What is the Skywalker saga's ending?
So the originals show one character on the Lightside path and that's how those end.
The prequels show one character on the Darkside path and that's how those end.
What I expected from the sequels was two characters finding a new path in between and ends with them united in the middle of the Light and Dark. Actually finding the balance between these two sides and also promoting the lesson that the world and the people aren't in black and white.
1. All they did was copy & paste Luke's original trilogy fear of going Dark and made it Rey's main fear in this movie. It's not that other characters haven't had this fear but it's the fact that it's identical to Luke's is the problem i.e. becoming evil like your family member.
I don't feel like there was a big place for this fear considering the throne room scene from TLJ showing the nuance between the two sides and the fact that Rey has used typical Darkside emotions such as passion and anger for the purpose of good. If Ben used the Darkside technique from the Darth Plageuis the Wise story to give Rey life, then this further proves this point.
So I wish they could've at least used this fear to lead to a new conclusion and understanding of not everything on the Darkside is automatically pure evil.
2. The fact that Ben was literally thrown aside during the final encounter with Palpatine and dies at the end is so dismissive. ((This is like when we got Captain America movies telling/showing/preaching the friendship between Steve and Bucky and the last movie shows almost nothing.)) Two movies showing that these two characters are connected, there's this intrigue and mystery and they begin to share a deeper understanding of each other. If I had to pick the biggest thing that pissed me off about TROS is this.
Where is the natural conclusion to this buildup?
All they do is state this connection, the dyad, and follow it up without almost nothing. I understand the hurt and misunderstanding that TLJ left us with but this movie does a very poor job of showing the progression of unity and understanding between the two. And in the end, the representatives of both sides of the Force don't defeat the final villain together and they aren't united together in this middle path of the Force to finish this saga. We know Rey is the main character but this saga is still about Ben's family and we have the previous two movies showing us how important Kylo Ren/Ben Solo is in all of this. TLJ strongly suggests that the character of Ben is hope.
3. Having said point 2, Ben didn't have to die. The reasoning that "he had to die because it's the end of the Skywalker story" is a poor one. If it's the end of them then Rey shouldn't have kept the family name. The problem of fans asking "what would their kids do?" is stupid; the damn company says "that's the end" and they stick to their word. And besides the Skywalker story doesn't have to be synonymous with the Skywalker bloodline. Their surname would've been Solo anyway.
Ben should've been standing by Rey in the end. First of all, before the romantic aspect, as a Force dyad. Such an essential connection that drove this trilogy and not even a moment taken to show any sort of mourning. It's comparable to the amount of attention devoted to Darth Vader's end in ROTJ except Vader wasn't a main character in the original trilogy while Ben/Kylo was in the sequels. Even then we see mourning from Luke who's only been emotionally connected to Vader from the very end of ESB till the end. They could've spared at least 30 seconds from that long ass celebration scene.
I left the theater unsatisfied and surprised with this ending to the trilogy and saga. They worked so hard to show how perfectly happy the ending was but it felt empty and sad.
