It's hard to talk about Episode IX without talking about Episode XIII. You can go find my review of that movie, but I thought The Last Jedi was the best of the final trilogy. The truth is the final trilogy failed because there was never a cohesive set of story and character arcs to include across the movies. Would The Rise of Skywalker have been better had there been a plan? We will never know.
I found the story laughable. The entire Indiana Jones style quest of following all of these clues is just groan-inducing. None of it made sense. When the movie ends, you are left thinking, "Well, there were a lot of cool-looking battles, but what was the core story?" There is so much this film gets wrong. No spoilers, but here's a few:
1. All new Jedi powers. It's like whenever there's a problem, some super cool Jedi skill set can solve it, and we've either never heard about this power, or it was some myth that can now conveniently happen. Even Yoda couldn't do these things.
2. They introduced new characters while minimizing prominent ones from the last two films.
3. Truly lazy writing just to create some cool action scenes or present the heroes with challenges. Was anyone in the writer's room allowed to raise their hand and say, "Um, does this even make sense?"
4. So. Many. Plot holes!!!
They tried to cram so many different story and character ideas into this movie. Maybe some would have worked had they planted those seeds back in The Force Awakens. I think in their hope to please fans, they ended up creating a very sloppy and disjointed film.
In my ranking of the nine movies in the three trilogies, Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker ranks #9. Dead last. J. J. Threw everything at this movie, except for a believable script.
I found the story laughable. The entire Indiana Jones style quest of following all of these clues is just groan-inducing. None of it made sense. When the movie ends, you are left thinking, "Well, there were a lot of cool-looking battles, but what was the core story?" There is so much this film gets wrong. No spoilers, but here's a few:
1. All new Jedi powers. It's like whenever there's a problem, some super cool Jedi skill set can solve it, and we've either never heard about this power, or it was some myth that can now conveniently happen. Even Yoda couldn't do these things.
2. They introduced new characters while minimizing prominent ones from the last two films.
3. Truly lazy writing just to create some cool action scenes or present the heroes with challenges. Was anyone in the writer's room allowed to raise their hand and say, "Um, does this even make sense?"
4. So. Many. Plot holes!!!
They tried to cram so many different story and character ideas into this movie. Maybe some would have worked had they planted those seeds back in The Force Awakens. I think in their hope to please fans, they ended up creating a very sloppy and disjointed film.
In my ranking of the nine movies in the three trilogies, Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker ranks #9. Dead last. J. J. Threw everything at this movie, except for a believable script.