Star Wars: L'Ascension de Skywalker

... which is that there was no overarching story to this trilogy planned.

Say what you will about the prequels -years later they aren't considered secretly great or misunderstood. But they did one thing right. They expanded the universe of Star Wars with more world building and more lore, some good, some bad. The prequel story, while stilted, was the product of a single vision. In the end you had bad execution with good building blocks.

The Sequel Trilogy doesn't expand anything, instead it makes everything smaller. Star Wars has never felt so small and tired as it does after The Rise of Skywalker. Each movie exists just to tear down and apologize for what came before it. Anakin/Vader's entire character arc is completely and unforgivably undermined after this film.

Overall the movie was so bloated and overstuffed with choppy pacing to course-correct from The Last Jedi. It's Flanderization in action. The original movies had so many little touches and so much atmosphere and craftsmanship beyond a few big reveals, neat action set pieces, and bizarre coincidences with the same ten people running into one another over and over. The original films built iconic imagery and characters in the context of them doing things and bonding and building. This was not always perfectly done, but it was done well enough to feel meaningful.

You can't just write a movie with the assumption you already have all of those things and skip the work it takes to get them. You can trick people for awhile by using the familiar imagery and beats and deconstructing the world with meta-humor (Abrams did that well for The Force Awakens if nothing else), but you just cash in that goodwill and cheapen all of that stuff by association.

Oh well, the big action movies these days are indeed made for children and China - I can't remember who recently said that, but it's true.

I went to see this new Star Wars movie tonight--a few weeks after it opened to tepid reviews. Well, after seeing it I can understand some of the lack of enthusiasm for "The Rise of Skywalker", as it suffers from a HUGE problem...I felt pretty much indifferent to it. I would have preferred it if the movie has really sucked...then I would have had fun laughing at it.

I won't recount the plot here...mostly because the film was non-stop and most plot elements lasted mere minutes. The folks went from one deadly fight to another to another to another...and much of the first portion of the film turned out to be unnecessary.

I am NOT a 'Comicbook Guy' who complains that the film isn't true to the original three or other such nonsense. I have gone to all the films and enjoyed them (with the exception of "Episode 3"...but few enjoyed that movie)...and I really enjoyed some of the more recent ones. But I disliked much of "Episode IX" because it seems like J.J. Abrams is trying to undo so much of what Rian Johnson did in "Episode VIII". Sad...but I liked "Episode VIII". Instead of relationships and characters, "Episode IX" is pretty much only about explosions, near misses and more explosions....as well as long dead characters suddenly coming back to life for no good reason.

All in all, a joyless mass of explosions and a film I should have just skipped. The theater also was showing "Knives Out" (By Johnson) and that film was FUN. "Star Wars: Episode IX" is simply un-fun.

Unfortunately, this movie somehow reflects the way society's been going on for the last 15-20 years - the ever growing trivilialization, consumerism and regurgitation of works of genius from past generations who paid blood, sweat and tears for their works to be seen, heard and fealt - all of this now to get a quick buck at the local mall. Shameful...shameful...

Star Wars: Episode IX is, at times, a decent thrill ride, and it provides us with some satisfying moments, but it fails to tell a compelling story. It feels empty. It rushes through a corporate checklist of must-have moments at a chaotic pace. It manages to thrill with epic space battles, but it lacks a soul. There's no creative vision here, no story to tell. The pressure that comes with making a Star Wars movie seems to have shackled the creators, preventing them from doing anything interesting with the film. It's a shame. The Star Wars universe is one of the greatest fictional universes ever created. It should provide fertile ground for many new and interesting stories. If I were Disney I would take a serious look at the creative process for these films. They could probably learn a thing or two from Marvel Studios.

Where the Mandalorian feels like somebody taking their own beloved Star Wars fantasy and putting it on screen, this feels like a marketing product. While the direction is enjoyable, the actors are doing a great job, the writing and the story is just checking boxes.

Retcon what the fans hated in the last movie? Done. Callbacks to the originals? Done. Cute new animals and droid for toys to sell? Done. New stormtrooper looks for game skins? Done. Are we blowing up random planets? Sure...

Best to get your SW fix from the expanded universe stuff. Pehaps where the company didn't spend a billion dollars on marketing, there's still room for a kid to look over the setting alien suns of his planet and dream of something more.