I went to watch The Rise of Skywalker with my Dad on Christmas Eve. I wasn’t overly excited to see the movie based on everything I had heard about it, but Dad took me to see the original trilogy when it re-released in the 90’s and to see the Prequel Trilogy as well so I wanted to see the End of the Series with him. I wasn’t as disappointed as I was expecting to be, but everything in this movie felt completely disconnected from the other two.

Spoliers ahead

I have made the statement multiple times now that it felt like this movie was disconnected from the previous movies, that may be simply because they attempted to completely reset some of the things that people didn’t like from the other movies. Fin using a lightsaber, Luke being so bitter towards the Jedi and desiring their end, Han’s death that felt so amazingly wrong and things like that. I’ll break down the parts that felt weird to me.

In case someone is reading this and isn’t familiar with abbreviations for the movie names I’ll add an explanation:

Fin

FN-2187. They basically hint that he (and another Storm Trooper that defected) is Force sensitive. Fin tells another Storm Trooper about his “Feeling” that led him to leave the First Order. Then later in the movie he “Feels” Rey die. This makes zero sense without him being Force sensitive. Which may have been the plan all along but it “Felt” more like they were trying to justify Fin picking up a lightsaber and being able to use it without chopping his own arm or head off. Granted in TFA he did have an obvious moment where he reacted to the random killing that the First Order was doing on Jakku, maybe that was supposed to be the Force calling to him and breaking him out of his programming. It would go along with the premise from TLJ that basically anyone can hear the call of the Force and learn to use it.

The problem I have with this is the same problem I have with Rey’s Force abilities. Fin has abilities that require training to use but he just “does” things. Even something as simple as “Feeling” the Force requires training unless someone is exceptionally gifted. Anakin was exceptional and that is why he appeared to have such quick reflexes. Luke was as gifted as Anakin but was intentionally prevented from realizing his talents by his Aunt and Uncle, Leia was able to feel Luke calling to her in TESB after he had intense training from Yoda.

Luke

I guess being dead changes your outlook on things. Luke spent the entire previous movie explaining how the Jedi need to end. Then suddenly in this movie he is telling Rey that if she dies the Jedi would die with her, granted I could see Luke being worried about Rey. But why the sudden worry over the Jedi ending? It shouldn’t even have been mentioned. I suppose that the writers for this movie didn’t bother to watch or read the script for TLJ…

Han's Death

Some folks were upset by Han’s death in TFA. Not so much that he died, but the way he died. They apologize by having Rey loose control and kill Chewbacca, except he wasn’t in the shuttle everyone thought he was in and he didn’t die. Han’s Force ghost (guess everyone leaves one of those now) appears to Kylo and convinces him to turn back to the light. I’m not really even sure how to approach that.

Kylo (Ben Solo)

Kylo decides to turn to the light and fight against the Emperor with Rey. Because Rey heals a LIGHTSABER wound to Kylo’s gut and then he has a Force Vision of Han’s ghost…just wanted to point that out

Rey

And now to the Star of this Trilogy, Rey Palpatine. Sorry now Rey Skywalker…because…well I don’t know why she decided that it was ok for her to carry on the legacy of Anakin, Luke, and Leia, but she did. Apparently she is so powerful with the Force because her Dad was Palpatine’s son, so she’s the granddaughter of the Emperor. Yep, that’s why she was so powerful with next to zero training.

Force powers that she was never trained to use show up again here. She suddenly has the ability to heal people by channeling part of her life into them with zero ill effects to herself. When they showed this force healing in The Mandalorian The Child was kinda tired after doing this, Rey doesn’t really blink. Now to be clear this is not unheard of in the now deleted Extended Universe. It worked a bit differently but was possible for trained Jedi to heal others as well as themselves, it took longer but was as good as Bacta. So I’m not as upset about Force Healing be overpowered, I’m upset that Rey just kinda figures out something so complex and then uses it to heal a Lightsaber wound. That is somewhat crazy since Lightsabers cauterize the wounds they leave and to heal it you would have to somehow re-grow tissue that had been completely vaporized and the ends damaged at the cellular level.

I would have liked a bit more of a training montage for Rey in this movie. Then at least we could have had a good excuse for how she was able to do the things she did, but no, we get to see Leia setting around having Rey lift rocks and run a training course using her lightsaber.

Ending the movie with Rey apparently settling down on Tatooine seemed a bit odd to me, but I suppose it felt like home on Jakku.

Overall

If this movie had been set in a different universe, it really would have been a decent story. But set in the Star Wars universe it felt very sloppy and unfocused. I’m hoping that Disney will be able to move forward with Star Wars and learn from their mistakes. More things like the Mandalorian would be nice. Things like the Thrawn series of books are great too, so they aren’t dropping the ball on everything. But if they do much more like TRoS I’m not sure the Star Wars Franchise will continue as my kids grow up.