If you don't mind me saying, what's sad to me is your clear dissatisfaction with the use of older actors. Body-shaming is one of the most disagreeable aspects of social media but so many see fit to resort to it.

Harrison Ford is 73 ffs. Why can't Han Solo age? What is sad about him ageing? Are you ageist? Do you think older actors should be banned for not being sprightly?

Social media trolls had a right go at Carrie Fisher mostly claiming she had "not aged well". In her words“Please stop debating about whether or not I aged well,” she wrote. “Unfortunately, it hurts all three of my feelings. My body hasn’t aged as well as I have. Blow us.”

Fisher later added

I have no clue if she uses lip fillers or not but neither do I care. It's her body and she can do what she wants. You are objectifying her body when it is nothing at all to do with you. Carrie Fisher is an amazing woman, she is an author, playwright, screenwriter and superb actress. Yet your only comment about her is your disparaging view of the appearance of her lips.

No one objects to old actors solely because of their age. If they did they'd be equally dissatisfied with Alec Guinness and IIan McDiarmid from the original and prequel trilogies respectively. Since I've never heard any criticism of either I'm guessing people are actually unhappy with poor actors who are ALSO old. Harrison Ford has been stealing a living for the best part of two decades. He was terrible in the last Indiana Jones film not because he is old but rather he no longer seems to care.

It's a valid point though. The action-adventure blockbuster is popular precisely because viewers enjoy living vicariously in the shoes of the hero.

Kids love Indiana Jones and Han Solo because they're adults they can relate to (they've retained at least some visible aspects of childhood) who effortlessly master feats of derring-do with a swagger in their step and a quip on their lips.

Once seen for the first time these characters become fixed in our minds like a fly trapped in amber. So even though Harrison Ford ages - "Indiana Jones" remains circa late twenties, early thirties within memory - forever.

Unfortunately, there are only so many miracles you can perform with makeup. So whilst Ford aged a visible fifteen-or-so years from the beginning of Star Wars to the penultimate Indiana Jones - his appearance didn't clash seriously with the viewer's mental images of Jones/Solo. But forty years is just too great a gap to bridge.

Cognitive dissonance really does set in when the brain attempts to square the Ford of this latest Star Wars incarnation with memories of him at his physical and athletic peak.

And whilst kids today are just as likely to want to BE that early Indiana Jones - I very much doubt any will return home from the cinema wishing they could become 70+year Solo.

As for the millions of people to whom Carrie "Slave Girl" Fisher was ever-present in mind during puberty - I can only sympathize over how many blissful memories this movie has tarnished.

The relatively recent phenomenon of old blokes on a rampage however, slightly bucks the trend; or at least gives us some shoes to live in that are a bit different to the norm. With Liam Neeson at the top of the heap in the enjoyably awful 'Taken' series, many have followed - I particularly enjoyed Denzel's middle-aged murder spree using mostly power tools; I wish I'd thought of that when I was in the full bloom of my DIY phase.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for female actors - with very few exceptions, male movie stars, regardless of their advancing years, seem to have their on-screen love interests portrayed by much younger women. Was it ever thus? I don't remember.

In LOTR, when Aragorn "married" on the mound of Cerin Amroth, she was 2,730.

Fair comment - perhaps Elves do not suffer the same discrimination as mortal women.

Although in real life - Liv Tyler is 20 years younger than Viggo Mortensen.

There's old and there's OLD. Recall that during the overwhelming majority of years during which Hollywood has enjoyed dominance the male acting lead was usually over the age of fifty. Think of the likes of Charlton Heston, Jimmy Stewart, Burt Lancaster etc. It's only recently that ages have drastically dropped.

I think the studios have made a critical error of judgement in thinking lead actors need to be just out of their teens. Han Solo/Indiana Jones were cool partly because they straddled the gulf between athletic youth and the wisdom of full maturity. Sure, characters such as Luke Skywalker were also cool. But to a child's eyes such as mine in 1977 he appeared childish and, well, whiny.

Kids don't fantasise about being young men. They want the full package.

I enjoyed it.

Although, after the prequels, Star Wars fans would grasp at anything remotely decent. Thought Abrams did a good job of getting the 'feeling' right of the original films which was lacking from the prequels. I grew-up with the originals so I was always going to enjoy this one...