It was a polished disappointment.

Rating: 4/10 (20 December 2019)

The overall feeling I got after leaving the cinema was a sense of emptiness, as if the movie had accomplished nothing. From the lack of character development, which could be simply passed as lazy exposition, to the 'return of the king' style ending sequence, that gave everyone a time to reflect on the trilogy as a whole and the movies impact on the star wars brand itself.
The lack of change or growth to the characters in a manner that challenged the audience made the journey feel worthless, this is due to brisk pace of the film; where the original trilogy and at points of the prequels it would slow down and let us take in the events, this contrast with the rapid change in location (reminding me of Rogue one) and sudden introduction of characters. This film rushes out the scenes, as it was making up for the poor choice of events in 7 and especially 8, and due to the fact it practically forgot Episode 8 entirely (thankfully) it was acting as if it was 2 films at once. The disregard for the original trilogy was upsetting as by the (spoilers) scene where Luke lifted his X-wing from the ocean, removing character growth; this could have been improved by having Rey lift the X-wing from the ocean floor, as a callback to Luke's training with Yoda where he failed to lift it from the swamps of Dagobah.
However there were some good parts of the film, the CGI for example was rather great, ignoring some uncanny effects it was decent. The increase of practical effects was a sight for sore eyes and the practical revival of Carry Fisher through old footage was amazing, I thank everyone who helped keep her legacy intact.
As a whole it had a rushed pace and allot of polish, the effort that went into this film was evident and outstanding.