Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, and Joonas Suotamo in Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (Photo: Lucasfilm/Lucasfilm Ltd.)

By Ryan Simmons

42 years later

REVIEW: Star Wars Skywalker saga comes to an end

Dec 22, 2019 | 11:12 AM

The fans and the critics are totally divided on Rise of Skywalker. The critics seem to think it’s a bit of a mediocre fizzle of an ending for one of the greatest franchises of all time. The fans, so far, seem to be responding to it as satisfying fan service that rights many of the wrongs of The Last Jedi.

I’m not exactly a movie critic, no one would accuse me of being professional at this, but I do write these reviews for rdnewsNOW occasionally and I do like to breakdown movies on Drive Mornings. So I kind of consider myself a bit in between a critic and a fan and I was a bit curious to see which side I would come down on.

I hate to say it but, even with my best efforts to just be a chill Star Wars fan, I simply didn’t find the finale of the Skywalker Saga the least bit satisfying.

I don’t know if I’m just missing something, or maybe I’m just too bitter to let the many fan service moments mute out the pointlessness of the story, but I just do not understand why it all happened.

It’s utterly baffling to me that Disney would take on a franchise like Star Wars one movie at a time, rather than having a grand plan for the trilogy in place. It’s very obvious JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson did not share a vision for this franchise and Abrams was left piecing scraps of story and Carrie Fisher footage together in an effort to salvage things. The best he could do was to put the story back where he found it, basically.

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Go into Rise of Skywalker with the end of the original trilogy in your mind; the last of the Jedi destroying the last of the Sith by refusing to be turned to the dark side, all while the plucky, outgunned Rebellion wins in a last ditch attack against the Emperor’s forces; and you might understand my disappointment.

The closest I’ll come to spoiler territory is by saying that 4 of the 9 Skywalker Saga movies end with pretty much the exact same space battle. They couldn’t have rehashed things more.

In the end, I can’t help but feel we just watched Disney spend billions to bring Star Wars back from the dead, just to drive everyone in a big, inconsequential circle around the galaxy.

They sure made a lot of money doing it, though.