J.J. Abrams is not a very creative guy, and he (and his co-writers) showed it yet again with “The Rise of Skywalker” — a visually fun film that was merely a trite homage to Star Wars, with all the old characters, all the old places and the same old plot.

While “Force Awakens” was a complete (though pretty fun) rip-off of “Star Wars,” “The Rise of Skywalker” was really just a ridiculous retconning redux of “Return of the Jedi.”

Despite its lack of originality, “Force Awakens” was a decent enough start to this final trilogy. But then Rian Johnson’s derisive and poorly plotted “The Last Jedi” tore apart key elements of George Lucas’ story. And then Abrams, while trying to undo some of Johnson’s bad story, continued to rewrite Star Wars history while attempting to end it with a big bang.

The main premise of “Skywalker” — Palpatine’s return and planned rise through Rey — was typical Abrams. He was remaking “Return of the Jedi” — complete with the attempted Dark Side conversion of the rising Jedi, the lightning death of the emperor and dying redemption for the erstwhile evil man in black. Making Rey the granddaughter of the emperor was a neat, tidy way of keeping it all in the family. It was all too lazy and unimaginative.

It’s hard to declare which was worse: Abrams’ lack of creativity or his liberal use of bad plot devices to move his story along at lightspeed. Abrams cut way too many corners and followed Johnson’s path of redefining key elements of Star Wars. It created a ton of plot holes and inconsistencies — and was simply poor filmmaking.

The Force became metamagic in this series, allowing Force users to interact across the galaxy and Force ghosts to reach into the corporeal world to burn things, catch things and bring people back from death (or near death). Johnson started the cross-galaxy stuff between Rey and Kylo in “The Last Jedi” and Abrams continued it, explaining it by referring to Rey and Kylo as some kind of uber-powerful Force dyad. So they suddenly were more powerful than any Jedi we have ever seen — able to interact across the galaxy, including moving objects into each other’s spaces, pull flying spaceships with the Force and heal and resurrect people within seconds.

Basically, these directors fell prey to today’s superhero filmmaking — and they confused Star Wars with that other Disney brand, Marvel.

The metamagic was a lazy mechanism to keep the two central figures connected — no matter how far away they were, they were always within a step of each other. The lamest use of this was Kylo reaching through their Force portal to pull a necklace off Rey, then using it to learn where she was. Yet, when she was on the same planet (or on his hovering ship just above him on the planet), he could not sense her?

As bad as the convenience of Force magic was, Abrams used a far worse plot device throughout the entire film.

Oscar Isaac was once in a movie called “Ex Machina,” so maybe it’s apropos that he starred in this movie that used far too many deus ex machinas. The worst, coincidentally, was the one that involved his “Ex Machina” co-star (Domhnall Gleeson), who played the sniveling General Hux in this Star Wars trilogy.

In one of the worst-written scenes in “Skywalker” (and one you cringed to see coming), Hux saved Poe, Finn and Chewie from being executed. He explained it to Poe as him wanting to get revenge on Kylo — which is funny considering Kylo was stupidly on his way to turning back to Ben Solo. At least the new big bad general killed Hux for his very unbelievable betrayal. But it was the worst part of the entire movie — and it had plenty of competition.

Throughout the thing, the heroes avoided getting shot or destroyed by stormtroopers despite dozens of chances (yeah, stormtroopers are known for their incompetence, but it stood out too much here). On the star destroyer, why did the stormtroopers, who had been trying to kill Poe, Finn and Chewie, decide to just capture them? Because the general then simply ordered their execution anyway (from which they were stupidly saved by Hux).

There was not a single good battle — or one we have never seen — in the movie. Whether it was the opening TIE chase of the Millennium Falcon (since when can TIEs go through hyperspace?), the couple of blaster fights, the two lightsaber duels or the lame dual battles at Exegol at the end — you knew nothing of consequence was going to happen. This is why “Revenge of the Sith” was a better movie: The battle scenes, especially the final duel between Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, were epic.

Unlike the original “ROTJ,” which had the perfect tone and blend of drama and action, the finale of this film was underwhelmingly melodramatic.

George Lucas’ Emperor Palpatine was an evil, clever dude who was believably ruined by his ego. As Luke told him then, “Your overconfidence is your weakness.” And it proved true, as the emperor could not foresee the sudden change in Darth Vader amid his attempted murder of Luke Skywalker. Abrams’ Palpatine was just a moron — on the order of Snoke in the previous movie.

In the final scene on Exegol, Abrams used the same hubris downfall that killed the emperor the first time. First, Palpatine claimed he would take over Rey’s spirit if she killed him — and he somehow thought he could goad her into doing so. Then, when she declined, the emperor used his lightning attack to suck the Force power from the “dyad.” But he stupidly left them alive as he focused on saving his fleet, and Rey killed him with his own power — just as Darth Vader had done. Talk about not learning from your past mistakes, Palpy.

