Two days after being released in theaters, the 40-year-old saga of Star Wars came to a beautiful and appropriate ending thanks to director JJ Abrams.
One of the most anticipated moves since its announcement last year, TROS picks up after the end of Episode VIII – the Last Jedi with a dangerously omnipotent Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) seeking revenge and obsessed with crushing the remaining Resistance one and for all.
A quick Editor’s Note here is that at the risk of revealing any potential spoilers or plot giveaways, from here on out, will be my opinion of the movie and what one can glean before watching it. That being said, Ren is a very dark, dangerous and borderline unhinged state after letting Rey (Daisy Ridley) escape after offering his hand to her in the climax of Episode VIII.
Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, for what it’s worth was a glorified popcorn movie that served as a bridge for this epic finale in helping to resolve a lot of unanswered questions from who is Rey, to Ren’s daddy issues with Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and who is really behind the power of the First Order.
All of those are answered in one tremendously-layered reveal. All I’m going to say is this line from the intro of the movie.
The dead talk.
Remember that as in paraphrasing one of my all-time favorite anime series ever in Rurouni Kenshin—Samurai X here in the States—”the dead don’t seek revenge, but the happiness of the living”.
That is clearly NOT the case in TROS.
What did happen in TROS was all loose ends and mini story arcs being concluded, individual characters confronting their own pasts, questions answered and an ending that any true Star Wars fan can appreciate. It may not be the ending that some Star Wars fans envisioned, but it is the ending that we all deserved, as well as cinema’s most revered franchises shouldn’t have been denied of.
With the Star Wars franchise now going the streaming route thanks to Disney + and the wildly successful series, The Mandalorian, one could sense that Rise of Skywalker acted an an Olympic runner in proverbially passing on the franchise’s baton.
If Kylo–Ben Solo–was the heart of this trilogy, then Rey was it’s proverbial soul.
At times, the movie moved a bit slow and others it jumped from place to place in trying to resolve some of the aforementioned loose ends that I mentioned above. Trust me when I say, it all comes together perfectly in the end. You will shed a tear in seeing beloved characters die and rejoice in seeing old blasts from the past reappear for one final showdown.
Trust me, your inner Star Wars nerd and past childhood memories of seeing Luke Skywalker battle his own father, Darth Vader, will come out in watching old and new faces rally together for one final battle. Rise of Skywalker will take you back to your youth before making you coming full-circle as an adult.
If Abrams didn’t cement his name as one of the top and elite directors in Hollywood before, he certainly did in this galaxy far, far away.
Rating: 9.2/10