Tuesday, December 24, 2019

My Thoughts on The Rise of Skywalker (Spoilers)

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone! Since Christmas is tomorrow, I figured I'd post a day early. And what better to post about than The Rise of Skywalker? My family and I saw it Friday night and will see it again tonight. I'll summarize what I liked and didn't like about the movie after my first viewing. There may be some spoilers, but I'll try to keep them brief.

Things I Liked

Leia--This was supposed to be her movie, so I'm glad they were able to find a way to incorporate her and give her a heartfelt sendoff.

Seeing Favorite Aliens--It might be fan service, but I still enjoyed seeing Porgs and Jawas, even if for an instant.

The Climax--I can't talk about this without giving away a lot of the movie, but there were quite a few moments of awesome there.

Kylo's/Ben's Arc--Maybe it wasn't a complete redemption, but we did get to see how he and Rey are two sides of a single coin.

Things I Didn't Like

Pacing--Especially in the first half of the movie, I felt like we jumped from place to place without enough time to process everything. It wasn't always clear who was going where--characters would be onscreen without explanation.

No Explanation for Palpatine's Reappearance--This should have been foreshadowed earlier in the trilogy, IMO. How did he survive, and why did he wait so long to return?

Too Many New Characters--While I liked Janna, I felt like she was used to replace Rose, who should have had more screen time. I would have preferred more time and character development for established characters.

Rey's Backstory--Honestly, I would have been happy leaving it with what we saw in The Last Jedi. I like the idea of the Force being accessible by "nobodies" instead of just those from a special bloodline.

I went into this movie not knowing what to expect. I liked it, but my favorite movie in the saga is still The Empire Strikes Back.

If you've seen The Rise of Skywalker, what did you think of it? What's your favorite Star Wars movie? Feel free to share in the comments.

3 comments:

L. Diane Wolfe said...

I said the same thing about the beginning - it jumped around a bit too much. But most of these movies do that to an extent. I really enjoyed it though. Still a little disappointed Rey wasn't Luke's daughter. And what was Finn going to tell her? We never find out.

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan said...

Diane, if you really want to know what Finn was supposed to say, it's been revealed online. I won't mention it here, but it wasn't what I was expecting him to tell Rey.

Andrew Leon said...

It was fine. I think Abrams did the best he could with what Johnson left him.
My review is also up, if you want to call it that.

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