[Kiwami]

I liked it. I was never hyped for any of these newer movies so I just watched them "Because why not", fully knowing they will never take the place of the Expanded Universe for me.

I think TFA was the weakest one, purely because it really did feel like ANH all over again. On the other hand, among the three it is the only I still have a complete concept on what's happening, both TLJ and ROS feel a bit like endless blurs of scenes to me.

TLJ was better simply because it was something new, and I do enjoy a lot of takes this one has and was disappointed to see some of them completely ignored or straight up retconned.

Like, my biggest issue with ROS is the "You're a Palpatine"-line. Like, come the fuck on, this woman can't be a powerful force user without being related to someone we already know. Cut that line out and nothing really changes. Rey's parents were still hunted and killed by Sith loyalists, Sidious still wants her to continue their lineage, she still takes the surname Skywalker in honor of her teachers.

Also, sidelining Rose this hard felt deliberate and considering what kind of human scum hated on this character to no end I despise how validated they must feel now. I never really had a problem with Rose and fitting her in a bit more by cutting out Jannah (or at least give Jannah less screentime, at the end especially) could've worked out just fine.

That's all I disliked though. I really enjoyed the sceneries, the creepy Sith world especially. Like, can we just appreciate how deeply this movie ventures into Sith-lore? I love it. Before it was always two guys with red lightsabers running around in these movies, but an entire world filled with loyalists, the language being a thing (god I wish we saw a statue of a Sith Pureblood somewhere) and their entire fleet with their own Stormtroopers - that ruled.

If anything I wished it went even deeper. Like, we saw statues all over, I really wanted to see statues of Sith we know from the Expanded Universe. Exar Kun, Darth Revan, Darth Bane, Darth Plagueis... honestly the message of the one Sith and the throne of balance heavily reminded me of Darth Krayt from the EU.

Just seeing statues vaguely resembling those characters would've been awesome. I don’t know, for a movie that gets bashed for too much fan service I wanted even more

What I liked best about the entire movie was the relationship between Kylo Ren and Rey though. I feel like over all three movies that's the most consistent factor they got right. The scenes in ROS were they talk to each other through the force and their locations merge were so good. I really liked how those were done visually, and also how these scenes added a layer to the force that's mysterious and new. Like - Kylo Ren just grabs a physical object off of Rey who stands light years away from him or how they use objects that blur into each other’s position to tell where the other is.

I don't think I quite understand the concept of it yet, but if I remember correctly it's basically that they are two halves of the same being in the force, or a convergence of two life forms that share one connection to the force. That was something new that I hadn't seen yet but is quite interesting.

So I actually think I like Rise of Skywalker best from the new trilogy.