Another reminder of SPOILERS below...
I found The Rise of Skywalker highly entertaining. I walked out of the theater very satisfied. It wasn't perfect, I have my quibbles, but overall I thought it was a fitting way to end the Disney trilogy of Star Wars films. It was obviously a massive attempt at course correction. Throughout the movie there are pretty blatant signs of JJ Abrams distancing himself from the disastrous Last Jedi. The example I like most is when Rey attempts to throw Luke's (and Anakin's) old light saber into a burning TIE fighter. Luke, as a force ghost, catches the light saber and says "A Jedi's weapon deserves more respect." This was an obvious paean to Star Wars fans who felt disrespected by Luke's casual flinging away of that same light saber at the beginning of The Last Jedi. There are other little digs at TLJ throughout the movie. Each one gave me great satisfaction.
Some critics have dismissed such moves as mere fan service. That type of criticism is elitist and insulting. Who else should Star Wars be made but for the fans who have supported it for over 40 years? Be creative, subvert expectations all you want, but what's wrong with throwing in a Lando or Wedge here or there? "Fan service" is an artificial term created by non-Star Wars fans to insult those the movies are made for.
One issue mentioned a lot is that the movie seems to pack a lot of narrative action in just two and half hours. Again, it's pretty obvious that Abrams had some vision of where he wanted this to go in TFA but found that vision destroyed in TLJ. He had to reroute some ideas and it's like he was burdened with cramming two Star Wars movies into one. The pace would have been considerably different if The Last Jedi had not gone off the rails.
So yeah, I liked The Rise of Skywalker but...let's take a look at this whole thing from 30,000 feet.
First of all, I'm amazed that Disney seemed to fly by the seat of their pants on these three movies. Allowing different directors to create their own visions created an inconsistency that will dilute this canon forever. You would think that Disney, possessing a property as financially valuable and culturally influential as Star Wars, would take greater care in having an overall plan for the three movies. But storylines were created and then abandoned at will. It's sloppy planning and it shows. That's what ticked off SW fans the most about TLJ, stories were started and then haphazardly thrown away. Movie goers often complain about studio influence in the creation of movies. But in this case, more studio influence may have been welcome.
My final question regarding these three movies, now that the saga is complete, is were they really necessary? Nothing strikingly new was offered. An orphaned teenager on a desert planet discovers a connection to a mysterious life force that connects them to a larger universe. They shockingly discover they are related to one of the great evil figures in the galaxy and must confront them in order to save democracy. On the way, they confront a mysterious man, dressed in black, wearing a mask and carrying a red laser sword. They join up with a pack of fast talking friends and robots and go on various adventures including destroying a planet-killing space station (and then planet-killing Star Destroyers).
The over arching narrative is merely a copy of the original trilogy. The only thing this new trilogy accomplished was marketing even more merchandise for Disney and perhaps rekindling interest in various Star Wars spin-off projects.
I hate to be that cynical of the overall project. I truly did enjoy The Rise of Skywalker. I liked much of The Force Awakens. Even the The Last Jedi had some nice bits here and there. But I can't help to think this was an opportunity lost. How much fun would it have been to see Luke, Leia and Han (and Chewie, R2, Threepio) all together again...at least for a little bit. The original characters could have easily been integrated with the introduction of new characters. Greater cohesion and planning could have made this work. But, we're all experts aren't we? I think JJ pulled off a near miracle in wrapping this up the way he did.
