In the United States, Disney recently launched the Disney + streaming service, and of course everyone loves Baby Yoda (with associated memes) from the The Mandalorian series. In a recent episode of South Park, the class's new girl says that the Star Wars spinoff series "makes the new movies look like dog shit." She's not wrong.

Yet it is not a huge feat. The Space Samurai story has only cultivated the childish discovery magic that made the original films charming but almost completely missing from The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and now The Rise of Skywalker which concludes the new Star Wars "saga" trilogy.

The last part is otherwise a very mixed bag with few surprises and even fewer original ideas.

The new movie trilogy has been quite disturbingly nostalgic. It seems Jedin's return from 1983 - the least memorable of the original films apart from the cute forest bears - has broken down, gone around the recycling center and screwed up again with more expensive effects for The Rise of Skywalker. New label, same content.

Like Luke before her, Rey (Daisy Ridley) has spent her time since the last movie meditating to become a Jedi champion and to find the answers to her past. But the training has to wait. Someone at the recycling center has rooted out the evil Emperor Palpatine who died in Jedin's return and thawed him. Now he is apparently cloned, or something.

Palpatine has a huge fleet of star cruisers ready to wipe out the entire galaxy. The Death Arm just waiting for Darth Vader's heir Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) to stop being so mean and murderous, or persuade Rey to join the dark side.

She must try to stop the ongoing war herself by following Luke Skywalker's old clues and finding Palpatine. Among other things, this leads to an expedition on a stormy water plane where Rey and Kylo Ren meet in an epic candlestick duel on the wreck of the old death star in the middle of a stormy sea. One of the few perfect moments in an otherwise overwhelming movie.

When the hype is here, it's easy to forget that Star Wars has had a lot of problems since George Lucas sold his movie universe to Disney 2012. Many fans were cheering. Some were still annoyed after Lucas released directors' cut versions of the original 70s films in the early 00s, with computer animations that today look tedious.

Others were bitter about the substandard prequel trilogy, which had the world's most annoying sidekick, an uncharismatic Anakin Skywalker, and spent long discussions on geopolitical trade agreements. Episodes 1,2 and 3 didn't even seem to capture the imagination of the youngest fans.

Disney would save everything. JJ Abrams got the mantle and started the new trilogy with The Force Awakens in 2015. Star Wars fans seemed to be cheering. The film had enough familiar elements from the original (or too many, if asked by most critics) to please the audience. But also introduced new characters, which of course had a relationship with the old but at least made a promise to develop into something their own. The sequel The Last Jedi (2017) directed by Rian Johnson could never find its footing under the weight of all expectations and fell back on the same impersonal mix of visual eye candy and repackaged nostalgia that now perfectly dominates The Rise of Skywalker.

Around 2017, it seemed as if directors were fired on treadmills. Many had to be replaced by Disney because of "creative disagreements". Nevertheless, the new films under Disney's control led to the coinage of the "Star wars fatigue", which put its finger on a fatigue that seemed to spread, even to the most dedicated fans.

Maybe that's why the best Star Wars products are the ones that deviate from the canonized original "fairy tale", where everything has to be in a certain way. As mentioned Mandalorian, the standalone Rogue One and the old RPG game Knights of the old republic. All fairly simple stories that capture the magic of the Star Wars universe without unnecessary plotters.

In The Rise of Skywalker, JJ Abrams is back in the register, expecting the audience to be patient. Not just for both Rey and Kylo Ren's conflict, their tangled family history and personal inner journeys. At the same time, another attack by the rebels will be coordinated. We will try to care about Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac), who receive small mandatory side assignments without dividends. As a cream on the mash, we should also scream for joy every time someone from the aged original cast shows up as gray-haired old man or ghost.

There is much to be told, but little to be said. After a lot of talk about the importance of working together, and "we are more than them", the film's sense of morality lands in that everything resolves if we just hug a little more.