Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

Welp,

I suppose this is a good a subject as any to begin a discussion in the Science Fiction Community.

It looks like the destruction of the Star Wars film franchise and Skywalker storyline is complete. There are numerous reports and reviews and Twitter spats coming out that confirm the worst. Sadly, the hope I had for modern filmmakers to salvage the Skywalker story from the clutches of George Lucas is gone.

ROTTEN TOMATOS:

They haven't even started to allow fan reviews yet. Even the critics, whom I generally don't respect - and went gaga over The Last Jedi - are giving it an average thumbs down.

METACRITIC:

For me, my love affair with the franchise ended with The Last Jedi. Initially, I thought the prequels had done that, but as Episodes 1 through 3 were produced, you could see appreciable improvements to the storylines and characters. While still clunky - and sometimes downright embarrassing - they at least all evolved the central storyline of Anakin Skywalker, his downfall and eventual redemption, while the last three seem to focus on nobody at all. There are so many storylines that I can't figure out what is important, the emotional journeys of our characters are rendered thinner than a sheet of paper and the blatant infusion of modern political thought and cultural sentiment into the exposition made my eyes roll right out of my head.

FOR INSTANCE...

I never understood why a character of such insignificance was given a line of such weight but that also sounded like something from the subreddit /r/im14andthisisdeep.

Don't even get me started on the Mary Sue, Rey. She is the worst kind of character who is just imbued with so much power she doesn't have to struggle for it or the self knowledge to wield such power responsibly. She just can... because the writers said so. Luke Skywalker struggled with the fear of becoming his father, Darth Vader, and struggled to use and understand the Force, and he gained his true power as a hero by giving it up. That is a lesson about power and of faith. Luke had faith that his father would do the right thing by being an example. He would rather suffer death than strike down someone he loves.

I don't see anything like that in these new crop of films.

In today's world, we get space horses, characters that seek out power for power's sake, lectures on obtaining freedom by destroying history - never a good idea - and set pieces in place of excellent characters.

As a final note, I'll leave two images here for you to compare. I think they say everything you need to know about the film and who it's intended for, because it's not really for the fans or lovers of heroic tales.

Anyway, that's it. Rant done.

What do you think?