Hello it’s me, The Blog Complainer. Did you hear about that new Star Wars movie that came out today? It’s the last one and it’s going to wrap up The Skywalker Saga with a nice little bow. I decided to see it today and it went down exactly how I thought it would.

If you’ve seen the trailer for Rise of Skywalker, then congrats, you already know what’s going to happen. There is nothing new or innovative and whatever surprises they do throw in just feel like the writers were purposefully trying to subvert fans expectations, much worse than The Last Jedi did. “Hah-Hah! Didn’t see that coming! We filled your Christmas crackers with fruit instead of sweets!”

Probably the worst aspect of this movie is how they try to rectify the mess-ups they made in The Last Jedi. I won’t mention all of them as I want to keep this spoiler-free despite how much they peeved me off. Rose, the worst character in The Last Jedi, plays a much smaller role in this movie. Whilst I’m not complaining, I find it quite hilarious that she’s basically the Jar Jar Binks of this trilogy. The talk of a brand new Resistance is completely forgotten about and it’s just The Resistance at the end of their rope again and The First Order, with the help of Palpatine, still dominating the galaxy.

Rey and Kylo Ren’s complex dynamic from the last film is simplified to Rey being a saint and Kylo Ren being evil with the potential to become good. Do you see where I’m getting at when I knew what was going to happen? This new movie made me appreciate Last Jedi better because at least it was willing to go in an interesting direction and experiment with new concepts. Rise of Skywalker ditches all of that because playing safe sells the best and those nostalgia hungry idiots will eat it up.

I don’t really have a favourite character as each film in this trilogy makes them slightly worse. I guess it was cool to see Billy Dee Williams again, but why is he here? The new characters we meet were as fascinating as the new ones from Frozen II. Finn is once again just along for the ride and it’s clear they really had no idea what to do with him. Carrie Fisher’s brief posthumous appearance was okay and Poe wasn’t too bad either.

Kylo Ren was the most disappointing character for me as The Last Jedi teased he would be the main villain of this trilogy, but he is completely sidelined just so he could obsess over Rey and be replaced by zombie Palpatine. It’s cool to see Ian McDiarmid as the character again, but the way they inserted him into this trilogy felt forced and unnecessary.

I’m over being negative as this isn’t an awful film. Like the other new Star Wars films the cinematography is amazing and the special effects ranged from amazing to completely fake. Hearing John Williams’ score is always a plus in my books. J. J. Abrams’ signature fast pace kept the movie from been a drag. There aren’t any bad performances and I guess the characters I disliked the least were the droids. C-3PO and the other droids offered some comedic relief.  I didn’t feel it was needed, but whatever, it’s fine. Since this is the final film (for now at least) there are lots of throwbacks to other things in the franchise. It made the film feel a lot more cheesy, especially towards the end, but it’s about what I expected.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the exact movie I expected and no more. This is the worst movie in this trilogy as it’s the one that trashes on the franchise the most. I have a good idea how it compares to the other films and I’ll leave a link to a ranking list on Letterboxd. Anyway, the final verdict is a 5½/10. I don’t feel much of an incentive to see it again, unlike the last two films. The only thing to look forward to is the next few weeks of Star Wars fans reacting to this film.

I’m going to try to wrap up that Prequel rewrite so I can get to the Sequel Trilogy and how I would perfect it. If you made it this far, thanks for reading my spoiler-free rant on Star Wars Episode IX and I have been The Blog Complainer, signing out.