What Rotten Tomatoes Is Saying About Rise Of Skywalker

First reactions to The Rise of Skywalker were mostly positive but clearly mixed. Now, it's time to dive into the full-length reviews to see how critics truly feel about what director and co-writer J.J. Abrams did with the final installment of the Skywalker saga. Warning: mild spoilers ahead!

Of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes that register as "Rotten" that is, ones accompanied by ratings below 60 percent a large portion of them take issue with the general feeling of forced wish-granting woven throughout the film. This is to say that many critics were displeased by the fact that The Rise of Skywalker feels like it's pandering to the audience including people who were angry with the events of writer-director Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi, a Star Wars installment that divided fans and caused them to bicker with critics who praised the film for the past two years.

Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post was one of a number of critics conflicted over the fan service crammed into The Rise of Skywalker, arguing that the film "panders wildly" and concludes the Skywalker saga, quote, "with a story that delivers to the faithful exactly the movie they wanted" which may or may not be a good thing. He wrote in his review,

"Everybody wants a happy ending. But that doesn't mean that we should always get the one we want. It's fine, if also cliche, to be reminded that good will triumph over evil. But it would make for a deeper and more powerful lesson one that, after nine movies, might leave a lasting dent in the heart if the hero actually had to give up something, or someone, that didn't feel like a tiniest bit of a cop-out."

The Film Stage critic Jordan Raup wrote that The Rise of Skywalker is the antithesis to The Last Jedi, in that it doesn't take many risks and undoes a lot of what preceded it. He wrote,

"A direct contradiction to Johnson's repeated mantra of letting old things die, this ninth and final film in the series is wholly about the desire to uncover the past to unlock one's true identity and honor the generations and iconic characters that came before. By lacking a sense of vision in embracing what came before and ignoring the recently laid path for where this story could go, The Rise of Skywalker is not only a disappointing end to this saga – it's also an ill-fated harbinger for Disney's future in storytelling."

Other critics agreed with Raup's point that The Rise of Skywalker plays it safe and doesn't take the risks that it could have decisions that many feel are to the film's detriment. Keep watching the video to see what Rotten Tomatoes is saying about Rise of Skywalker!

#RiseOfSkywalker #RiseOfSkywalkerRottenTomatoes

The ugly | 0:20
The bad | 3:24
The good | 5:01