(This article contains a large number of spoilers for “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” You have been warned.)
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is definitely a whole thing. It’s like JJ Abrams and co. set out to make a movie that had the maximum possible amount of “Star Wars” in it. It’s just the most “Star Wars” a movie could be. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.
By going that route with the trilogy capper, in my opinion, director JJ Abrams managed to actually retroactively make both “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” worse movies. That’s not easy to do.