Could have been better, and here's how...

Rating: 6/10 (15 March 2020)

This was a rare swing and a miss for JJ Abrams, though one cannot place all the blame on him. The main reason that this movie was such a mess was this: too many characters.
Not only did ALL of the main characters from the original three movies get brought back during episodes 7-9, you had the introduction of at least six new main characters, and over ten minor ones. JJ appears to have tried to give all of them screen time, with limited success. Another huge problem was that half of the new main characters were utterly forgettable. I'll be honest, if Poe and Finn had been killed off in the first movie, no one would have cared; or at the very least they should have been relegated to background roles. BB-8 was an absurd concept, and what the hell was Keri Russell's character and the scene with the horses even doing there?
Kylo and Rey were both done very well in all three films, and a few of the new characters like Rose Tico were done well, but there were so many characters in 7-9, and especially 9, that focus on the real story (the Kylo-Rey conflict) almost got lost.
The end result was a major mess, punctuated by short periods of great film making.
The final scene for Carrie Fisher was good, though a little forced, the final scene for Harrison Ford was well done, the final battle and conclusion of the Kylo-Rey conflict was poignant and fitting, and the last scene for Rey was emotional. Abrams should have expanded on those parts of the story and eliminated the entire Poe and Finn parts. In fact, you could expand that statement to all three of the last films.