The movie was okay, I didn't hate it. But I think the CGI for the dog was overused. It allowed certain mannerism, that while sounding cute, shattered my suspension of disbelief. I think it would have been fine to use CGI for those scenes where an actual dog would have been in danger. But they relied on it too much.

Otherwise the story is a classic, but do modern audiences even want this style of movie anymore? Would have been good for the Disney+ streaming service. A family friendly film for watching at home.

Been playing other games recently. But this update (and hearing more continual ones are coming) is going to pull me back. Looks very interesting.

That scene just caught me so off guard. After it played out, I had to rewind the DVR and just watch it again. Everyone involved in this show is just amazing. Those in front of the cameras and behind. Those choreographing the battles (the best I've seen), to the stunt folks, actors, directors, the writer, ... so many! An amazing achievement.

> Hill was sentenced to 14 months in prison suspended for 18 months...

He got a prison sentence but it was suspended? Sooo, he's not going to jail?

I know it will be a pain, but it looks like that Warner Bros. Studios should have some sort of process for tracking the items in their stock room? Or maybe they'll just look at this as one bad apple, so don't change everything for that. But really, they need to catch this sort of stealing much earlier.

@matpaget: Thanks for the articles like this. While I try to follow various sales thanks to some of Gamespot's "alerts" I've found some great deals on heavily discounted or outright free games. Me and my small bank account thank you. You're helping to keep me in games. ;-)

@openmind23: I'm 61 and gamed when the blue dot was me, and the red dot was the dragon and... yeah. Lol. It's amazing how far games have come. Honestly blows my mind. I also bought the Quest headset 2 months ago to start to play with that platform, otherwise I game on my PC.

When WOW first came out I was more into Starcraft at the time. So excited to see this updated. Okay, it took decades, but I might finally get to it. ;-)

Enjoyed your discussion of the "last" film of the saga. I was in high school in 1977 and was a fan the day I saw it. I can't believe it's gone on for 42 years and will continue. I'm happy for that because I of course love the universe.

I saw The Rise of Skywalker today and pretty much agreed with all your points. I went in with low expectations since because of the lack of a singular vision I felt they had painted themselves into a corner. The point of this movie was to just wrap it up. There was no way of nicely ending this messy trilogy.

On that note, I think they did a pretty good job. Some nice character arcs. Some nice tip of the hats moments to the original film, escaping from that Final Order ship was like the escape from the original Death Star.

This film probably hit me harder not because it was the best film, but rather it was the end of this saga that started for me all those years ago. Goodness, my siblings who joined me at The New Hope before it was called that now take their kids to these films. That is really something. It's a part of our culture and shaped more than one generation of fans. So to end the Skywalker saga... how can it not hit one hard?

For what they had to work with, I'll give them a, thank you. But I really hope the next film(s) are spec'd out better and planned with some forethought. Then I think, I hope, we'll get some really great movies. I do hope the Force is with Disney on this one... ;-)

Again, thanks for your thoughts. Really matched with what I felt.

The main issue is, you are hired by Disney to write a 3rd movie when the two previous ones contradicted each other. You are on a deadline. This is a job, you must finish a script within a certain time frame so filming can start. Go!

You just patch together something to end the mess that was created. Especially since you (JJ) wrote the first, the second went off in some direction (I guess these director's don't leave notes for each other) and now you have to pivot back...

Basically your job is to wrap it up so they can move on. I think everyone has experienced something like this at work. "Fix this mess." You do, but you are not really happy with your work. But you did it.

Now let's just hope Disney learned a lesson. They almost killed their "golden" goose. Fingers crossed for the next trilogy...

@dancingcactus: Yep, Disney blew it. I thought I read that they are having Kevin Feige who has managed the MCU films to help with Star Wars at some level? I hope so. They need a strong hand here to guide the films going forwards. If not him, someone who "gets it." Instead of this "every director do what you want" show.

Anyways, I agree with all your points.

@mogan: Agree. The issues though started before the first film in this new trilogy when Disney allowed each director free rein. It was doomed from that point.

But the darn saga had to be put to bed, so they did it. I went in not expecting much, just curious to see how they did it. Okay, as always I liked the visuals. It was okay, but again I went in with low expectations.

My hope is that Disney learned their lesson. If they do a new trilogy, start over, have an arc defined by a decent writer, etc...