Meandering nostalgic box-ticking

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 2019)

Here's the thing about the original Star Wars films: they were made with the sole intention of telling a story; they were not box-ticking exercises.
With this, more than even episodes 7 and 8, it feels as though the studio's/writers' main concerns were to get as many nostalgic points and "woke" moments in there as possible.
None of this would be a problem if they focussed on what they were supposed to focus on first and foremost: an original, good quality story.
Spoilers follow...
Fantasy takes a leap but needs to be grounded in solid realities. In the first trilogy, yes, there were ghost consultants and a weird hallucinatory sequence in which Luke cuts off his own head, but the current makers seem to have taken these as a licence to throw in whatever they want to plug the holes in this leaky script.
The ghosts of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were Jedis. They had earned the right to be ever-lasting. But why does Han Solo make another appearance? As Ben Solo's conscience?! What is this, a cartoon?? What about doing some acting instead - some soul-searching rather than a premonition of his dad?
Then there's the Emperor's unexplained resurrection! Can anyone stay dead? And if they can't, death loses its threat. For example, Ben gets hurled into an abyss and crawls out unharmed. What's to say the entire cast can't return for episode 10: Return of the Lazy Scriptwriting?
Five minutes earlier, Rey and Ben are helpless at the Emperor's powers of suction, and he's able to disable the galaxy's entire space fleet with his lightning fingers, but then Rey is able to render his powers obsolete with two lightsabers. Erm, what?? Consistency, please!!!
So, is he dead now? Or can he just inexplicably come back as part of a roll call in Episode 12?
Also, didn't he say that if Rey killed him, he would infuse her personality and she'd become the Sith ruler of the cosmos? What happened there? Or was it Darth Sidious's ultimate plan to live on a desolate sand farm and drink blue milk for eternity?
When I was a kid I used to love making up adventures with my Star Wars figures. I had fun, but I wouldn't presume to put these stories on the big screen as part of the definitive Star Wars journey. That's what this film felt like - people making it up as they went along, with a whole bunch of exposition to justify every scene.
Lastly, there was very little that made any of the characters special or unique. Finn had a bit of personality in Force Awakens, but he could have been any random character in this film. And the previous one.
I'll stick with just episodes 4, 5 and 6, thanks.