Given the internet’s backlast, I exepcted a lot worse. At least to me, The Rise of Skywalker did a pretty decent job of closing the loop on the saga that began a long time ago with the rise of Palpatine and the fall of Anakin Skywalker. Really, that’s the entire story, and you get that here in spades.

There were definitely some weird choices made in pacing (in particular, right at the beginning, they sort of drop the whole ‘Emperor is back’ thing on us… apparently the reveal came in … Fortnite? Seriously?). We lose out on a lot of what could have been a cool story with Finn and Poe, although they’re still around at least. And I can’t imagine that losing Carrie Fisher did filming any favors.

But overall, a surprisingly solid ending to the entire saga. I quite enjoyed it.

Onward to the the spin off movies/TV (so much Star Wars!).

Random thoughts (sequential order through the film, potential spoilers as we go):

• The dead speak! The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of REVENGE in the sinister voice of the late EMPEROR PALPATINE.

  Wat.

  Man, that would have been so easy to put into the movie. And then dropping in on him and his huge fleet would have made so much more sense…

  Especially when the best they can do to explain it is:

  Dominic Monaghan (one of … 3 lines?): Dark Science. Cloning. Secrets only the Sith knew.

  But… where did all those ships come from? Thousands of times as many as any fleet we’ve seen? That makes no sense.

• Master Leia! That’s… actually decently done, given she passed away.

• Rey: I need to go alone.

  Finn: Yeah. Alone with friends.

  I’m glad someone is finally getting this…

• The alien festival was pretty cool! It having been 42 years since A New Hope is an extra bonus.

• The connection between Kylo Ren and Rey… doesn’t make any sense. It just feels lazy. Now they can pull things through it.

• The series of MacGuffin’s? Come on. They need one of two wayfinders ever known? (Why two?) Randomly falling into their answers? A dagger that C-3PO can somehow read… but also somehow not speak? And the entire clue is based, not on some ancient thing, but on wreckage only decades old. It’s exciting… but just feels like weak writing.

• Force Healing now! Neat. Would have come in handy.

• … Rey and Kylo Ren trying to pull a spaceship out of the sky is … kind of crazy, but I guess it works. Rey doing the force lightning thing is pretty cool though, given what we learn later! It does raise some interesting questions about how the force works in bloodlines .

• There are some real gems in the dialog.

  C-3PO: That is short of a complete redacted memory bypass.

  Finn: A complete what?

  C-3PO: It’s a terribly dangerous and sinful act… performed on unwitting droids by dregs and criminals.

  Finn: Let’s do that.

• Why can’t you take a quick backup of a droid? And if you can… why can’t you take a backup of a person? And if you can… oh wait, that's basically what they did with Palpatine .

• GENERAL HUX is the spy?! That’s… actually sensible, if it’s based on Kylo Ren's continuous mistreatment of him rather than any desire to actually do good . Bit of a sudden ending though.

• You, are a Palpatine.

  Wat.

  Palpatine had kids?!

  I like the symmetry, but that’s… going to take some time to process.

• Death Star! How did it get there? Dang cool set piece though.

• Finally actually meeting other Storm Trooper deserters! It took two films too long, but I’m glad to see it.

• Using the force directly on lightsabers is a neat addition!

• I actually really like the Force Healing/Kylo Ren redemption. He has done some *seriously dark stuff*, but that's the entire of the original trilogy: it's possible to turn back to the light .

• C-3PO getting his memory back so easily... was a bummer .

• “Holdo Maneuvers” are one in a million now. But … that’s still a chance?

• Rey… totally murdered all of those Cultists. But they were bad guys, so it’s fine right? Uh huh. Also, I’m just going to ignore the ‘back from the dead thing’.