Did I like the movie? It was fine.
It wasn't Endgame or the Dark Night Returns. Then again who could have expected that it would be?
Abrahms is a not a risk taker; he is a big tent guy. After the Solo "failure" and all the flack from The Last Jedi, Disney wasn't about to go bold either.
So, we end up with a movie that ignores its predecessor and sidelines one of its major characters. It provides the desperately needed redemption arc and the Reylo kiss. It is large on set pieces and action, but short on character.
At least for Rise of Skywalker, Abrahms didn't just try to remake Return of the Jedi.
I actually thought that have Palps be the true big bad was a pretty great way to tie everything together. I even thought that making Rey his granddaughter made a lot of sense thematically.
It makes more sense that a child of darkness can bring balance by embracing the light, then that a boy scout could do it by redeeming his corrupted father.
Rey chooses her own path in a way that none of the Skywalker ever could. Anikan was naive, afraid, and hungry - a slave boy who knew little but fear and poverty until he became powerful. Luke was just naive - a farm boy who didn't believe that people could truly be evil. Poor Ben never had a chance; he was trapped in the shadow of his grandfather and his uncle with all the privilege and expectations that came along with that legacy.
Like Anikan Rey knows poverty, but unlike Anikan she knows freedom. Like Luke she believes that people are good, but unlike Luke she knows that they are also cruel. Unlike poor Ben, she grows up a nobody, but unlike Kylo is a true heir to great power.
Unlike any of the Skywalkers, she finds her own path. Luke and Lea offer her some training, but most of what she knows of the Force she learns from studying of the ancient texts. She has no story to follow and must forge her own.
Sadly, her story, much like Anikan's in the Prequels, deserves a better telling.
Rise of the Skywalker is a fine spectacle and worth the price of admission. It ties a bow on one big bad while leaving open the possibility of sequels.
The Galaxy far, far away is still a mess. Rey's story is not resolved.
Maybe in five years, Disney will get some auteur to restart the story.
