The Rise of Skywalker.

[jfkbengals]

(12-22-2019, 12:06 AM)CKwi88 Wrote: Star Wars Episode VII: A New A New Hope
Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Star Wars Episode IX: The Return of The Return of the Jedi

This entire sequel trilogy has left a bad taste in my mouth. While I did enjoy each film individually  (yes, even TLJ), the most glaring flaw in the entire thing is just how unnecessary the entire thing was. While the prequels deserve their fair share of criticism, they at least added something to the original trilogy. With the sequel trilogy I feel like Disney hadn't quite thought up a confident way to tell their own unique story, so they threw one together and then added in the familiar faces to appeal to the fanbase.

And it largely worked. Episodes VII and IX are familiar enough to not piss off the older fans, but are kind of just empty shells of movies. While VIII gets duly mocked at times, at least it took risks and tried to do something different. But since Rise of Skywalker is familiar enough, it'll get a pass for things that The Last Jedi won't. Hate the forced love plot between Rose and Finn and that time spent on Casino planet? You should hate the sudden love connection between Kylo and Rey (and Poe and whoever the rando masked woman was) and the time spent on wherever the droid hacker thing was. Hated that Leia all of a sudden uses the force? Oh, she also has a light saber! Hated the forced comedy? Get used to it 'cause Disney owns everything now. What are these force powers we've never seen before? Too bad Luke hadn't learned the Lay on Hands, heal for 5x your character level so he could help Vader out at the end of RotJ.

Don't get me wrong, I was more than entertained during the film (and all of the films). I just think that time will judge the sequel trilogy very poorly. They'll call it "The Skywalker Saga", but the sequels don't really fit.

I hope to have more Star Wars in the future, I think there are some excellent stories to be told. But the series needs to jump to another point in time, related to none of the characters we've seen so far.

In reference to the bolded sections in order:

• How are you watching these movies?  
• I don't remember Kerri Russel's character's name, but it was not a random character.  I recall reading months back that the character came from other sections of the cannon, but I don't know if it was comics, books, or what.
• That was the major problem for many, myself included, with TLJ.  No one was aware that Luke had trained Leia, and she was a Jedi.  Only after the massive backlash about the flying through space sequence was that brought to light.  What the movie makers needed to remember is that while some fans immerse themselves in everything Star Wars and no the story outside of the movies, the rest of us (like me) do not.  If it's not shown in the movie or any of its predecessors, don't expect me to know it already.  With that said, I thought they did a great job of remedying that error in The Rise of Skywalker.
  

All in all I found the movie enjoyable, and I had no idea that Ford was making an appearance, so I was pleasantly surprised by that.