The Rise of Skywalker: Forced and Written by Reddit
The ninth film of the Star Wars trilogy is purely driven by nostalgia during its entire run time. The first half isn't good and the second half isn't bad. The film isn't set out to cause an uproar from audience members like its predecessor but instead provide comfort and nurturing to its fans. Throughout the movie and after I left the theater with confidence that everything in this plot was bullet points in an email to J.J. Abrams or the director went on Reddit himself to figure out what the film should be about. The film feels formulaic and predictable with major plot points that don't make sense or follow anything from the last two movies. It completely tries to erase anything that happened in The Last Jedi to reward toxic fans for their harassment and explosion of hate towards a film that tried to bring something new to the franchise.
In the opening shot, audiences learn that Emperor Palpatine has risen from the dead after dying 20 YEARS AGO and is calling attacks on the rebels. Kylo Ren is tracking down the late emperor to kill him. Palpatine wants Kylo to "kill the girl" who is assumed to be Rey. Kylo Ren as a character is completely useless in this fil. If Adam Driver knew where is character was heading years ago he probably wouldn't have signed on to this project. Kylo Ren has no depth other than his parents are Leia and Han Solo. The audience never knows what his motivations are other than he wants to be like his grandfather. For a villain, he is underdeveloped and weak.
Rey and her friends Poe and Finn are determined to find the emperor and kill him because that is a common plot in this entire series. The film also explores the ancestry of Rey's parentage since many people were unhappy with the reveal two years ago.
The plot continues to develop through coincidences as the characters stumble into clues that lead them to what they are looking for. The heroes are searching for a tracking device that will lead them to the emperor. They randomly stumble upon a dagger with the directions when they fall through quicksand into a cave. Later in the movie, they come to the ruins of the Death Star (nostalgia) they discover another clue by looking at the right angle of the destruction.
Abrams appears to like putting meaningless action scenes to bring thrill and excitement to audience members. These fight and chase scenes seem to have no consequences on any of the main characters. Stormtroopers seem to have developed the skill of flight during the break between movies when they attack the rebels and don't succeed in whatever their plan was. They are the most incompetent fighters with armor that doesn't save them from minor threats like arrows. Their scare factor has diminished over the eleven movies they have appeared in. Lastly, Rey's powers seem absurd in this chapter as now she can blow up ships.
As introduced in The Last Jedi, Rey and Kylo Ren still have their mind power where they can communicate with one another. They finally meet up on the same planet and battle it out on the remains of the Death Star. The sudden romantic relationship between the two is questionable as this is a man who has mentally abused Rey for the last two movies and suddenly they have developed a bond where she is happy to be in the arms of her captor. It seems like a backward step for her character development. All the decisions made around Rey's character put her in the position of being powerful because of the men around her. She couldn't be a nobody with a strong power it had to come from somewhere especially a male character. It completely ruins Rey's story. The film begins to get climatic during the final battle against the final order when the rebels show up outnumbered.
The whole film feels lazy with plot lines used from previous movies because this franchise heavily relies on nostalgia. Palpatine's return makes no sense and it is so weird that no one questions it or even reacts to this event. Abram's reduction of Rose Tico is a bad look on the director and the diversity of the franchise. Moments that wee probably suppose to feel climatic and showing felt predictable and formulaic. Palpatine explains he has been behind everything the past two movies but there are no clues or moments that allude to this at all. TROS feels like Disney's attempt to erase everything that has come out of the franchise for the last four years. TLJ managed to give audiences a shock factor and move away from the formula while TROS manages to go back to what it knows.