The Rise Of Skywalker Aims To End The Skywalker Saga On A High Note

      

      The Star Wars franchise has experienced its series of ups and downs since Disney successfully rebooted the franchise in 2015 with The Force Awakens. While that film was a tremendous success in regards to bringing life back into the Star Wars franchise, some fans complained about the films strong similarities to A New Hope, particularly in the films second half which almost felt like it was copied and pasted to make the film feel more safe. Despite that criticism, the film succeeded in bringing the series back to its glory days while establishing newer characters and energy for a sequel trilogy to the originals. Rogue One though not as big as The Force Awakens proved that the Star Wars franchise can survive and continue to grow outside of the Skywalker arc despite criticisms that the film outside of its iconic Darth Vader scene is slow-paced with characters that are underdeveloped. With The Last Jedi, audiences were finally excited and looking forward to the next chapter in the sequel trilogy, that wouldn't feel like it was leaning too much on the original trilogy for comfort. With Rian Johnson stepping into the shoes of J.J. Abrams as director and writer, fans were confident that they were going to get a film that took the newer trilogy out further while giving them answers to questions brought up in The Force Awakens such as the identity of Rey's parents as well as her connection to the force. The end result was a film that not only made significantly less than the previous episode, it split the Star Wars fan base down the middle and failed to give satisfying answers to Rey's parentage nor a Luke Skywalker, that remained consistent with the one from the original trilogy. The backlash that The Last Jedi spawned was so big that it was one of the main factors that led to the surprise flop of Ron Howard's Solo: A Star Wars Story, though that one had more to do with the fact that the film came out five months after The Last Jedi, where the wounds were still fresh with audiences disappointed by that one and didn't bother to see the new film. Add to that the uneasiness audiences felt for watching someone else other than Harrison Ford play the part of Han Solo, even if the role required a younger actor. What began as a great starting point for Disney to not only rejuvinate the franchise but also create their own Marvel style universe with it, the franchise has burnt out once again with all eyes on The Rise Of Skywalker, to see if it can restore balance to the fan base while ending the Skywalker saga on a high note. With J.J. Abrams returning as director, the chances of that happening are high as the trailer shows that great care is being taken to repair the damage done by The Last Jedi as well as providing a great deal of fan service.

Trailer Description
      The trailer opens up with Rey panting as she stares at a Tie Fighter approaching her with Luke Skywalker's voice narrating in the background saying "We've passed on all we know." The audience isn't sure whether he's a ghost in this one or resurrected again due to the power of the force. He continues by saying "A thousand generations live in you now. But this is your fight." The trailer then shows Rey powering up her lightsaber and hurls over the Tie Fighter performing a Matrix-style backflip. The words "Every Generation Has A Legend" appears on the screen followed by an announcement citing the release date being for this Christmas. The rest of the trailer consists of shots of all the key characters from the previous films returning with an epic shot of Kylo Ren striking down someone with his red lightsaber followed by the construction of a new Ren helmet. The trailer then shows the return of Finn played by John Boyega followed by shots of BB-8 with a minimalist droid introduced as his friend and the Millennium Falcon going into hyperspeed. The trailers first big reveal followed by another major one at the end is the return of Lando Calrissian (Played By Billy Dee Williams) piloting the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca as his co-pilot. The Trailer then follows with the words "The Saga Comes To An End" which is preceded with shots of explosions in the desert as the characters of Poe, Finn, and C-3P0 are being chased by imperial forces on speeders. The trailer then continues with shots of a hand running a Medallion followed by General Leia (Surprise! Carrie Fisher is back) embracing Rey in an emotional hug. The trailer also shows a major landscape shot of the main characters encountering a giant piece of the Death Star, which has crash landed on a planet full of crashing waves. The trailer then closes out with two final big reveals for the audience, the first being the new title for the film being revealed as The Rise Of Skywalker in between the enlarged Star Wars words, and the final twist being a mysterious yet evil laugh that instantly draws audiences to the revelation that Emperor Palpatine is alive and well.

General Thoughts
      The trailer for The Rise Of Skywalker most definately goes to extreme lengths in hopes of getting audiences excited again for the franchise, as they showcase numerous callbacks to the previous films (Especially the Original Trilogy) in hopes of reassuring audiences that the next installment will be better than the previous and less divisive in terms of reception. The return of Calrissian and Palpatine also help with rounding out the three main trilogies as a whole, but at the same time can also can feel like Abrams is pulling the nostalgia card once again in a similar way he did with The Force Awakens signifying that he's once again playing it safe. Whereas The Last Jedi felt like Rian Johnson giving Abrams the middle finger by throwing out much of his ideas and subplots he was building up with this film (Captain Phasma and Snoke are prime examples of characters that had tremendous potential but were ultimately wasted), and taking the story in a different direction which left large portions of fans unhappy. Disney is well aware of the divide in the fan base and is hoping to make amends with audiences which is evident by the return of JJ Abrams in the directors chair. Abrams clearly knows what the audience want to see and is going to extreme lengths to please as many fans as possible. As much as he claims in interviews that he isn't undoing the work completed by Rian Johnson with The Last Jedi, the trailers appear to show otherwise and that Rey will have a shocking revelation regarding her parents backstory in this one as well as a questionable role for Luke Skywalker.  Perhaps it can be said that the new Disney era of Star Wars fans were never going to escape the shadows of the original films and will always be compared to them. However there's still hope that The Rise Of Skywalker can not only bring a satisfying ending to the sequel trilogy, but close out the Skywalker Saga in a way that's both honorable and epic. Whereas Rian Johnson took the more radical approach with his controversial creative decisions with The Last Jedi such as the reveal of Rey's parents and the killing off of Luke Skywalker, Abrams approach with The Rise Of Skywalker appears to be a restoration of his original path for the sequel trilogy as well as an attempt to correct the mistakes of The Last Jedi. Time will tell if Abrams will deliver the grand finale that fans are waiting for anxiously. The Rise Of Skywalker opens in theaters December 20th 2019.

Check out the trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adzYW5DZoWs