[spoiler]While looking for the dragonballs Kylo Vegeta Ren finds the emperor and he reveals a clown car with 10 trillion death stars in it. Instead of conquering the galaxy the emperor chooses to just give it to Kylo as long as he kills Rey, because she is a sayan prince or something.
Meanwhile Rey is also looking for the dragonballs and to find a dragonball she needs a wooden stick that some guy made 10 days ago.
Luke and Lanpedo have been looking for this stick for 10 years, but Rey finds it after falling in a hole and helping a snake. She blows up 10.000 people with a kamehameha, but is sad because she lost her dog. Their robot needs to talk with an alien monkey on another planet because it can give him red eyes. Rey goes on Kylos ship to find her stick, kills a few hundred more people with a gun and finds her dog. Rey notices the stick looks like a death star so they go to the death star and find the dragonball. Vegeta comes and is killed by Rey because his mom calls his name. Rey brings him back to life because she wants to smooch and kills his mother. Kylo finds his sayan spirit and becomes a good guy (he only killed a few million people no big deal). Rey rams her ship into another planet for fun and finds another stick that points to the emperors clown car. The emporer wants to get whipped, by his granddaugther, because he is into that. Rey charges a spirit bomb with the power of her 10 trillion fans, but the emporer snaps his fingers and kills all her fans in 1 hit. Kylo comes to help Rey whip her granddad, but he slips and falls down a staircase. Rey grants her grandad's his dying wish, but because the she used the wrong whip they are both dead now. Kylo revives Rey, they smooch and he turns into a ghost. Also his mom now is a ghost. Rey uses the dragonballs to destroy 10 trillion death stars and become a dirt farmer with a different last name, because some ghosts nod their head. Somehow her 10 trillion fans are back alive, her dog gets a medal and Lanpedo starts an inappropriate relationship.[/spoiler]
10/10

It’s hard to write a review for this film without any major spoilers, so this might seem a little vague here and there. There will be very minor spoilers, primarily what’s revealed in the opening text crawl or the trailers, so not much, but if you want to go into this film completely virgin, stop here.

The film starts off with things already underway. A transmission has been sent out that contains the voice of Emperor Palpatine. Kylo Ren, now Supreme Leader of the First Order, goes to seek out Palpatine as a potential threat to his power. In the meantime, the Resistance is still in shambles after the events of “The Last Jedi,” and they are busy doing scouting missions and regrouping.

All of this is revealed in the opening crawl of the movie, which is where the problems begin. It violates a cardinal rule of storytelling: Show, don’t tell. It wouldn’t have taken much to have this done on screen in more dramatic and effective fashion. Instead, this has the effect of making it feel like we either missed something important or that we’re watching an entirely different movie with a different story. This makes things confusing. It doesn’t help that I was already thinking that J.J. Abrams probably needs to go back to Screenwriting 101 during the opening crawl. Not a good way to start.

Other things happen during the course of the movie that make no sense. Why does Kylo Ren reforge his helmet? We never really find that out. He just does. The Knights of Ren do appear in this film finally. Who are they? If you’re expecting an answer of any kind, you’ll be disappointed. Why is there this strange connection between Rey and Kylo Ren? One of the mysteries of the Force, I suppose. Characters who we don’t know appear from nowhere having been significant to the goings on even though we’ve never seen them before. Other characters take bizarre and up to now not even hints at character arcs. It becomes a horrendously confusing mess.

I liked some of the more controversial aspects of “The Last Jedi.” Rey being a nobody with no significant parentage? Great idea! The galaxy is a big place. Why does everyone have to be related? Well, this is adjusted slightly. I won’t go into details, but it was disappointing what they did, in my opinion. Leia’s story arc in this film is...weird. I’m going to allow that it’s due to the loss of Carrie Fisher and having to use archival footage (one scene that shows a young Luke and Leia using computer effects is freaky at best). But it’s off-putting and feels tacked on for convenience. It was nice to see Lando return, although even that felt more like throwing a bone to the fans. He could have potentially been replaced by any character with flying skills. Speaking of such, Wedge does make finally make an appearance, but it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment.

