12 Reasons The Star Wars Sequels Aren't As Bad As You Think
3. The Rise Of Skywalker Is Not That Bad
Admittedly, people's reservations about The Rise of Skywalker are understandable. The pacing is embarrassingly rushed, it's just MacGuffin after MacGuffin, it's full of plot holes and some characters are mishandled, but it's still a solid three-star film that's better-written than it's been given credit for.
On paper, the story is pretty great and the dialogue is very good too, indicating the film was only a fix or two away from awesomeness. It should've been three hours long or split into two, so that its many interesting story beats could've been given time to breathe and not rushed through like they were.
Still, thanks to the great visuals, performances, dialogue scenes and set-pieces, the potential of the film's story shines through enough to make it an enjoyable and touching blockbuster and a good-enough ending to the saga.
Regarding the two biggest criticisms, as already mentioned Rey being a Palpatine was a very interesting idea and was also a nice deviation from convention since it violated the good/evil binary of the franchise and had a child of the Sith, rather than the Jedi, defeating Palpatine.
As for Palpatine, firstly, he's absolutely great in Rise and secondly, the Expanded Universe resurrected him (and The Clone Wars resurrected Darth Maul) so what's the big deal? If both of these plot points had been hinted at in Episode VIII and felt less sudden, they wouldn't have been criticised nearly as much.