Well, Ep. 8 was very divisive, but I suspect Ep. 9 will be more of a consensus. `

*WARNING: SPOILERS*

For me, this review says everything I wanted to say:

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/star-wars-ep-9-the-rise-of-skywalker-review-a-gala/1900-6417383/

Highlights:

"The result is a movie that feels less like the conclusion to a Star Wars trilogy, and more like the casualty of a behind-the-scenes battle between the visions of two diametrically opposed directors. Rise of Skywalker bends over backward to undo what The Last Jedi did, just as that movie subverted all the mysteries set up in The Force Awakens. But much more than its predecessor, Rise of Skywalker exudes petulance--like Abrams is mad someone played with his toys wrong, and his only remaining recourse is to scoop them all up and go home."

"Events that should be monumental are immediately undercut or undone, without breathing room for the audience to absorb what's taking place. Characters you thought must certainly be dead pop up later inexplicably unharmed, while others simply keel over with little explanation."

"What should be the movie's most emotional moments are undermined by the weight of exasperating absurdity."

"In the end, it all feels simply empty. It should never be so clear to audiences that something in the filmmaking process has gone so terribly wrong--that the people who made the first film in a trilogy apparently didn't bother to sketch out a plan for the second and third, and that the movies' directors had visions for the series' future that were so fundamentally at odds. Star Wars deserved better."

***

I feel no hate or disappointment. Ep. 9 failed to touch me at all.

Please let me know your opinions.

That review echoes one of my more structural complaints about Last Jedi: it played like a peeing contest between JJ and Rian. That first quote is damning of the entire Disney era films really. They rushed to production with TFA and didn't think all of it through. The rest pretty much can be applied to any JJ film.

Here's EW's review: Force Ghost of a Movie .

" The best thing I can say about Rise of Skywalker is that it is sometimes incoherent on purpose."

"There’s always been a secret cynicism underpinning Abrams’ Star blockbusters, which adrenalize the pop-est culture of his youth and avoid anything requiring originality or imagination. Now he’s left grasping for source material he hasn’t already replicated..."

abandon thread!

8 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

In Episode IX, Rey is told that she’s a Palpatine instead.

Wait. Wait. What?!!??? I haven't read any full on spoilers for this. Tell me that isn't actually in the movie. What? Really? No. They went there with? No. No. No. You're kidding me right?

15 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

teleporting objects,

And I'm a little hung up on this too. The Force can now be used to teleport objects? Can JJ actually tell Star Trek and Star Wars apart?

Nice write up by the way. Very thoughtful.

8 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

Wait. Wait. What?!!??? I haven't read any full on spoilers for this. Tell me that isn't actually in the movie. What? Really? No. They went there with? No. No. No. You're kidding me right?

They made her Emperor Palpatine's granddaughter. She then takes the name Skywalker. Hence why some call the movie "The Rise of Identity Theft".

Only thing I want to know: is Nien Nunb in it?

2 minutes ago, Cerebrawl said:

They made her Emperor Palpatine's granddaughter. She then takes the name Skywalker. Hence why some call the movie "The Rise of Identity Theft".

That's awful. I knew JJ was a lazy hack but that tops even my Marianas Trench low opinion of him.

I enjoyed it, it had lots of cool and fun moments, but it is nowhere near perfect and I have a lot of plot or nerdy nit-picks. My main ones for now:

1) These films, especially the last two, have had a Finn problem. They introduced this pretty good character with a good arc potential and then kinda didn't know what to do with him in TLJ and TROS. His entire big thing at the end of this film, leading the ground assault to destroy the signal tower thing, which would have been cool if ships weren't flying around the entire time THAT COULD JUST SHOOT IT! IT'S RIGHT THERE! JUST FIRE A TORPEDO AT IT! But it feels like once again, Finn needed something to do. Rey is easy, oe is easy, but Finn kinda got left not having much to do and they put him in a big plot hole to do it. Boyega deserved better. When he's with Poe and they are working together he's great. They just don't know what to do with him alone.