Here’s how I would sum it up spoiler-free: As I said, I liked “The Last Jedi” a lot, including parts that many didn’t like or found weird as I stated above, but at the same time it was not a problem-free movie for me. “The Rise of Skywalker” is the exact opposite. It definitely has some really cool moments, but feels so sloppy and makes so many storytelling mistakes that, on the whole, I have to say that it’s a bad movie. I’ve said this about just about everything I’ve seen come from J.J. Abrams, that he’s great at coming up with interesting imagery. He gets these pictures in his head of something that would be really interesting to see on film, like flashes one might remember from a dream. For example, there’s a great scene near the end that finally corrects what many consider a great injustice done in an earlier movie. But couching these images in a cohesive story is not his strong suit. In fact, he’s downright terrible at it. This problem seemed to be going in full force in “The Rise of Skywalker.”

Were some of my complaints addressed in some expanded material? I don’t know, but even if they were it would still make it bad storytelling. Star Wars has always been fairly good about keeping things self-contained. Expanded material adds extra background to enhance the enjoyment of the main material, like adding seasoning, but shouldn’t be necessary to appreciate the meal.

Overall, you need to see this movie to close out the Skywalker Saga, but that’s really the only reason. Don’t go into this expecting a good or even decent film, or for every question to be answered. Ultimately, it’s a disappointing end to Star Wars, and I say this as a Star Wars fan.

Unfortunately I had the misfortune of having to slog my way through The Rise of Skywalker twice this week. It is hard to imagine a more disappointing conclusion to the saga. As someone who loved the bombastic (though familiar) take JJ brought to The Force Awakens, and the visionary imagination Rian brought to creating perhaps the most morally pure and thematically consistent Star Wars episode ever in The Last Jedi, I knew it was going to be a hard task for any director to finish this off satisfactorily.

JJ specifically is fantastic at creating new mysteries and setting up new characters, but disastrous at ending stories - whether his own or those of others. This movie is a perfect example of that. I was worried JJ would use TRoS to undo everything I loved about TLJ, but that doesn't even turn out to be the issue. Not only does he disregard TLJ, he disregards and seems to detest his own work in TFA, and has zero interest in crafting a finale to this epic nine movie saga. He doesn't just squander the potential of the prior two entries, but of the entire franchise.

There is not a single plot thread in TRoS that hasn't been lifted from a prior Star Wars movie. Character motivations change scene to scene. There are some truly spectacular emotional moments... that only contain any emotional pay-off whatsoever because of Daisy Ridley's stunning performance and John Williams's sublime score.

Given JJ's task here I tempered my expectations to the most conventional conclusion possible, and somehow this movie was still more boring than that. So many questions are answered - each and every one in the least interesting, most obvious, most predictable, most boring way possible. If you have played a video game with a quest log and fetch quests - congratulations, you will feel intimately familiar with the structure of this movie.

This movie is what we feared Disney would inflict on this beloved franchise, even though we were somehow spared it in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. It's a case study in why pandering to every fan's checklist of expectations results in a creatively bankrupt endeavour that ultimately surprises no-one, delights no-one, and satisfies no-one who has had even a passing interest in the story arc - and philosophical viewpoints - of the prior eight movies.

Given I've seen the movie twice now, as of now I'm fairly confident in saying: it's probably the worst Star Wars movie ever made, including the spin-offs and the prequels. It certainly is the one I have scored the lowest.

The only good news? I re-watched the prior movies this week and they still hold up spectacularly. JJ may have fucked up the ending, but we can still re-visit the brilliant entertainment Lucas, Kasdan, Johnson, and even Abrams himself have previously given us.

I love this franchise and I was rooting for this movie, even under the near impossible expectations placed upon it. I did not imagine that anyone could screw up the ending so massively.

Nothing makes me sadder than to write this post.

When it comes to “Star Wars,” being a fan comes first and a film critic comes second. I was four years old when I saw the original, and I’ve been a huge devotee of all things in the galaxy for forty plus years. This isn’t a review written by a disgruntled fan, as I have grown to love Rey, Poe, and BB-8 almost as much as Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and R2-D2. But when a movie is so careless with its beloved characters both past and present, it’s something that can’t be ignored.

