The Force Awakens
The Last Jedi
The Rise of SkywalkerBinge-watching these movies over the weekend, the storylines have never actually had any impact to support the visual spectacle abundant throughout.
The first movie, The Force Awakens, features the protagonist, "Rey", moping about her missing parents. However, according to her tally board, she has been waiting for their return for a good 15 years. In the meantime, she keeps busy by finding parts from derelict spaceships and other discarded technology.
Meanwhile, FN2187 (later named "Finn") is a stormtrooper, for the antagonist First Order faction, who has an awakening from his brainwashed status. Teaming up with a recently captured rebel pilot, Poe, he journeys to regather a droid that contains a map to the location of former Jedi leader Luke Skywalker.
Of course, Han and Chewbacca make their return to the storyline. So, too Leia, C3PO, and R2D2 make their return. Unfortunately, with their combined knowledge about the galaxy, one piece of the map missing from the entire galaxy's map is not enough of a clue to tell which planet Luke might be staying. All this through a process of elimination. The remainder of the movie being a retelling of "A New Hope" with new (and old) characters carrying out a similar plan in this movie -- Destroy a planet-killing Death Star.
The Last Jedi features a scene with the Rebellion, having just destroyed Starkiller Base, attempting to flee the planet. The First Order shows up sooner than expected. Whilst the First Order has the drop on the rebels, the generals decide to get distracted with Resistance pilot "Poe" who goes about shooting down cannons in order to allow the most cumbersome bomber spaceships to slowly make their way over a dreadnought to drop numerous bombs as if gravity had any bearing on their deployment. You can imagine that the counterattack is one big foul-up, and it is only by sheer luck that one dreadnought gets destroyed and the rebels are able to flee.
Meanwhile, on Luke's island, Rey has tracked down Luke. Rey bothers Luke about coming back to join the resistance. However, Luke has become a hermit and a grumpy old man, not concerned about fighting with family. Even with knowledge of Han's death, Luke still stays put, but offers Rey some training in the Jedi arts.
Finn decides to flee the escaping ships when it is learned that the First Order has the capability to track them through hyperspace. Imagine the irritation an audience has when Finn teams up with a maintenance worker, Rose, who happens to be more of an idealist than a fighter. The two go to a planet with gambling facilities to find a code-breaker who could bring down the tracking device on the main ship.
More irritation comes in the fact that the rebel spaceships get fuel reserves so low that they have to crawl to an outpost, whilst the First Order takes shots at them for however long. One by one the rebel ships are destroyed when they run out of fuel. And the alternate code-breaker, that Finn and Rose finds, turns out to be a troublemaker not worth the effort in a side quest that turned out to be pointless. The remainder of the movie echoes the battle scene of The Empire Strikes Back. And although the sacrifices made by Vice Admiral Holdo and Luke Skywalker are effective, they seem to be sacrificed too late at great loss of life.
The Rise of Skywalker had its problems early. Given that Carrie Fisher, who played the part of Leia, died after the filming of The Last Jedi, JJ Abrahms had to use archived footage of Carrie from earlier movies to get her scenes done. And whilst the production crew did their best, it was awkward having scenes filmed with Leia's interaction with live cast members -- mainly Rey.
This movie is one side quest after another. The rebels first get word that a spy is in the First Order. The rebels have the mission of going to a planet to find a Jedi hunter's equipment that would help them find another piece of the puzzle -- a wayfinder. The wayfinder is the only way to get to a place called Exegol, where the risen Palpatine hides. But to find the wayfinder, C3PO has to tell them the location that was scribed on a dagger of the Jedi hunter. Given the protocol of C3PO not to translate Sith languages (for whatever reason), the rebels have to find a droidsmith to reset C3PO's memory and allow him to reveal the wayfinder's location. Rey makes it her mission to board Kylo Ren's ship and find a recently captured Chewbacca along with the items they need to get to where they are going. And once there, the wayfinder is on the destroyed remains of the second Death Star. All this just so that Kylo Ren can destroy the wayfinder and demand that Rey joins him in a quest to kill Palpatine. After a lightsabre battle, Rey flees to the island world where Luke was hiding, sulking about not wanting to become a Sith Empress. But Luke's force ghost gets Rey to change her mind. Rey confronts Palpatine, with Palpatine giving Rey the news that she could either die or get possessed by Palpatine.
These three movies are good for fans of the Star Wars franchise. But, they will not win over any new fans. Nothing short of a re-write could save this trilogy, even though the special effects are fantastic.
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