Currently Sitting at 58% and Rising on Rotten Tomatoes
After all the plot leaks, speculation, and even bogarting of critics by J.J. Abrams and the Mouse House, the flood of reviews from the shill media have dropped.
Here’s a brief selection of the best first reactions.
From Salon.com:
If The Last Jedi was about breaking with the past, Skywalker is slavishly in debt to it.
The Rise of Skywalker gives people what they go to Star Wars for, but that’s all it does—and worse, all it sets out to do. It’s frenzied, briefly infuriating, and eventually, grudgingly, satisfying, but it’s like being force-fed fandom: Your belly is filled, but there’s no pleasure in the meal. The movie feels like it’s part of the post–Last Jedi retrenchment, when Disney jerked the leash on Solo and killed plans for future spinoffs by insisting that filmmakers stick to the established playbook. It’s of a piece with the pointedly unambitious The Mandalorian, just good enough to get people’s attention but fundamentally terrified of rocking the boat. Rather than making a movie some people might love, Abrams tried to make a movie no one would hate, and as a result, you don’t feel much of anything at all.
From Forbes.com:
The problem with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker isn’t just that it absolutely walks back a number of potent reveals and plot threads from the last movie, but rather that the 142-minute action fantasy spends almost its entire running time retconning its predecessor and adding painfully conventional “plot twists” and patronizing reversals in the name of mollifying the fans who merely want to be reminded of the first three movies. It manages additional damage to the legacy of the first six Star Wars movies. It undermines the previous two “episodes” in the name of giving (some but not all) original trilogy Star Wars fans a reassuring pat on the head. It even shying away from Force Awakens’ darker real-world implications. It is so concerned with character reveals and “chase the MacGuffin” plotting that it finds no time for any real character work.
From IndieWire:
It appears Abrams has course-corrected the franchise with “The Rise of Skywalker” in a way that critics are finding frustrating.
The New York Times carpetbagger Kyle Buchanan respond on Twitter to “The Rise of Skywalker” by writing, “[The film] could only have been ruder to Rian Johnson if they had motion-smoothed it.”
IGN’s deputy entertainment manager Laura Prudom added, “The emotional highs are spectacular, and there are a lot of payoffs (some earned, some not). But some choices feel like an unnecessary course-correct from ‘The Last Jedi’ and some just plain don’t make sense. Need to see it again.”
The biggest early criticism being lobbed at “The Rise of Skywalker” is that Abrams and Chris Terrio’s script packs way too much plot into a final installment. Uproxx’s Mike Ryan says the film is “certainly the most convoluted ‘Star Wars.’ The first half gets so bogged down with exposition and new plot and doodads and beacons and transmitters, it feels like it should have been three movies on its own.”
From USA Today:
USA TODAY film critic Brian Truitt called the “Star Wars” finale a “too-safe landing of a massive pop-culture starship, and a spectacular finale that misses a chance to forge something special.”
From NPR:
“The story doesn’t require (Abrams) to toss in as many ingredients from earlier films in the saga as he does here, but he dumps them all (callbacks, references, echoes, events, characters) into the mix anyway,” writes NPR’s Glen Weldon. “The result leaves you feeling not so much bloated – the film moves too quickly and is too much fun for that – but certainly overstuffed.”
I could go on, but why should I.
Wallet Stays Closed
The pre-sales and marketing have been robust, and while some critics of The Rise of Skywalker have labeled it, already, “worse than The Phantom Menace,” the general consensus is that with a dearth of good competition this upcoming Christmas weekend, it will haul in cash.
Of course, not from any of us here.
What Are We To Make of All of This?
The critics—probably bent out of shape at not having their pre-screening done ahead of this week—are lambasting the film overall and early, J.J.’s direction, and even Disney’s approach.
The SJW’s are probably bent the most because they wanted a repeat of The Last Jedi, along with some Rian Johnson level jabs at the hardcore fans that J.J. has pretty much always refused to lob.
And the casual fan—who doesn’t think too much about the insidious cultural power of Disney and their tendrils of destruction—will show up opening night, open wide, and have The Rise of Skywalker poured down their collective gullets.
This is what a cultural phenomenon dying sounds likes, all to the gentle swishing sounds of cash floating down out of the sky.