In that melodramatic, poorly directed Sith Opera finale, Rey basically died twice, revived first by Jedi spirits and then by Ben Solo — who apparently sacrificed himself to bring her back to life. Why does every bad Skywalker have to be redeemed at the end?

And why do all Skywalkers kill themselves? Anakin, Luke, Leia and Ben all did it — some (Anakin, Leia and Ben) for ultimately noble reasons, others (Luke) for cowardly ones. That’s why Abrams had to give him a more fitting, noble sendoff by retconning Johnson’s poor take on the first Skywalker we ever met. Was ghost Luke’s return to the optimistic Luke we know the hidden meaning behind the title “The Rise of Skywalker”?

Here’s another though on Skywalker deaths: When Luke and Leia reach across the galaxy to interact with Kylo Ren, they end up dying. But Rey can talk to him or fight him every day from anywhere, with no life drain? Must be that dyad thing. The new generation of Force users is indeed “more powerful than the emperor foresaw” — eh?

Here’s a question: Why didn’t Leia try to turn her son long ago? Maybe she did and failed. Maybe she needed the combined help of his dyad connection, Rey. OK, we’ll let that one go.

But what about that Forced kiss between Rey and Ben? Where did that come from? Of course Ben had a crush on her (so did Finn and everyone else), but Rey did not love that petulant, lost kid. She certainly was not attracted to that ugly mug. It was just more forced melodrama by Abrams. And a sappy bad ending.

At least he didn’t make Poe and Finn gay lovers. Apparently Isaac and some gay fans wanted the two secondary leads to have a relationship. Why? Star Wars is not about sex. It is about the story of the Skywalkers — about good and evil and (too much) redemption.

Isaac and the rest are probably the same people who think “Sesame Street” characters Bert and Ernie are (or should be) gay lovers. Hey, dumbasses, these are kids’ shows! People can do whatever they want in real life, but sexual politics have no place in childhood stories. (Gay fans got their representation when one of the female Resistance officers kissed another woman during the celebration. Again, why put that social-rights agenda in a Star Wars movie?)

Back to the plot holes …

What was up with the stupid Sith dagger map and the whole C-3PO arc? For one, the Sith were a secret sect that had no more than two people at one time (or so we were told in previous movies). So why do so many people know about them now? And why would 3PO know their language? As for the dagger itself, ignoring the simple way it was found, how about the way Rey figured out how to use it to locate the spot on the Death Star where she could find the Wayfinder? How lucky that she happened to be standing in just the right place to connect the map, eh?

Did we miss something? Why would a massive Sith fleet simply crash after the emperor and command ship died? The “They can’t leave the system without guidance” argument was fine (we saw how hard it was to get to), but why were they falling into Bespin, Endor’s Ewok moon and other places after the emperor died? Were they all shot down so easily? Were they piloted by his Force control and thus went out of control?

Does every movie now have to have planet killers? The Empire wanted to control the galaxy through fear and thought the Death Stars were a good way to do that. The First Order seemed bent on destroying every planet that ever held a Rebel/Resistor. Why couldn’t Abrams take a hint from Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn series and find a very smart enemy with a clever plan? Too much for his uncreative mind, apparently.

Technical problems: Han Solo made a big deal in “Star Wars” about how flying through hyperspace works. It requires careful calculations so you don’t fly through a star or into a planet, etc., because “that would end your trip real quick.” But Abrams and Johnson have completely ignored that rule, letting the Falcon and other ships jump to lightspeed from inside a ship, fly into a planet’s atmosphere, destroy a ship using hyperspeed, skip from place to place, etc. TIE fighters apparently now have hyperdrives, too. Oh, and the First Order — even little TIE fighters — can track any ship through hyperspace. Abrams clearly never read any of the books and just made it up as he went along to help the visuals he wanted in the film.

What don’t we care about? Harrison Ford’s appearance as a visual from Ben’s mind; Luke and Leia knowing Rey’s Dark Side heritage; Finn thinking he knows the Force; complaints that Rose was not a big enough character.

What did we like? Three things still stand: Chewbacca (we knew he wasn’t dead, though he should have been later), the Millennium Falcon and the goosebump-raising score by John Williams. Rey returned to prominence after spending “The Last Jedi” following a dour Luke around on his exile island and witnessing one of the most unbelievable deaths of a movie villain ever (how did Snoke not see that coming?). And, one of the best scenes was a very brief flashback to Luke and Leia training in their post-“ROTJ” youth. Abrams even used their youthful faces from that film.

In the end, Abrams tried to do too much with the movie — wrapping past and present together too neatly, with too many quick fixes and easy outs. So it lands in our bottom five among the 11 Star Wars movies.