The Rise of Skywalker brings the whole Star Wars anthology to a close. Rey is training to become a Jedi to rid the galaxy of the tyrannical First Order. Kylo Ren, the new leader of the First Order, struggles to find who he truly is. As an ancient evil emits from the First Order, our heroes will have to defy all odds to bring the galaxy back to peace. Will this new threat succeed with galactic domination or will new allies rise to bring an end to the unjust warfare?

The movie starts off with a cool sequence of two of the main characters, Finn and Poe. Throughout the film they have good interaction and stay relevant to the plot. Their existence felt necessary and their interactions were positive. Rey’s goal to find out who she truly is while figuring out how to win the war kept the movie engaging. At the start the movie felt slow at times but towards the end, it sped up. Kylo Ren continues to be a great character due to his ongoing strife of deciding who he truly is. At first he continues as a villain which allowed some cool lightsaber duels between him and Rey. Towards the end of the movie he teams up with Rey to face the true threat. 

We see many familiar faces from the original trilogy such as Lando Calrissian and the returning Chewbacca and General Leia Organa. Another returning character is the infamous Emperor Palpatine. Thought to be defeated by Luke and Vader years ago, all along he has clung to life using the unnatural power of the dark side. At first this seemed to be a sloppy cover up to attract old viewers into liking the saga again, but they really pulled it off. I enjoyed his return and thought all of his scenes were amazing. 

Unfortunately, a movie with a clear plot of trying to defeat the First order does not allow much expansion on other parts of the film. Some unique characters were introduced in this movie but very little was explored upon them. If the Last Jedi was a consistent movie then there would have been time to develop those characters.

Overall it was a spectacular film even though it had to work with the events from its predecessor. The six original movies revolved around Darth Vader/ Anakin Skywalker which made it disappointing that he did not have an appearance. It would have been necessary to include him to make the saga feel connected. This movie had a satisfying ending and left a legacy.