Star Wars: Episode IX-The Rise of Skywalker

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a disastrous, soulless squandering of the good will built up by The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Director J.J. Abrams and producer Kathleen Kennedy should’ve stepped back after producing this rancid turd and realized that this franchise deserved a better sendoff. They should’ve eaten the dollars and started over. Fans would’ve waited for a real movie. Sadly, the money has got to get made, so here it is, the last chapter in the Skywalker Saga on time for holiday moviegoing, a chapter that had me longing for The Star Wars Holiday Special. How is this bad? Let me give you some thoughts as the anger flows through me like the Dark Side of the Force. The first hour is virtually unwatchable, fast and furious but with no editing flow and no sense of purpose other than to simply get you to the next part. Fans going in looking for answers or meaningful storytelling will not only be bewildered, but blindingly pissed off. It’s pretty clear that Abrams and friends had no real plans when they laid out this latest trilogy. They are making this crap up as they go along. Force Awakens, also directed by Abrams, was a promising start. Heck, I’ll call it a classic. Then, The Last Jedi happened, with Rian Johnson getting permission to go off the reservation with his storytelling, and he most certainly did. Some of the plot choices in Jedi were odd, but at least that movie was a decent film that felt like a Star Wars movie, peppered with some laughably bad moments. The Rise of Skywalker is a laughably bad movie peppered with the occasional moments that don’t suck as much as the rest of them.