Go watch it! Epic, fantastic, jaw-dropping, satisfying film. (SPOILERS!)

Rating: 9/10 (21 December 2019)

There seems a-lot of negative review, but as a Star Wars fan I'd say coming out of the cinema I enjoyed it. The whole family on leaving the cinema were very impressed and also clearly enjoyed it. I certainly cared for the characters more in this film and got totally wrapped up in it. I saw the last one (TLJ) about three times in the Cinema but found some scenes of that a bit frustrating and though it looked fantastic, I didn't care about the characters as much. Yes with RoS they're re-tellings of similar tropes and character arches, but I'm not fussed about that. The original movie followed Propp's Narrative structure so cleanly and I think this really helped towards it's success. The last three new films have clearly been trying to emulate this. Rouge One Felt Fresh as it wasn't a 'Star Wars' film, and had the licence to be much grittier and darker. RoS is what it is; the ultimate sci-fi fairytale, pantomime of Good Vs Evil. It's epic, it's jaw-dropping, it's Star Wars.
My auntie said 'it's like they got all the best bits of the last series and stuck them together!'
Often in the film they're doing things you've seen before, but on a bigger, flashier scale, or new for this film and the parallels are clear to see from both Jedi Returns and The Empire. I think had JJ Abrams directed TLJ we may have seen a few of these scenes in that one, which is why it felt a jumpy at the start as he was almost correcting/resettling the tone from the 'Subvert your expectation' style of Rian Johnson. But hey-ho, they were well done and after all the title is 'Star Wars' audiences have an expectation of that.
So a few similarities between this and previous films of the original trilogy I noticed:
Empire Wampa = Big Snake in a hole.
RoTJ Sarlacc pit = Speeder chase with Stormtrooper Jetpacks.
Star Wars 1 (The Last hope) Rescue Princess Death star = Rescue Chewie from command ship.
RoTJ Throne room lightsaber battle with window onto space battle = TLJ Throne room lightsaber battle with window onto space batter = Throne room battle with Wimbledon Style sliding roof onto space batter.
And personally I don't mind, it feels like a comforting echo of the original trilogy and as George Lucas said about his prequals they're supposed to rhyme/echo. I think they did this nicely in this film, I really liked the duel between Ray and Kylo being in the water, which seemed like an antithesis to Anakin beocme Darth Vader (battling around lava on a fallen column) where as we had Kylo die and come back as Ben basically (battling around a fallen column in water). This is all nice and thoughtful, but I still wanted to see some new stuff..
And there was new stuff and it was great! The Force Facetime developed into Force Fightime, which was a cool surprise. Hux stopped being the jokes and gained some purpose, swiftly wiped out by Richard.E.Grant who is perfectly scathing, British and ruthless for an Imperial Commander. I 100% would pay to watch a spin off with him at the helm of a cruiser, as Withnail taking stormtroopers on holiday by mistake. Anyway, I also really liked the fact that scenes emotionally connected. It takes time to warm to characters and Rey's Mary sue'ness makes a bit of sense now considering her blood relations. However, where as Luke had his difficult daddy issues with Vader, Rey's are so much worse with Palpatine! He really does make it seem hopeless for her at the end: all her friends are dying and if she kills he, he wins anyway... that seemed pretty tough for her and though it was obviously very similar to the end of RoTJ, I was pulled in hook, line & sinker: whats she gonna do? I felt much more emotionally invested in this than I did in TLJ. I was glad to see Luke become a helpful mentor and loose the bitterness. Poe and Finn were on form. Poe & Finn both got some nice new love interests. Though we didn't see much of Rose, which is a shame because she and Poe had a nice moment at the end of TLJ and it felt like she'd been built up to a bit more.. it's almost like she got replaced a bit by horse riding bow hunting ex-stormtrooper girl... (Sorry, tough to get to know new characters this late in the game). Overall can't fault any of the actors and their characters have really grown on me since the first film. Daisy was a great lead, John and Oscar are just plain cool. Adam Driver comes across with Kylo as broody and cold blooded, great as coming back round to being Ben too. All the rest were great too, of course Richard E Grant being my personal highlight. I think there was about 4-5 times my jaw dropped in the cinema. We had great fun watching it and only broke concentration for a few moments eg: 'Whats that triangle thing?' - 'Sith Sat-nav' - 'ah okay'. "Leia trained as a Jedi? Must have missed that, Okay whatever." The pace is pretty quick, but so what, the scenes had weight to them and were both nostalgic and new.
Personally I'm liable to be a fan (my parents named me after Luke Skywalker!) and I've always liked the original trilogy since I was a kid. Now all I can do is watch them back on Video :( which will of course mean skipping to the best bits...
Ep1: Pod Racing.
Ep2: Yoda Lightsaber fight!
Ep3: Lightsaber battle over lava and 'noooooo'
Ep4: Watch the lot.
Ep5: Watch the lot.
Ep6: Skip to skiff's and watch the rest.
Ep7: Watch the lot (Skip those rolling monsters)
Ep8: Skip to Crait. (remember rewind to enjoy Mark ham it up drinking blue milk!)
Ep9: maybe skip the first dizzying hyperspace jumping then watch the lot. I do want to see it again in the cinema!
So in summary considering all the films, its such a feat and fantastically impressive. Thank you Lucas for starting it and Disney for keeping it going! This was a satisfying end to the series. Shame it's over, but I'm sure Disney will do more spin off's and fresh series in the Star Wars universe. It is the best fairtytale-space-set-wild-west-fascist-fighting series I can think off. Also, thank you Disney as for the first time with Star Wars my wife is asking me 'can we watch Mandalorian' each week; I get Star Wars:Bounty hunter missions and she 'awwhs' over cute baby yoda character. win-win. Looking forward to the boba fett movie. But will any future star wars universe films ever be as epic and theatrical as these? Hope so.