A squash-buckling space adventure that captured our hearts and galvanized nerds across the world over 40 years ago has officially come to an end.

The Star Wars saga dramatized family ties, the strain of war and defined the battle between good and evil inside all of us. 

Those movies gave life to our inner-child, told in a thrilling, compassionate and cohesive arc… something the creators of ‘Rise of Skywalker’ could only dream of.

The conclusion of the Skywalker saga was simply a convoluted mess with plot holes so large you could fly a star destroyer through them.

A whole movie’s worth of plot is shoved into the opening crawl and it only gets worse as the return of characters and development of others are given no explanation. Characters have no compelling motivations and much of the film is an adventure to find one object that leads to another.

What the characters find is so convenient in advancing the plot that it’s laughable. The quick-paced plot makes the dialogue suffer as most of the characters only say anything if it’s important to advancing the film. 

The only memorable quotes are the ones they stole from other movies in the saga as another way to repackage a timeless classic.

‘Rise of Skywalker’ feeds off nostalgia. The fan service was strong in this film, which gave it a lackluster ending to an already disappointing trilogy.

This movie felt like an apology letter to fans who were outraged by some of the implausible and out-of-character story arcs of ‘The Last Jedi’ even though ‘Rise of Skywalker’ does just that. Much of the film proactively rebukes several key actions and story lines from the previous movie, which is partially why the plot is all over the place.

A lot of the movie even undermines parts of the original and prequel trilogies by ignoring the sacrifices and heroism of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker.

Despite the movie’s many failures, particularly in its plot, there were some redeeming qualities for the film.

The three main characters (Finn, Rey and Poe) go on an adventure to find a sith wayfinder that will lead them to the planet Emperor Palpatine is on through the first half of the movie and its exciting, action-packed and emotional at times. The actors had great chemistry between each other and it’s baffling that this is the first and only time we see all three of them working together in this trilogy.

The action was thrilling. There really isn’t a dull moment throughout the entire film and it doesn’t feel like a 2 and a half hour movie. It has plenty of lightsaber fights, force powers, space battles, and planetary explosions.

If you’re just a casual Star Wars fan, you’ll probably enjoy this movie. The acting is good and the action keeps you engaged. The almost unbelievable force powers and family drama was intriguing but where this movie fell flat was the continuity. 

A lot of the actions and key plot points in the previous two films just didn’t seem to matter in this movie. Again, it was a mess. 

That’s not to say its unwatchable or unenjoyable. It’s a thrilling, mind-boggling adventure that feels like a Star Wars movie. 

‘Rise of Skywalker’ is a fitting end to the sequel trilogy, but it fails to conclude a generational story as the finale of the entire saga.