Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Why do some love it while others hate it?

The film that premiered on December 19, 2019, remains the subject of all criticisms, both positive and negative. In this case, we will try to understand what are the reasons that made the criticism, both by the fans and the specialized media, be divided so much.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, obsession with nostalgia

The first thing we can say is that Episode IX has to close history of several years, with many generations involved. Some of this could be seen in the style of the film, which brought back some memorable moments based on iconic characters. Although the fandom will be happy to revisit some issues, the reality is that some media, such as Hipermedia, say that it is an "accelerated and insufficient flight to nostalgia."

With this, what happens is that some appearances are somewhat forced. However, we must understand that the previous installment, entitled 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi', was directed by Rian Johnson, a director who, regardless of what it may seem in cinematographic terms, gave the saga a new twist. That is to say, everything JJ Abrams had created in 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' was scrapped from one moment to the next, as happened with Snoke, in charge of the First Order.

In this sense, knowing that there always has to be an iconic bad guy, it was difficult to make him come back to life. Therefore, the only possible way left was to put, even with footwear, the reappearance of Palpatine, who became the main villain of the entire saga, including the prequels. The problem is that there were not too many winks to their appearances. While there are many answers to the riddles that had been made in the previous installments, everything seems too rushed.

Even the first minutes of the movie are really frantic because they leave us no room to breathe. That is, from one moment to the next, we are facing authentic revelations – which we had already learned with the movie trailer – but which are difficult to digest from one moment to the next. It is as if our minds were saying: I am very happy for all these answers to my riddles, although I regret the way it is being done.

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A closure that tries to gather several stories in a single film

This closure, as we were saying, tries to condense in a couple of hours of footage a multitude of stories, riddles, and unknowns that needed to be explained. In this sense, we can take the words of Hobby consolas, which say that "certain characters would appreciate more context", but also does not hesitate to say that "it has an intense rhythm that is maintained in the footage."

Because we are sure of something: regardless of what this delivery may seem to us in terms of canon and history, it is an excellent cinematographic piece, with really impressive scenarios, with iconic plans for the saga and with performances that have improved with respect to the previous editions The problem is, then, in the continuation of a plot, because it seems a kind of film that "adds" to the kind of symbolic ending we had in 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'.

That is, if the saga had culminated with the previous installment, everything would have been with a cliffhanger, although with a symbolic closure. However, since everything was "nowhere", without too many threads to pull with respect to a logical continuation, JJ Abrams seems to have been forced to use Palpatine, generate somewhat forced links with the enigma of the identity of King, give Kylo Ren a redemption closure and integrate the history of the entire generation of the Skywalkers, in addition to the issues related to the Force, which many people consider to break with what is known in the saga.

The point is that, regardless of what we can think about these new virtues that are given to the power used by the Jedi and the Sith, these "errors" are already part of the universe of the saga. For example, the way Palpatine finally died may have been accused of "dumb", but the reality is that the same thing happened with his "death" in 'Star Wars: Return of the Jedi'. Perhaps the problem is that we are not fit to face the closure of one of the greatest stories in world cinema.