And so it ends...

Rating: 8/10 (7 January 2020)

Way back in early 1978 I joined hundreds of other film fans queuing around the block to get into the Bristol Odeon (pre multi-screen) to experience a totally new cinematic event. Star Wars IV A New Hope had arrived to blow us all away - and it did, boy it did!
Almost exactly 41 years later my elder self walked into a near empty (bar 5 other people) at the Bristol Showcase to see the end of a saga which had taken us to new worlds, that had killed off old characters and introduced us to new ones, and had us ride a rollercoaster of emotions. So, did this final instalment live up to my hopes after all these years? I have to say, on balance, that yes, with a few reservations, it did.
The way the old guard said goodbye - that is to say Hans Solo, Leia, and, of course, Luke Skywalker (the original triumvirate of Harrison Ford, Mark Hammill and, most poignantly of them all, the late (and great) Carrie Fisher was most moving - appearing as ghostly figures throughout (after Leia had departed for the universe of the Force) and guided the new crew of Rey, Finn and Poe (Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac) through the final battle of good vs evil - was nicely handled, and the various revelations around Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Rey were, for the most part, quite surprising.
My reservations were mainly that some of the chase and battle sequences - especially at the start - went on too long and did not really add much to the narrative, and the subplot involving Chewbacca seemed a little lacklustre. But in the end the loose ends appeared to be all tied up, and the rebels finally found their cause!
So, farewell to 41 years of entertainment on an epic scale (allowances made for parts I-III!), farewell to C3PO and R2D2, to the Ewoks, the good guys in white and the bad guys in black, and, most of all, to the original three who brought so much to my teenage and early 20s!