Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

From IMDB: “The surviving Resistance faces the First Order once more in the final chapter of the Skywalker saga.”

What I liked:

• INCREDIBLE cinematography by Dan Mindel. I marveled at so many impressive compositions that I lost count. Some shots even looked like paintings because they were framed and colored so well.
• LANDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
• Brings new ideas and concepts into the typical Star Wars story. One of them was “lightspeed skipping”, which I had never heard of before.
• Hey, new vehicles! People tend to forget (or turn a blind eye to the fact) that Star Wars is a corporate merchandising machine that LOVES selling toys. We get some awesome ones here, like a water skiff and the “Treadspeeder Driver“.
• Hey, a water sequence! I’m a Pisces so YAY water!
• Babu Frik > Baby Yoda. #Truth
• I was happy to see Chris Terrio’s name in the credits. He won the Oscar for writing “Argo”, a film I’m quite fond of.

What I didn’t like:

• I was a little lost within the first half hour of the story. Lots going on.
• Yes, lots going on BUT Rose was setup so well in the last movie and doesn’t get to do much in this one. I was a bit disappointed with that.

Overall: First and foremost, Rise of Skywalker is a movie, so I’ll judge it as one. Period. Nothing gets a free pass, I don’t care who is in it, who made it or what it’s about. It could be a movie about Spider-man playing basketball against Metallica while a bunch of pinup girls are filming a stop-motion animated short film, I’d still judge its overall production. HOWEVER, I’ve spent so many decades with this franchise as both child and adult, that I have to gauge it in an additional way. Star Wars has a toxic fanbase. The “hardcore” fans take things too seriously, expecting each new movie to appease to whatever movie they saw as children. That has caused me to distance myself from the franchise over the last five years. Having said all of that, I loved the Rise of Skywalker, both as a movie and as the “finale” of the “Skywalker Saga”. I felt like it completed this massive story and was happy that I’ve been there for the whole thing. Because of that, I hope they never make another Star Wars movie ever again.

Jose Zuazua is editor-in-chief of Quick Lunch Break Reviews. He has an associates degree in film production and has been published both online and in print for Los Angeles City College’s award-winning Collegian newspaper. He’s on Twitter and Instagram, and is also currently writing his first short novel.