2) This film didn't stop. Sometimes that's good, but honestly I wanted a little bit of breathing room now and again. It was an entire film of "and now we're here, and now we're doing this, and now this is happening, and now this thing, and now..." and you get TIRED. There are some moments that needed to breathe more, and my fav 5 mins of the film are the slowest 5 mins (the small scene on Ach-To).

3) Introduced new characters that could have been way cooler if we had more time with them. LOVED Zori Bliss and her chemistry with Poe, but she was on screen for about 3 mins all together. If she had been introduced last film (maybe as the code breaker character? Wrestling between helping and being a lone wolf) I would have loved her even more. And then characters that WERE introduced before (Rose, Hux) were seemingly sidelined due to time contraints, or lack of ideas for what to do with them, or both. So they kinda didn't do well either way with the secondary characters lol

4) I heard beforehand that the film was FULL of fanservice, to the point of it being distracting. But honestly hearing that I kinda expected more. They did a budget version of the Endgame 'portals' scene (even using the SW theme as if it's the Avengers theme, whivh was the only musical misstep for me in the film) and we see Wedge (which made me nearly leap out of my seat with joy) and then...that's it? We see familiar ships flying around, but briefly. And not much at all. I DID spot a Fang Fighter silhouette though! That was fun for me and my mate to both point and nudge each other like full on nerds. I kinda expected more cameos and such. Wanted more pilot cockpit call-ins. But alas.

2 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

That's awful. I knew JJ was a lazy hack but that tops even my Marianas Trench low opinion of him.

Out of interest, would anyone have preferred the reverse? Rey (Palpatine) dying to save and redeem Ben Solo, for him to take on the mantle of the last Skywalker?

Because, let's face it, all Skywalkers dead and their legacy made completely redundant while a Palpatine lives is... incomprehensible, really.

Gah. I'm just going to watch Episode 6 again and call it quits. Untile the Auralnauts adaptions arrive, at least.

Just now, FTS Gecko said:

Because, let's face it, all Skywalkers dead and their legacy made completely redundant while a Palpatine lives is... incomprehensible, really.

That's JJ though. Zig for the sake of zigging when you've set up everyone for a zag and he somehow gets a pat on the back for his cleverness.

abandon thread!

48 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Only thing I want to know: is Nien Nunb in it?

I don't remember seeing him.

3 minutes ago, Odanan said:

I don't remember seeing him.

Wow. One of the few survivors of The Least Jedi's Johnsoning and he doesn't even get a slap on the back from his old buddy Lando?

That's pretty lame. I thought the fanservice was supposed to be out of this world?

19 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

TLJ told us, showed us that ancestry does not matter! You are who you choose to be. The slave stable boy might one day save the galaxy...

...so, fans of the Last Jedi don't like it; people who disliked Ruin's take don't like it either.

Looks like JJ found a way to reunite the fan base after all...

abandon thread!

Just now, FTS Gecko said:

That's pretty lame. I thought the fanservice was supposed to be out of this world?

I didn't see much fan service in the film. At all.

For instance, of all the Rebel fleet Lando summons (oout of the thin air), there are few existing designs. It was a missed opportunity to show for a couple of seconds the X-Wing T-80, E-Wing, K-wing, really, any obscure design from canon or legends. Instead, he spent most of his effort undoing Ep. 8.

I don't think JJ Abrams is the Star Wars (and Star Trek) fan he claims to be. He is more concerned in doing his videoclip-thing instead of actual Star Wars (and Star Trek) films.

He is becoming one of the shallowest directors of our time.

10 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

...so, fans of the Last Jedi don't like it; people who disliked Ruin's take don't like it either.

Looks like JJ found a way to reunite the fan base after all...

This. ^

abandon thread!

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Poe transformed from a trigger happy flyboy into a leader during Episode VIII.

Personal disagreement; no, as far as I'm concerned he doesn't.

He goes from someone who refuses an order for his forces to disengage in a battle where he could (should? that's opinion, but I'll accept it as valid on the grounds that Leia is not an idiot) have done so to someone who does order his forces to disengage when they absolutely cannot afford to do so (because at the time no-one knows there is a back exit and luke is not there to buy time so - as far as he knows - if the battering ram breaches the gate absolutely everyone dies, making any level of loss 'acceptable').

