Fan-Lit: The Rise of Skywalker Movie Review

Star Wars-Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker

Even though I'm not the biggest fan of the Star Wars movies, I do enjoy watching them. My favorite being The Empire Strikes Back and I really liked The Force Awakens. Unfortunately The Last Jedi was a let down, so I was unsure of how I would react to The Rise of Skywalker. But I went in with an open mind, and surprisingly I really enjoyed this movie. Not the best of Star Wars but I don't think it's the worst either.

I know there are a lot of people that don't like this movie, and yes, it does have problems and plot holes that don't make sense. The return of the Emperor and Rey being his granddaughter doesn't make much sense, but it also doesn't bother me. What I like about this movie is the adventure, going from planet to planet and meeting new characters. I love Babu Frik! So cute and hilarious a much needed source of humor for the movie. I also liked Keri Russel's Zorri character, and I really liked the new Jannah character, and how she works well with Finn.

With the unfortunate passing of Carrie Fisher, it was going to be tricky anyway they chose to handle Leia. Personally, I think it's fine in the movie, reusing old footage, but it doesn't allow for the character to have any personal arc. That said, it's great seeing Carrie Fisher here in the last of the Skywalker saga movies. The surprise appearance of Han Solo was also welcomed by me.

Now the choice to redeem Kylo Ren I thought was rushed, I don't mind redeeming him especially since he died. But I don't feel his motivations for turning to the light side when he starts out the movie very deep in the dark side of the force. If maybe he was told Anakin's story of how he turned to the light and defeated the emperor (since Vader was his hero) that could have given him the last push that he needed since he was clearly conflicted throughout the whole new trilogy.

As for the other characters, I really enjoyed what they did with Finn and Poe in this movie, since I didn't really care for them in the other movies, and hated what they did with them in The Last Jedi. I liked giving Poe more back story and his relationship with Zorri, I really loved Finn and Jannah's connection and I liked what they did with C3PO. Speaking of the droids, I don't like how these new movies have sidelined R2D2 in favor of the adorable BB8, but we get a new droid in this movie Dio, who is kind of annoying and mostly useless. I wish we would have got more R2D2 but the good C3PO story works I guess.

As for Rey, the main character of the new trilogy, I feel like this movie skipped a few chapters in her character development. I also don't care for her relationship with Kylo Rey. I do like where Rey's character ends up at the end of the film. Overall, I think this new trilogy did a bad job at setting up the new characters and giving the old characters a satisfying ending. While I did enjoy this movie and would watch it over some other Star Wars movies. There's a lot great scenes in this that I liked and I walked out of the threatre having had a good time. So, yes there's problems with this movie, but it doesn't stop me from enjoying the movie.

CW Arrow/Flash Crossover podcast leading up to Crisis on Infinite Earths

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