The Skywalker saga comes to its disappointing end in this (supposedly) final chapter. The recycled story is basic and mostly predictable, as the surviving Resistance rallies together to face the First Order for one final battle. So much is shoved into this movie that it feels like a pressure cooker that’s being forced to tell a too-rushed story. It becomes frustrating early on.

I realize “Star Wars” is a touchy subject and fans will always be debating the films until the end of time, but “The Rise of Skywalker” is one of the more mediocre entries in the series. From the reveal of Rey’s (Daisy Ridley) origins to the head-scratching actions of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) to the disappointing conclusions for Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), Finn (John Boyega), and Poe’s (Oscar Isaac) stories, this thing stinks to high heaven. Almost everyone does things that are totally out of character, events happen that make absolutely no sense within the Lucas-created universe, it seems like more questions are raised than are answered, and new rules of what the Jedi can and can’t do seem to be made up on the fly because they make for convenient story arcs.

I’m not usually a literal filmgoer but this movie is so poorly plotted that its myriad problems are too abundant to ignore. Since this is a spoiler-free review I can’t divulge them here, but those who’ve seen the film will be able to name at least half of the dozen or so massive problems within seconds.

Particularly shameful is the inexcusable way Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), who was a major character in “The Last Jedi,” is discarded like trash and relegated to a very minor background role in this film. Perhaps a defense could be constructed that she didn’t quite fit into this part of the journey, but I say hogwash. This is absolutely a decision that feels like it was done to appease angry internet fanboys who screamed and howled about Tran and her character behind the anonymity of their keyboards. Kowtowing to bullies is a colossal setback to the very themes that root the “Star Wars” franchise.

Further aggravating to life-long fans is the sparse emotional connection that stems from the film’s many fakeouts. There are zero consequences to the movie’s most shocking moments. It’s a crappy thing to do because it assures a near-complete loss of trust from your audience. For every gasp-inducing jolt and hold-for-tears touching moment, a sense of betrayal almost always follows.

Even worse is the quality of the filmmaking. This movie is so poorly shot it’s shocking, and director J.J. Abrams, who did a terrific job with “The Force Awakens,” is again in the driver’s seat. Only this time instead of keeping an unflappable composure behind the wheel, he’s swerving in and out of traffic at such a high speed that he spins out of control and careens off the nearest cliff.

“Rise of the Skywalker” is broadly entertaining, but it’s not a good movie. It’s the year’s biggest letdown.

Well.. this was dull.

Let me give you a little context to understand better how I felt during this movie. Firstly: I'm NOT a big Star Wars fan. I like the movies and see them as a "good" franchise, but I wouldn't put any of them on my personal top lists.

I enjoy the art of the franchise way more than the story. I LOVE the music, the design of ships and the visual world building. I like some aspects of the overall story more than others of course, but none really come to mind when I think of what I like about the movies in general.

That being said, I felt "The Force Awakens" was really boring. Just a generic movie trying to do "the Star Wars things". It was fine but not in any way memorable to me.

"The Last Jedi" on the other hand really tried ignoring the big "Star Wars cult" and therefore entertained me the most of all the 9 movies. I prefered the focus on using the "Star Wars" world to tell a story rather then to tell another "Star Wars"-version.

"The Rise of Skywalker" now is at best as boring as "The Force Awakens" and very often a big punch in the face to everything I liked about "The Last Jedi". Obviously the higher ups at Disney decided to take notes on everything "the fans" disliked about the 8th movie and do some sort of "damage control" according to that feedback.

The movie hast way too much going on for reasons which are often non-existant or just plainly bad. Since the movie couldn't grab my focus I just happened to think more about the big plotholes and started nitpicking and sometimes even mocking the movie for certain decisions which I don't want to spoil here.

It's really a shame. I hope Disney will use the name in the future to do standalone movies of different genres, for example a racing movie in space would be great or a good action flick with one or two of the beloved characters.

If I had to give it a rating I would probably give the movie a 4-6/10. I only REALLY enjoyed one scene because I hoped for it to happen most of the movie, but that didn't save the rest.