Star Wars: Episode IX- The Rise of Skywalker is the conclusion to the third Star Wars trilogy, known as the “sequel trilogy.” For me to talk about how I feel about The Rise of Skywalker, I first need to go into the current state of Star Wars, and my feeling on the franchise as a whole over the last few years.

Like many people, Star Wars was a big part of my childhood, so when Disney bought Star Wars and announced that they were going to be making a new trilogy of movies, I was as excited as anyone else. When their first movie, The Force Awakens, came out in 2015, I was blown away, and so excited that Star Wars was back. I couldn’t wait to see what the franchise had in store next. The following year, the first Star Wars spin-off movie, Rogue One, came out. I thought it was fine, but nothing special. It dwindled my interest a little bit, but I knew that the official “Episode” installments were still going to be special, so I anxiously anticipated Episode VIII, The Last Jedi. Then The Last Jedi came out…and that’s where it all started to go downhill for me. I had never been as disappointed in a sequel in a long time as I was with The Last Jedi. I felt really burned by the series, and I started to lose hope. Then, only five months later, the next spin-off movie, Solo, was released. That movie ended up being so unremarkable that I don’t even remember most of it. It was after one success and three failures that I started to realize that this new series of Star Wars movies just wasn’t going to be as good as I was hoping for.

Since then, I have to admit that I just haven’t been all that interested in Star Wars. My basic reaction to any Star Wars news or release was more of a groan than anything. In fact, a Star Wars TV series called The Mandalorian premiered on Disney+ just a month before The Rise of Skywalker, and I haven’t even watched it because I just don’t have that same level of interest for Star Wars anymore that I used to. I just haven’t really liked what Disney has done with the franchise, and so I didn’t even bother watching a show that I probably would have clamored for a few years ago. It actually got to the point where on my way to see The Rise of Skywalker I just kind of felt like I was going to the movies to see another movie. I compare this to The Force Awakens, where my excitement level was insane, and I was so hyped for months before the movie came out. The night I saw The Force Awakens felt like a truly magical night for me, but going to see The Rise of Skywalker just felt like any other movie experience.

I bring all of this up because it’s important for any moviegoer to recognize the bias that they’re bringing in to a movie. For myself, I recognized that I just haven’t been that excited about Star Wars in the last year or two, and so the deck was already stacked against The Rise of Skywalker pretty high before I even watched it. I say this because The Rise of Skywalker is actually pretty good, surprisingly, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have loved it even more if it came out closer to The Force Awakens, and without all of the baggage in between.

Anyway, let’s talk about the movie itself. The Rise of Skywalker features J.J. Abram returning in the director’s chair, after directing The Force Awakens but handing the reins over to Rian Johnson for The Last Jedi. Since seeing The Last Jedi, I’ve often said that I probably would have liked it if Rian Johnson also directed The Force Awakens, since the biggest problem for me was any lack of cohesive vision. It took the mysteries and intrigue built in The Force Awakens and just stomped them away, and so I probably wouldn’t have minded Johnson’s world-turning twists if that was the intention from the start of this trilogy. However, as it stands, what happened is that the decisions made for The Last Jedi were just plain frustrating, and it felt like a lot of the great story arcs were squandered. In returning to direct for The Rise of Skywalker, Abrams faced the giant hurdle of “fixing” the damage that Johnson did.

And to Abrams’ credit…he does a really good job. The directions that the story of The Rise of Skywalker takes are really satisfying, and ends up making The Last Jedi feel like it didn’t totally ruin the trilogy. This is seen in storylines like Snoke dying before being important, and Rey’s heritage seeming inconsequential. These story arcs are revisited in The Rise of Skywalker, and given justification for being handled the way that they were.

The basic storyline of The Rise of Skywalker is that Emperor Palpatine has returned, and it’s been discovered that he’s been working behind the scenes a lot throughout this whole period. Kylo Ren is mad with power, and seeks to destroy Palpatine, seeing him as a threat to his rightful place as supreme leader. Rey, on the other hand, is consumed with stopping Kylo, and feeling that it’s still possible to save him from himself. The rest of the crew is focused on the large task of taking down the First Order as a whole, and so all of the pieces are set for a final confrontation.

Honestly, the only big problem that The Rise of Skywalker faces is that it has a bit of a “Return of the Jedi” syndrome. I’ve gone on record before as saying that my biggest problem with Return of the Jedi is that it doesn’t feel like the epic conclusion to a trilogy until the last third or so of the movie. The Rise of Skywalker suffers the same fate, not really kicking into high gear until the second half of the movie. It’s not that there’s nothing to enjoy in the first half, but I definitely didn’t have that feeling of being excited about moving toward the endgame for most of it. The movie meanders a bit and feels overlong in some spots, so the first half wasn’t doing a great job of reinvigorating that love of Star Wars for me.

Then, the second half hits, and it all starts to feel worth it. Compared to when I watched Solo and just felt bored for most of it, the second half of The Rise of Skywalker kicks in and got me really excited again. There are a ton of payoff moments spread throughout, where I became so happy that the story went to the place where it did. These payoffs end up giving a very triumphant feel for a lot of the movie, to the point where it felt like all of the struggles and hardships leading us to this place were worth it.

All of the exposition in the beginning of my review was inevitably leading me to this point: The Rise of Skywalker’s greatest achievement. What Abrams managed to do here is something that I didn’t think was possible at this point in time. He reinvigorated my interest in Star Wars, and made me actually care about this franchise again. After so many unremarkable moments in the last three movies, there were points where I was watching The Rise of Skywalker and just thinking to myself…”oh yeah, that’s right, this series can actually be really great when it tries to be.” It made me remember why I ever loved this franchise in the first place, and so I consider it a huge achievement of the movie to be able to bring me back from a point of apathy to actually caring about this franchise again.

Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty that you could criticize The Rise of Skywalker for if you want to. I don’t think it’s a perfect movie by any means, and still doesn’t really achieve the same heights as The Force Awakens or the original trilogy. It’s not an exceptional movie, but what it is is a really solid entry in the Star Wars saga that brings its third trilogy to a satisfying conclusion. It ranks about middle of the road for me in terms of my overall ranking of all of the Star Wars movies. It’s not as good as the previous movies mentioned, but it’s still definitely better than the first two prequels or the other Disney Star Wars movies. It doesn’t always hit the mark, but Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker restored my hope that we can still get interesting stories to come from this franchise.

4/5