'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker' (2019)

I may be the last person to actually watch 'The Rise of Skywalker' but I finally did it. I've yet to watch a 'Star Wars' film that I haven't enjoyed (even 'Solo' wasn't that bad) but while 'The Last Jedi' wasn't as bad as people made out (what was so bad about Rose Tico?), I just didn't enjoy it enough to want to be first in line to see 'Rise of Skywalker' or anything like that. I knew I'd pick up the DVD at some point so was cool to wait for a bit longer before seeing it.

And now here I am, having held off from posting anything until now so I could get my head straight around how I feel about it. It's a tough one so apologies in advance for any rambling that may occur. There may well be some spoilers as well... I'm working on the assumption that everyone else has seen 'The Rise of Skywalker', by now, so be warned.

Seriously though, spoilers...

I mean it....

Okay, lets do this.

A voice from the past signals the arrival of the Final Order as the endgame in the galactic conflict. Rey, Finn and Poe must track this evil to its source if the galaxy is to be saved from what lurks underneath the surface of the planet Exegol. This mission will force Rey to confront her own past if she is to have a future...

If 'The Last Jedi' was the film of 'Why didn't they just shoot Poe down, right at the start, while he was grandstanding?' then 'The Rise of Skywalker', for me, is very much the film of 'Were the space horses really necessary when attacking a Star Destroyer?' Really, were they? I feel all old and grumpy saying it (and somewhere, some eight year old kid loved the space horses and that's really the whole point of Star Wars) but that's where I am with it because as fun as 'The Rise of Skywalker' was, it felt like it was trying to please everyone all at once and that was never going to work because you can't please all the Star Wars fans at once, you just can't. That's why for me, as fun as the film was, it just felt a little disjointed (both from the last two films and from itself in a strange kind of way).

You can hate on 'The Last Jedi' all you want but you can't deny that the story was striking out for somewhere new and I think that's what the franchise needed, to bid a respectful farewell to the old guard and then do its own thing. What we get with 'The Rise of Skywalker' is the sound of a boardroom full of suits screaming 'We're losing them!' and rushing to fill this film with as much nostalgia as possible to get the older fans back. And it works. I love a bit of nostalgia and here that doesn't just mean throwing in a few old faces although I won't lie, I cheered when I saw Wedge. It means going back to the old pulp stylings of the original movies and that always makes for some fun. You've got mad chases through space, lightsaber fights and at least one seedy space bar where deals can be struck. I love that and I was more than happy to get stuck in.

But they take it too far and for every lingering shot on some fan favourite having a cameo, there's a little less room for Rey to really do her story justice, Kylo as well. They've been building up to this for two films and their finale is overshadowed by the return of an old villain who's got no reason being there at all and a new robot who is very sweet actually (and I want to hold him and make it all better)... Yep, he can stay :o)

It's a tough one to call. I couldn't help but enjoy watching 'The Rise of Skywalker' but a large number of the things that made it fun were the things that pretty much stopped the film from really living up to what it wanted to be. But if it does what the original films did for me, as a kid, then that doesn't really matter, does it?