The Rise of Skywalker, well what did you expect?

Everyone is going to have an opinion so I figured I may as well have my say here.

If you've seen it, what did you expect?

I mean...

• It is meant to be the end of a 9 part saga

• It is a Lucas Film

• It is also a Disney Film and

• It was made by Americans (mostly)

If you haven't seen it, then without really saying anything I have probably spoiled it for you.

I was asked to rate it by the friend I saw it with. I struggled to give it 5 out of 10.

I am not a die-hard fan and I am not a hater. I would reckon I am the average of the Star Wars fan.

Episode 9 is almost the same as episode 8. The formula and structure are almost identical. Boring the second time around.

There were a 3 too many light sabre fights. I lost interest in those after Yoda's epic battle however many episodes ago.. That was ridiculous, tragic, lengthy and annoying and made me hate light sabre fights.

There was also too much "flitting around" in space ships. They'd magically show up here and there A LOT. It detracted from the scale of the story, there was no sense of journey. It also contradicted elements that seemed like they should/would be distance and time restricted. Not for the first or the last time I was shouting in my head "make up your fricken' mind!!! You can't have it both ways!!!". But they did :-(

There was too much "new magic" that was just far too convenient.

And then, when it suited the "drama" this new magic was conveniently and temporarily forgotten.

Sure a new movie needs new things, but this "new magic" seemed too much like lazy writing and it was implausible even in this fantasy universe. Some of it even seemed like blatant rip-offs from other franchises ("ouch").

I won't elaborate on the "new magic" here but I will use a "Force" example from this movie that got on my tits...

Rey bangs on about the force "lifting rocks". So we see here lifting quite a number of rocks in this episode too. No spoiler here. She's done it all before (yawn).

Yet when the team steps in some quicksand...whoops, she can't lift anything with the Force just now?

Why not? I mean everyone does everything with the Force, especially in this movie (see "new magic") but for some reason a few grains of sand prove too tricky to deal with.

Despite all this new magic and many years to learn a few lessons, it doesn't seem like anyone has learnt when it comes to technology. They are still building immense machines with small, easily accessible flaws.

This may be the only thing that seems plausible and human about the movie. Let's face it, do we ever really learn (ahem "climate change")?

The movie was always going to try to tie up loose ends. It even managed to create a few new ones despite supposedly being the last movie.

The movie was also always desperately trying to make us think it would have a surprise ending, but we all knew, given the factors I mentioned at the top, that it simply would not and could not.

The fan backlash over something UNexpected would always have been much greater than something true to form.

They were so scared of the fans that it even seems like they undid the only "brave" thing in the movie.

This film needed a lot more bravery and much less business.

It was inconsistent. Some things that should have been done in the same style, weren't, and I couldn't quite work out why. I think it was done on purpose to make us confused, but instead it just added to the pile of "new magic" that we just didn't really need.

It was beautiful to look at. The special effects were great even if some of the puppets did seem straight off the set of Sesame Street. The balance between CGI and practical seemed to miss the mark slightly.

So we got the boring movie we all pretty much knew we were going to get.

It was a movie that had to be made, but really didn't need to be.

We all knew how it was going to pan out.

But see it for yourself.

David