It was the best of its trilogy and most criticism is complete nonsense, but it still wasn’t a great movie. An anti-war deconstruction of Star Wars got made into an actual Star Wars. And that was probably fantastic at one point, but the edit we got was soured by obvious corporate meddling - like the ‘whoops, nevermind’ ending.
Three simple things would’ve saved it.
One, end the Rey / Kylo story immediately after their fight together. ‘Join me.’ Tense silence. No more Rey until the next movie.
Two, have some shellshocked nobody find the crystal fox things and save the good guys. She doesn’t need lines. She doesn’t need a name. The Force is in all living things. Anyone can be a hero.
Three, don’t hand the finale back to JJ fucking Abrams.
It’s a plot faucet. From an old discussion elsewhere:
Spreading 9 across two movies could not have helped. Sudden introduction was not the problem with a rehash of ROTJ and AOTC - quadrupling down on the Death Star lasers while also pulling a secret army out of thin air. Multiple fake-out deaths would be so much worse if they kept happening in two films. Giving people time to think about the macguffin chase could only make it sillier. They need a map in a thing from a guy who’s dead but has a knife matching ruins so it’s a map to the thing and they don’t even get it. But somehow they manage to fly through a rehash of the clouds from Solo, to where a zillion ships rely on one radio tower, and their brilliant plan for a wild-west shootout atop a spaceship - with horses! - completely fails until two zillion ships fly in to help. They just fly in. Through the secret cloud maze. Which is so un-navigable that it’s the only thing keeping the bad guys in, because spaceships can’t look up.
It was the best of its trilogy and most criticism is complete nonsense, but it still wasn’t a great movie. An anti-war deconstruction of Star Wars got made into an actual Star Wars. And that was probably fantastic at one point, but the edit we got was soured by obvious corporate meddling - like the ‘whoops, nevermind’ ending.
Three simple things would’ve saved it.
One, end the Rey / Kylo story immediately after their fight together. ‘Join me.’ Tense silence. No more Rey until the next movie.
Two, have some shellshocked nobody find the crystal fox things and save the good guys. She doesn’t need lines. She doesn’t need a name. The Force is in all living things. Anyone can be a hero.
Three, don’t hand the finale back to JJ fucking Abrams.
rise of skywalker fucked up everything. they tried to appease the fans and it failed big time
It’s a plot faucet. From an old discussion elsewhere: