Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker- A Disappointing Finale Filled with Missed Opportunities
The Rise of Skywalker abandons all the bold choices of The Last Jedi. Not only that, but the film takes them in actively worse directions. Palpatine is back, which the film doesn't explain, and is now the big bad pulling the strings of everything. Kylo Ren is no longer attempting to detach himself from the light or dark side and now acts as essentially Palpatine's puppet until the film has him haphazardly redeem himself in the third act. Rey is no longer a scavenger from nowhere searching for purpose in this conflict. She's now related to Palpatine, which the film only vaguely explains, and removes this sense that she was a nobody on a quest to find purpose, making Rey a far less compelling character. Finn, one of the most compelling characters of this trilogy, gets shafted for most of the runtime, relegated to mostly staying by Rey's side and shouting her name. Then, in the film's second half, the film teams him up with a character who is practically a female version of him, abandoning his romance with Rose in The Last Jedi. Other characters, like Poe, receive plotlines that don't go anywhere or feel substantial in the slightest.
The film makes choices I'm not too fond of. But what makes it all worse is that any compelling choices the film does make, it either doesn't commit to or feels poorly executed. Chewie seemingly dies, only for the film to reveal he was on another ship we never see. C-3P0 sacrifices himself by wiping his memory, only for R2-D2 to reverse it a few scenes later. All these choices make Rise of Skywalker feel like a film too self-conscious to displease anybody, as The Last Jedi did, and so takes the easy path for many of its storytelling choices and reveals and chooses not to commit fully to anything that, even at the slightest possibility, might divide or displease the fans.
But beyond its poor storytelling choices, the film is incredibly dull. Most of the runtime seems completely directionless. Our characters go searching for a MacGuffin, find it, and go to another place to translate it all so that they can find another MacGuffin. This pacing style meant to make the film have an adventurous feel similar to the previous Star Wars movies, only serves to clunk up the runtime and make much of the film's first and second acts feel overlong and dull.
It all makes The Rise of Skywalker, at least to me, as uneventful of a finale as you can get. Its story is incredibly dull for much of its runtime, making none any of the occasionally fun set pieces to stand out. On top of that, it's a film too self-conscious to take the franchise in any compelling directions and so chooses to commit only to the laziest choices it goes with. Many may argue about The Last Jedi endlessly, but I hope that most can agree that this film wasn't the way to follow it up and conclude the trilogy.
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