The Fall of Skywalker (Click Bait Title 😂)

What can I say about the new Star Wars? Is it a stinker? Not necessarily. Is it great? Not really. It’s sort of right down the middle which actually can be more frustrating than the other  presented examples. “In the middle” movies tend to come with indecision, mixed emotions from those watching, loose ends, & an all around inconsistent tone. This basically describes “The Rise of Skywalker.”

When “The Force Awakens” came out in December 2015 there seemed to be so much promise for the future of the Star Wars franchise in Disney’s hands. New exciting characters, some possible intriguing back stories, & just humongous possibilities for the seemingly endless sci-fi universe. Then came “The Last Jedi” & Star Wars fans were split. Some people fully supported the movie & called it one of the best Star Wars movies of all time, while others actually signed a petition to revoke it from the official Star Wars canon. A 50/50 response but even with all of that drama the movie still gets my respect. 

Now I must admit I was a bit disappointed when I saw that one in theaters (partly because I accidentally reserved seats for my siblings & I in the kids’ theater & we had yelling & screaming to deal with over the sounds of ray guns 😂). Anyway that particular movie took a risk & any movie that takes a risk (especially one that is a part of a multi billion worth franchise) deserves my praise & an automatic gold star for its creativity. But what came with that movie were so many unanswered questions. 

Who were Rey’s parents? Who the heck was Finn? Why didn’t Laura Dern’s character just tell Oscar Isaac’s character her plan all along so he didn’t feel that he had to resort to mutiny? Star Wars 7 “The Force Awakens” brought questions & when you bring questions you expect answers...but Star Wars 8 “The Last Jedi” only brought more questions like what was the whole point of the character Snoke in the story arc of the entire new trilogy?

Finally we arrived tonight to the movie theaters to see the conclusive episode 8. Expectations were low including my sister who read the lukewarm reviews & said if you expect only the worst, things can only go up from there. She was right but is that something you really want to be right about?

Then we watched it & you begin to notice: The pacing was off, the dialogue was big franchise C minus-ish just rewatch Poe’s & Finn’s big speech before they fight the empire one last time & you’ll be wishing you were watching the president’s speech from Independence Day instead (give me one memorable line from the entire movie I dare you!) We jump from one planet to the next with no risk of danger for any of the characters. I thought I was wrong when supposedly Chewbacca died but they couldn’t even bear to do that although that would’ve been an unsatisfying death of the major character anyways so I guess we can’t have it both ways. 

Then the ending, that sucky as heck ending 😂 Palpatine sucks the life out of Rey & Kylo Ren (or should I say Ben at this point) & Rey gets back up after hearing old Jedi’s voices in her head & then uses two lightsabers to bounce back Palpatine’s lightning that apparently was powerful enough to malfunction hundreds of rebel ships at once but not two lightsabers? Bull. Back to not taking risks with the story, I don’t think not one of those ships crashed that Palpatine electrocuted, were the rebels ever REALLY in any real danger at all for the entire movie? 

& then the kiss between Ben & Rey. The response in the theater was so uncomfortable from “what the heck’s?” to “that was weird” to some chuckles under the audience’s breath. I don’t even know where to start with this, my only question is why? (If someone has an answer seriously please let me know) & then after that Ben is gone & never seen again for the entirety of the movie not even as a blue hologram (not the official term I know) like Luke & Leia when they show up one last time at the end of the movie. Wouldn’t it have been beneficial to the story to see him at least reunited with his parents in the force? Maybe it’ll show up in an uncut version of the movie sometime in the future but who truly knows?

Overall I guess my main concern is that if episode 7 established a new & attractive story with a wide variety of characters, episode 8 took a complete left turn (not down the middle, completely in a different direction), I guess there truly was no way for JJ Abrams (the man hired to salvage this mess) to win with this one. If you go completely left again with the new film you frustrate the same fans who were unsatisfied with episode 8, if you play it down the middle you take zero risk in your storytelling & take out all of the wonder & excitement out of the movie (which is the option they ended up going with) & lastly if you go completely to the right you only end up creating more loose ends & the last thing you want to do is to conclude 2 Star Wars movies full of questions with another Star Wars movie full of questions. 

A curve ball was thrown, the ball was hit, things looked promising at first, secondly uncertain, & in conclusion when the game had a medium sized chance of being won, the runner never completely made it home. At least that’s in my opinion. Peace ✌️