Light Side.  In fact, that was my favorite thing about the movie!  I wish that he could have fought Palpatine WITH Rey (Daisy Ridley) there at the end instead of throwing him off to the side, however.  I’ll get back to that scene in a moment though.

Did you notice that different scenes mirrored scenes from the other Star Wars movies?  The pod race from The Phantom Menace, the scene where they bust Leia out of prison from A New Hope, Yoda pulling Luke’s X-Wing out of the swamp from The Empire Strikes Back, and multiple scenes from Return of the Jedi were mirrored, such as someone turning good at the end then dying, and the scene where Rey watches the space battle unfold at Palpatine’s side.  And when Luke pulls is X-Wing out of the water, it even plays Yoda’s theme!

I really loved the scene with Rey exploring the ruins of the Death Star!  And we got an interesting little vision of Rey’s Dark Side, and that was cool too!  I loved Kylo Ren and Rey’s lightsaber duel!  And that leads me to this…we lost a very special character in this movie.

Carrie Fisher died in December of 2016.  For The Rise of Skywalker, they managed to use deleted scenes from past movies to bring her to life in The Rise of Skywalker, and it was bittersweet.  In this final movie in the trilogy, Princess Leia dies after bringing her son back to the Light Side.  And yes, of course, I cried…

Another thing that I was really happy about was the fact that Rey was related to Palpatine.  I called it!  I got excited!  I was SO happy she wasn’t a nobody like The Last Jedi made her out to be!  I got really excited when the finale came, and I was not disappointed by the ending like I thought I would be!  Also, little detail, but did you spot all of those ships in that final space battle?  The Ghost from Star Wars Rebels was there!  And what about those voices that Rey heard?  Kanan Jarrus from Rebels was there as well as Ahsoka Tano…but does this mean that she’s dead?  We’ll need to hear more on that!

I really felt like I was watching an Old Republic movie once it got to the end.  I love the ability that Rey and Kylo share that allows them to transport items to each other through the force!  And now, we’ve got to talk about this…

I don’t know about you, but I was a little disappointed that Ben Solo died.  I was very, very happy that they gave a little time for Ben and and Rey to have a moment with each other…and then he died…But to be honest, I think it wasn’t that bad of an idea.  I’m pleased with how they ended it.

At the very end of the movie, Rey takes the Skywalker name as her own.  She doesn’t want to be known as a Palpatine, and I think that it really shows that you don’t have to go down a bad path just because of your name.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is an awesome movie, and it’s probably my favorite out of the new trilogy!  I can’t wait to see what’s next for the Star Wars world, and I know that it definitely won’t be ending any time soon!

 

Did you watch Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker?  What did you think about it?  Start up a conversation in the comments below!  Happy Friday, may the Force be with you, and God bless!

 

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