Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (With Limited Edition The Resistance Sleeve) [Blu-ray] [2019] [Region Free]

This is the best movie ever!!.. well, that is according to my 6-year old youngling.He has seen it 15 times now - always with loud cheers towards the end. As such, he is extremely well-qualified to judge it. He claims it is even better than Return of the Jedi, that he has seen at least 50 times.That says quite something. So you can stop here and push the Buy-button.If you are interested in my opinion, as a wrinkly, old day-1 Star Wars fan; I was less impressed the first time I saw the Rise of Skywalker. My rant is below but I’m not dismissing the movie. I’ve watched it three times now, the 2nd and 3rd time were better than the 1 first. And I will still enjoy watching the movie multiple times in the future as even more than most Star Wars movies this one is filled to the brim with new colourful characters, aliens and locations. And every time you watch it, you will discover something new. It is a stunning visual feast with great fx and digital effects. The 4K version that I bought for our brand new 4K player is super sharp with deep contracts and of course, extremely high resolution - making it even more of a very pleasant, immersive viewing experience. The movie is already worth seeing to marvel at the designs of the new spaceships, planets and definitely the wealth of new monsters and aliens. While keeping in mind that this remains space opera, I thought there was appropriate acting and interaction between the lead players . Some of the characters are quite intriguing or funny, like my son’s favourites Babu Frik, D.O. or Zorri Bliss - even though you can wonder what exactly the point of their inclusion was.And frankly, my young Jedi’s enthusiasm proves that the movie successfully reached a very important part of its target audience.However … I had hoped that after the Last Jedi - that, to say it kindly, rubbed me against my galactic grain - we would get a more straightforward movie. Yet one at least as intriguing as the The Force Awakens. And given how tightly Disney controls the franchise I had decent hopes of that. The problem is that the Rise of Skywalker not only tries to deal with a lot of open ends from throughout trilogy, it also throws in more complexity, unnecessary twists and new open questions that remain unanswered (the whereabouts and survival of Palpatine, Liea’s training, new jedi and unexplained powers).. It inserts key characters from the past which would not have been necessary at all. And there are things like hyper-speed skipping.. that’s even worse than midichlorians!In short, this is not a Star Wars movie that ranks in my top 10. It simply confirmed by bad feeling about appointing multiple directors across a trilogy and giving each too much storyline freedom. As a result we get a somewhat upsetting, puzzling conclusion to what was supposed to be the epic end of a story that was started 43 years ago and that viewers spent many, many hours on.. It does show, despite a few minor failings, how great a storyteller George Lucas is.Well, that was just my humble opinion on the movie’s main shortcoming; the storyline. But in fact, I and fellow Star Wars fans shouldn’t complain; The Rise of Skywalker follows two, in my humble opinion, great Star Wars movies; Roque One and Solo. And then over recent months we were treated by the Mandalorian tv series, an original story, brilliant in its simplicity. Me my family thoroughly enjoyed that Star Wars experience that at least made many of my galactic dreams come true.Ah well, you shouldn’t take my muttering serious. My son might be a better reference. After all, I rank The Phantom Menace as one of my favourite Star Wars movies! Also don’t take offence by any Stars Wars movie opinion as there are as many of these as there are drops of water in the seas of Kamino.

I loved the film when I saw it at the cinema. I loved it again when I watched the DVD but realised I had missed things at the cinema. There is so much in the film. I won’t rehash the film, it would fill a tome as big as War and Peace. Now I’ve watched it for a second time I will look at the comments previously made instead.There was no Mrs Palpatine. There were clones. After it is confirmed that Palpatine is still alive Dominic Monaghan’s character has a line that goes “Dark science. Cloning”. Which explains succinctly how that could be. Palpatine told Anakin in Revenge of the Sith that his master had perfected the art of preventing death and that it can’t be learnt from the Jedi. This is how he seduced Anakin to the dark side. Palpatine mentions in Revenge of the Sith and Rise of Skywalker that there are unnatural things that the dark side can do. So presumably the life force is used by the Sith and not the Jedi and the reason Rey and Kylo Ren can use it is because they are both connected to the Sith via Snoke and Palpatine.The force is used by Dooku and Yoda in their fight in Attack of the Clones, Palpatine against Mace Windu in Revenge of the Sith and the Emperor against Luke in Return of the Jedi.When Finn sees Chewbacca being captured there are clearly two ships. What you don’t see if which one takes off first. Slight of hand to ramp up the action. I didn’t think Hux was a convincing spy at first watching. By the third I saw Poe or Finn ask him why he was doing it. He couldn’t care less about the rebellion, he did it because he didn’t want Kylo Ren to win.I found an excellent web site called Fandom.com (Wookieepedia) which has the Star Wars timeline. It says that Palpatine was able to transfer his spirit to a clone which is how he reappears in Rise of Skywalker. He also tells Kylo Ren that one of his clones became his ‘son’ and he is the father of Rey - so in effect Palpatine is her ‘grandfather’. You just don’t hear that explanation in the film. This is why Rey’s parents were hunted down and killed by Ochi, who’s ship Rey and co find on Pasaana.I did wonder about the feasibility of this from a genealogical point of view. Palpatine was born 80 BBY (Before the Battle of Yarvin - when the Death Star was destroyed in New Hope) and Rey is born in 15 ABY (After Battle of Yarvin) which is 99 years apart so it is possible. Just.There are so many loose ends to tie up it is little wonder the film is jam packed with everything, ups and downs, action and lulls. The journeys to here and there to find things made sense. If these things had just appeared it would be too easy. I liked the bringing back of old characters like Lando and Wedge (in the final battle). Maz with Leia. The scenes between Han and Ben and Luke and Rey are poignant as are all the scenes with Leia. The flash back of Luke and Leia training - so that’s how Leia has a light sabre and knows how to train Rey. Having re-watched all the films in chronological order the clues are there but pass by without you realising they were clues, they were just imbedded in the films. The film ends back at Lars moisture farm where we first met Luke which heavily suggests there will be no reboots. There would be no point. Everything has been said and done and defeated.The Star Wars universe is rich and varied as are the films. Go back and re-watch the entire storyline from start to this finish and things make sense. Scfi isn’t supposed to make sense, it is supposed to be unbelievable and out of this world because it is. This isn’t life as we know it. Its life out there, somewhere in a galaxy far, far away.