The dead seem more alive than the living

Rating: 4/10 (20 May 2020)

This film can be summed up for me with the one line, spoken one hour, fifty four minutes and forty four seconds into this two hour and twelve minute film. The actor in question should be recognisable to anyone who's watched the other Star Wars films, and who's return to the Galaxy Far, Far Away has been long touted.
And they get one line!

There are so many returning characters - practically making cameos, but not really involved in the main action - that it's easy to lose focus as you try to place which film they were in.
The scenes with Carrie Fisher were hard to watch. You know she wasn't really there, and the exchanges were sadly stilted as a result. It seemed odd to see her - given the audience know she'd passed away - and then see how "full of life" Mark Hamills Luke Skywalker was in his role, having disappeared at the end of the last film. This seems to be a feature of this film; with the Force powers ramped up to 120%, as though the writers are trying to squeeze as much as they can into this last instalment as they can, pulling in things from the video games (or possibly setting up for future video games).
The graphics are suitably jaw dropping (if slightly dark in places for home viewing) and are best viewed on the biggest screen possible. As seen in the trailers; the fallen Death Star is an amazing location for a fight scene, if only it was more reminiscent of the duel in Episode 1.
It's a decent ending to this part of the trilogy, which kept my kids entertained, though then they turned their noses up at the original trilogy....