‘Rise Of Skywalker’ Reactions Are Rolling In And OG ‘Star Wars’ Fans Should Be Stoked

If you’re anything like me, you didn’t grow up with Star Wars as a cornerstone of your personality.

The original trilogy remains a blind spot in my imagination. At time of writing, I’ve seen maybe half of The Empire Strikes Back – and I was likely napping through that. The Phantom Menace came out when I was in primary school, and all I really remember is how cruelly it overstated the importance of pod-racing in Star Wars lore. I thought JJ AbramsThe Force Awakens was fine, but I had a good time with Rian Johnson‘s The Last Jedi, a movie which upended hardcore fan expectations and gave us Laura Dern yeeting herself at lightspeed through a fleet of space fascists.

Here’s what I’m getting at: if the first mini-reviews of Abrams’ newie The Rise of Skywalker are anything to go by, I don’t think I’ll like it quite as much as its immediate predecessor.

[jwplayer YZBp9XHQ]

The Rise of Skywalker, the final film in Star Wars‘ latest trilogy, had its global premiere in Los Angeles overnight, giving attendees the chance to share their opinions on the sci-fi mega-movie. While full reviews of the film will stay under wraps a little while longer, piecing those mini-takes together suggests The Rise of Skywalker is big, complex, and absolutely rammed with fan service in a way The Last Jedi was not.

First, the good:

https://twitter.com/scottEweinberg/status/1207035611019960320

https://twitter.com/rgay/status/1206844979902996481

And the not-so-good:

https://twitter.com/davidehrlich/status/1207022209082052608

And then there’s this, from the New York Times’ Kyle Buchanan, which seems to really sum the whole thing up:

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits Australian cinema screens on Thursday, December 19. Will I head along to watch? It’s likely. Say what you want about the jam-packed plot and fan service, lightsaber battles still rip – and maybe pod-racing comes back in this one.

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