Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Non-Spoiler Movie Review

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is said to be the final chapter in the Skywalker saga, so I don’t mind telling you I was a little nervous going in. I wasn’t sure it would be able to do justice to a story that began 4 decades ago and that had such a huge impact on my life and many other fans out there. After all, while there were things I liked about both Force Awakens and Last Jedi, there were also things I didn’t like. Neither movie seemed to really recreate the magic that captured the imaginations of so many with the original trilogy. Suffice to say there was a lot of pressure on this movie to fix the missteps of the last two and deliver an ending fit for a franchise such as this.

The Rise of Skywalker seems to pick up not too long after the events of Last Jedi. Rey is continuing her training under the tutelage of General Leia, Kylo Ren continues his quest for power, and a new threat from the distant past makes itself known.

One of my biggest fears was whether the movie would be able to tie up all the loose ends left hanging since Return of the Jedi - and still have time to properly conclude the current storyline. While I won’t say every single question I’ve had since Force Awakens premiered was answered, I do think this movie does an adequate job of tying up most of the loose ends. It also does a pretty decent job fixing problems many fans had with aspects of Last Jedi. Now there might be a few small things in the movie when you really start to think about it, seem kind of odd. Like why go out on foot to blow something up when it seems like you could just blow it up from your ship? Things that were obviously done to further the story but don’t necessarily make sense from a practical standpoint. I think you can find things like that in every single Star Wars movie if you really start to nitpick, but I found it minimal here and certainly nothing I would say that takes away from the overall enjoyment of the story.

Another concern I had for this movie was how it would handle the character of Leia Organa, since actress Carrier Fisher unexpectedly passed away at the end of filming for the last movie. It was important to me that the character not be marginalized with just a brief cameo, but I wasn’t really interested in seeing a CGI Princess Leia either. I am happy to say that Leia still played a significant part in the movie and her performance/presentation was almost flawless. I am not entirely sure how they did it but am very happy with the end result.

While I always felt the third movie was the weakest of the original trilogy, I have to say I found the opposite to be true with this trilogy. I definitely felt this third film was the best of the three and did justice for all the characters involved both young and old. I even had a much greater appreciation for Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac) who was my least favorite new character of the main three in the previous two movies. I don’t know if there is any way to fully recapture the magic of the original three movies and with the mixed reactions felt by much of fandom for Force Awakens and Last Jedi, I don’t know how this overall trilogy will be viewed by fans in years to come. In the here and now, I will say I am very satisfied with this movie and along with the Disney+ Mandalorian series, for the future of Star Wars as a whole.

Grade: A-