So finally we come to the end of the 'Skywalker saga' or just 'Star Wars' as it used to known before the perennial revisionism or 'retconning' as it has been renamed became par for the course.

The sequel trilogy finishes pretty much as you'd expect it to with a lot of lip service to fans in an attempt to get out of the movie equivalent of dodge city with some integrity still intact after Rian Johnson and his 'The Last Jedi' (2017) middle instalment put the franchise up shit creek without a paddle in the eyes of most fans.

Rey (Daisy Ridley) is back with her merry gang of Finn (John Boyega), Poe (Oscar Isaac), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) whilst the late Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia provides moral support from a distance.

On the opposite side of the coin or 'force' are the dark side who's main players are Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), the somehow never before seen General Pryde (Richard E Grant), General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and in the worst kept movie secret since, well......ever, Ian McDiarmid returns as the despicable Emporer Palpatine or just 'The Emporer' as he used to be called back in the '80s.

It gets straight down to business with Kylo Ren tearing across the galaxy looking for a passage to the absurdly entitled planet Exegol - honestly who the hell wrote that name down on a piece of paper and thought it was a good idea? - which apparently is the source point of a mysterious message broadcast out from the previously thought deceased Emporer who is attempting to convince everyone in the galaxy not to abandon their once favourite science fiction franchise.

I'm led to believe that previously in the whole Star Wars universe lore the evil Sith were based on a planet called Moraband but JJ Abrams is dead set on going with Exegol so it's off to that tongue twister we go.

There he encounters a zombie Emporer who somehow survived not only being thrown literally a few miles down a moon-sized space stations air shaft to his completely unambiguous death but even that space stations subsequent complete and utter destruction.

Though that shouldn't really be much of a surprise as it also transpires that said moon-sized space station, ie: the second 'Death Star' is also still somehow partially intact - even though we saw it combust into a million tiny pieces 35 years ago - and is located on a planet in the Endor system.

Yeah. Sure.

Anyway to sum up The Emporer's near or indeed partially dead experience has apparently taught him nothing and he's just as malevolent as ever with the ambition to once again take over the entire known universe by hook or by crook using a fleet of star destroyers that can all individually annihilate planets something that previously the aforementioned 'Death Star' could only do.

Meanwhile, Rey finds out that her parents weren't just nobodies and in fact, were definitely somebodies so much so that she starts to reconsider her whole motivations in proceedings and Kylo is still wrestling with his conscience even though it appeared he'd pretty clearly pitched his tent in the bad guy camp when he killed his dad, the beloved Han Solo (Harrison Ford) two movies ago.

Oh and Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Willaims) comes out of retirement in another attempt to gain the nostalgia dollar having been conveniently forgotten about in the sequels up to this point.

To a certain extent, this movie renders the previous instalment a complete irrelevance which is underlined by the pretty cringeworthy though also slightly hilarious decision to kick Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico character onto the sidelines for all but a few fleeting and unimportant moments. We can only presume her once blossoming romance with Finn went south big style between the two films.

Indeed Finn and Poe themselves are really just there to make up the numbers with Poe a low rent Han Solo and Finn just a........... well just a guy in the resistance who gets sent up to bat first a lot. Both characters effectively disappear into the ether as the film focuses purely on the now 'will they / won't they?' dynamic of Rey and Kylo.

A whole bunch of other new characters are thrown in too with some more successful than others and in a genuinely successful throwback to the original movies, Richard E Grant provides some lamentable 'stiff upper lipness' as the stoic Pryde who quite literally casts aside Domhnall Gleeson's wearingly petulant portrayal of Hux who was always more of a snivelling English boarding school bully than a zealous military tyrant.

In one nod that keeps in check with its immediate predecessor, Snoke's existence is given a laughably flippant explanation and the Knights of Ren.........well who knows. Indeed I doubt they even know themselves how they came to be or indeed where they've even been up to this point. Literally just thrown into the mix to replace Snoke's guards and Captain Phasma who were all discarded last time out they'd have as well stayed at home and remained a mystery.

All in all, it's big, boisterous and relentless with a lot of impressive visuals but is hampered by a storyline that spends too much time correcting the perceived missteps of its predecessor and lazily just recycles the old antagonist having not been able to actually come up with anything new or original. Apart from Exegol that is and they can keep that.

If it wasn't clear before then it damn well sure is now that there was never any overarching narrative at play here and that 'The Force Awakens' (2015) was conceived purely as a first act with no clue about how it was going to evolve which is madness considering it was always meant to be the first of three parts.

You can't call any movie that will end its run with over a billion dollars taken at the box office a flop but from a financial perspective, this will still finish way behind where it was hoped it would and that will surely park the franchise in limbo for a while which could be a good thing as it may lead to more considered and indeed original instalments in the future.

Oh well. At least 'The Mandalorian' TV show is pretty good.