The Rise Of Skywalker Is The Most Frustrating JJ Abrams Film

The Rise of Skywalker suffers from all of the usual problems I have in JJ Abrams movies. Here’s why.

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Music:

“Electric Mantis - Daybreak | Majestic Color”

[lordodysseus]

When Rey thought she killed Chewbacca, that was my favourite part of the movie. Not because I'm a sadist or don't like him or whatever, but because it introduced real stakes and told us Rey is dangerously powerful. Then 5 minutes later Chewy is fine. Geez, what a way to evoke emotion.

[plamentzvetkov]

Rian Johnson: Your parents were nobody, you don't have to come from someplace important to be a Jedi.
J.J. Abrams: But your GRANDPARENTS...

[grobertson]

“I’m Rey.”
“Rey who?”
“Rey Sistance”
Rey smiles and winks at grimacing ghost Luke and Leia.

[grrtt]

When Kylo tells Rey "You are a Palpatine, " it falls so so so flat to me. The reason this moment worked for Luke and Vader was because 1) Luke idolized his imagined father had known and hated Vader for over three years in universe for killing his father and his mentor and 2) because the audience had sat with the mystery of Luke's parentage and Vader's past for two years in the real world only to be thrown a huge and devastating plot twist. None of that happened with Rey. First of all, she had literally never met Palpatine or had any connection to him at all up until that point in her life so that revelation didn't really mean anything to her on a personal level, and secondly, the audience had been re-introduced to Palpatine as a presence in the saga only an hour ago and had no emotional connection to the relationship between him and Rey. I honestly cannot believe that JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio are paid storytellers, what a sad, sad missed opportunity

[criticascronicas]

-I'm Peter, by the way.
-Rey Skywalker.
-Oh, we're using our made up names.

[rammiller]

Rey: buries the Skywalker lightsabers in SAND

Anakin: Rolls in grave

[kevinkelly]

"I'm Rey."
"Rey who?"
"Rey Ban, " and she slips on the shades

[jenniferariesta]

"it's just lucky that Adam Driver is such a good actor"... only good thing most people can genuinely agree on this hot mess.

[RoinDanton]

Everybody gets upset about the last scene because she calls herself Rey Skywalker. I am really upset because there is an old woman on tattooine that just happens to walk by at the exact same moment that Rey was visiting the Owen's farm. - a deserted place in the middle of f*cing nowhere. Just so that Rey could say her name into the camera.

[sierra]

I couldn't believe that her final line wasn't "just Rey" because I felt like that was what her whole arc had been building towards. Ugh I hated that scene

[cgrenadier]

How much more powerful would a Kylo redemption be if he spends two acts hunting Leia...and only finds her grave?

[spider-spectre]

"There is a traitor" Cut
Hux the only named first order character: "I am the Traitor" Cut
"I found the traitor" Hux gets killed Cut
the fact that this was a 1 minute story arc made be pause the movie just to reflect on how comedic-ly bad it is.

[rocksolid]

The last scene would be so much better if she said:

"I'm Rey"
"Rey who?"
"Just Rey"

[emilysanchez]

I think if her parents left her because they were AFRAID of her, that would have had more of an impact

[CapnJigglypuff]

The last scene looks heartwarming until you realize that that old lady knows where Rey buried the lightsabers and now she has to kill her.

[alyssaolson]

I love how JJ spent the whole final movie of the series backpedaling on what the movie that came right before it did. It doesn't matter whether you or he liked it or not; to make a good story, you need to be able to roll with the punches. And JJ clearly couldn't. So he brought back the same villain from the last two trilogies with zero introduction and shoehorned him into the plot where he didn't belong, he made a point to undo everything the last movie had done, despite it's importance to the overall consistency of the plot and in the process severely undermining the point and themes of the trilogy in the first place and generally wrecking the way that Kylo and Rey mirror each other (specifically in terms of their pasts and families and how it impacts their characters and their futures). Dammit, JJ, if you had just used a little more self restraint in terms of "Nuke Everything I Don't Like" this could have been a good (well, good *ish, * since it'd still be emotionless and horribly paced) movie. Ugh.

[elliotchalmers]

The very idea of bringing back Palpatine from the dead, out of nowhere only at the end of the latest saga is bad writing and reeks of desperation!

[viscountrainbows]

Rey taking Skywalker as a last name is like me taking the last name of a professor I had for one semester.

[bigdreamertone]

“We know that he’s the equivalent to a school shooter in this universe”

I almost spit out the cheerios I was eating😭

[JohnBainbridge]

Okayso... I think the Chewie's Medal thing could have worked, if it was done right, in Force Awakens.
A little while after Han dies, we have a emotional scene with Leia, going through some of his old stuff. Leia finds Han's medal. Cut to Chewie, on the bridge of the Falcon, in the captain's chair, in grief. Leia comes up behind him and says, "I found something. I think you should have it." She puts the medal on him, ceremonial like, then they hug and cry it out.