Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
The final film of of the saga. The rebellion takes on the First Order for the last time, and Rey faces the Sith. Loads of spoilers.
Retcon1:
[…] a literary device in which established diegetic ‘facts’ in the plot of a fictional work are adjusted, ignored, or contradicted by a subsequently published work which breaks continuity with the former.
This is the ninth and final chapter of a series that has been running since 1977, and they decide to spend their time rectifying the ‘wrongs’ of the last film. This includes: digging up even more characters from the grave (both real and fictional), undoing interesting character development, pointlessly calling stuff back from the early films and yes, setting up a new line of toy sales.
There are a few key moments that work, most of which involve Adam Driver who carries this franchise. These moments are whisked away from us before any of them can sink in. There are no ‘scenes’ in the normal sense of the word, just snippets of expensive video loosely connected to one another. It’s like a really long trailer.
It smacks of desperation and last minute thinking. Rey is not linked to anyone? Don’t worry kids, it was a lie, she’s a Palpatine now! What’s that you say, it doesn’t make any sense? Who cares, look over here, Chewbacca is dead! Wait no he isn’t! You didn’t like that either? Look over here, C-3PO is dead! Just kidding! Shush now and look kids, it’s Lando!
The Rise of Skywalker is a convoluted mess lacking any focus or story beyond “we need this object now, let’s go and get it. Oh no, bad guys, pew pew pew.” A sorry end to Star Wars.