Let me start with a disclaimer... I actually liked Rise of Skywalker, despite what the bulk of this post will discuss. It was fun, it was Star Wars, Rey's battle with Kylo on the Death Star remains was pure spectacle... Overall I think they did a fine job of telling the story they wanted to and wrapping up the Skywalker saga.
Sadly, there's a lot of room in "fine" to find fault.
More revelations/admissions/what have you... I really liked Last Jedi. It took me a couple of viewings, but I came away loving the chances they took and the changes they put in motion. My annoyance with Star Wars fandom after the blistering meltdown Last Jedi triggered knows no bounds.
So I was really frustrated by the way Rise walked back so many of the plot points from Last Jedi, despite all J. J. 's assurances to the contrary. I was even more annoyed by the way these things were handled... It wasn't sufficient to sideline those changes, but they did their best to invalidate them as well.
Take the infamous "Holdo Maneuver". I've seen discussions online, talking about how this event invalidates space battles in the Star Wars universe from that point on. (You almost have to applaud the conviction Star Wars fanboys bring to the discussion... If it weren't for all the misogyny and racism and such.) Such discussions ignore the cost of such a maneuver... one would assume the Resistance isn't exactly floating in resources, so you have to suspect that destroying a battle cruiser to fight to a stalemate would have to be a last resort, as it was in Last Jedi.
But that's not enough for Rise. There's a moment during the briefing leading up to the climactic battle when someone says something to the effect, upon seeing the scores of planet-killer Star Destroyers they've stockpiled, that it would take a thousand Holdo Maneuvers to deal with that fleet. The response to that comment is that Holdo got lucky and it couldn't be repeated.
Pardon my own fanboy moment, but from what I saw in Last Jedi, that wasn't luck... It was a calculated attack that accomplished exactly what Holdo intended... It bought time for the fleeing Resistance ships to get out of range of the Order ships.
What it's not is a viable battle tactic. This was an act of desperation, designed to buy a little time. As such, it wouldn't be part of any battle plan... "Yes, let's sacrifice our best ships and commanders to take out a few of the enemy" can't be a viable tactic, and all it would take to dismiss "a thousand Holdo Maneuvers" is to do the math. "We don't have the ships" is a better response and doesn't invalidate the previous actions.
Another truly awful example of catering to fan boy ire has to be the character of Rose Tico. The character was such a flash point for angry nerds that they chased the actress off social media with their contempt and racism. So J. J. and company decide to sideline Rose in Rise. But it's not enough to simply sideline the character... We have to have a moment when she's asked why she's not coming on the mission and she says she'd rather stay behind. Just to ensure the fanboys know we're not going to spend any time featuring this actress in their Star Wars saga.
And then there's Kylo Ren. And Emperor Palpatine. *sigh*
By the end of Last Jedi, Kylo Ren had become a really interesting villain. Snoke is dead and he's taken over the First Order. His attempt to "seduce" Rey to his side (neither Light nor Dark, just Other) rebuffed, he's now a seething cauldron of fury, venting it against the last of the Resistance with a culminating battle he thinks he's fighting with Luke.
Fast forward to Rise and he's back in puppet mode as Emperor Palpatine rises from the dead (most literally) to put him in his place and proceed to reiterate his schemes from the first trilogy. This isn't just annoying and, frankly, boring. But it's insulting to anyone that's followed along to this point and embraced the story told so far.
To sum up this plot "twist," we resurrect Palpatine so we can make Rey his granddaughter (far be it that she not have the proper bloodline to justify her Force powers) and set her up to fail, so she can be saved by Kylo, thus "redeeming" the man that killed his father in the first film to impress his previous puppetmaster. (And, not coincidentally, allowing the newly redeemed male anti-hero(?) to save the female, heretofore hero of the story, thus saving Star Wars from the feminization that has those angry nerds so upset.)
What this all amounts to is Disney/Lucas/JJ Abrams playing it SO safe with the final movie in their Skywalker saga they've sucked any life out of the series, leaving a lot of us wishing this all hadn't happened after all.
So while I can say that, as a film, I enjoyed Rise of Skywalker... I can also say that, as part of the Star Wars saga of 9 films, it is one of the worst, and a sad note on which to end the Saga.
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