Or to put it more succinctly from one type of idiocy into a second type of idiocy, due to overcorrecting for the first.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Why the “the fleet will be ready in 16 hours!”?

I assume that was in Hux's message? It did seem weirdly specific. What was never entirely clear was where all the crew for the sith fleet came from; given the different uniforms the Final Order were not drafted First Order (there wouldn't have been enough anyway) and it's hardly like Exegor is shown to support a big population in the way Byss (it's Legend's equivalent) was.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

How did Kylo get to Exegor with a TIE fighter? He certainly has no nav computer and no hyperdrive on there, right? At least give him a shuttle…

Some TIE fighters are hyperspace capable, some aren't. The TIE/sf, for example, definitely is (those blocky 'cogwheels' are supposed to be battery packs to support it) and we see Vonreg's interceptor (which looks pretty similar) go to hyperspace. I'm not sure if the TIE fighters chasing Poe in the 'hyperskipping' sequence (which I must say I didn't really like) were TIE/fo or TIE/sf - TIE/sf can definitely do hyperspace, but TIE/fo can't, and it looked like they were TIE/fo.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

I thought astromechs are necessary for Xwings to make hyperspace jumps, as they have no nav computers? Apparently the navigator can replace that?

Correct - but as noted, since it was plugged into Sith Hyperspace Navigation McGuffin MkII, I'd be happy to overlook that one.

1 hour ago, InterceptorMad said:

His entire big thing at the end of this film, leading the ground assault to destroy the signal tower thing, which would have been cool if ships weren't flying around the entire time THAT COULD JUST SHOOT IT! IT'S RIGHT THERE! JUST FIRE A TORPEDO AT IT! But it feels like once again, Finn needed something to do. Rey is easy, oe is easy, but Finn kinda got left not having much to do and they put him in a big plot hole to do it. Boyega deserved better. When he's with Poe and they are working together he's great. They just don't know what to do with him alone.

Yeah.... I didn't really get that. If there was some reason you couldn't - essentially point defences which made nearby airspace a death sentence - then fine. But it just seemed weird given that we're specifically told all the destroyer's shields are down.

1 hour ago, InterceptorMad said:

This film didn't stop. Sometimes that's good, but honestly I wanted a little bit of breathing room now and again

It did feel very hectic.

46 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

All flavored by the simple, lowly mechanic Rose that your intention and choice matters more than the outcome (you have to save what you love),

That is another bit of The Last Jedi I dislike; I get the message trying to be conveyed, and don't inherently disagree with the sentiment, but Rose does it by causing Finn to fail at saving people. Again; as far as anyone in the skimmers is aware this is an at-all-costs strike with the lives of everyone in the resistance riding one someone - anyone - getting through, exactly paralleling the death-rides of the X-wings at Yavin.

38 minutes ago, Odanan said:

I don't remember seeing him.

I don't specifically remember seeing him either. You get a fair proportion of the recognisable resistance pilots massacred, though;

9 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

What is fanservice to you? For me it includes story/plot parts that are only in the movie because fans want them to be.

The Leia flashback is one, including her lightsaber. The medal. Luke on Achto. The inclusion of Lando. Rey being a Palpatine. Palpatine. The Harrypotter moment with the voices.

I think the movie is full of them. And many big choices at that.

What is a Star Wars fan for you? Because I didn't see real fans asking for any of those things.

I could be wrong, but most of this "fan service" was, in fact, a misunderstanding of what fans do want.

And that Rey/Ren kiss?! Gezz.

PS: Now The Mandalore - this one knows how to do fan service.

abandon thread!

abandon thread!

Thank you all for these comments and biting the bullet for the rest of us. I will avoid this movie and consider Return of the Jedi as the final movie in this trilogy. Anakin will remain the Chosen One and Luke won't turn out to be an attempted child murderer.

1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

Rian sacrifices texture for text.

I thought he needed a lot more of both for Luke's story in Last Jedi. Especially because the triumph of the OT is Luke's belief in the good of people.

I tend to think JJ is far more childish. It is always Calvinball with him. I wouldn't really hold Rian as being exemplar of text over texture but he played a bit more "fair" than JJ ever has.