I thought Rian’s movie felt most like Star Wars compared to the other sequels. I’m going to stop short of blaming Johnson (or the star trek guy) for anything bad about the movie(s) and instead heap it all on Kennedy and Disney. They shouldn’t have let the writers and directors hijack the sequels like they did… what a flipping mess they made. Nearing the end of Ep 9 my friends and I were talking about and laughing out loud in the theater about how bad it was, and that’s a shame since SW love is ingrained into my soul.
3.95, it ends a few minutes before Ep. 4.
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Fair enough. I always felt the main problem with the recent trilogy was the complete lack of connection between the movies. It just felt like the directors were intentionally overwriting the others work whenever possible.
I enjoyed 1 and 2. 3… not so much. (for e.g. Where the hell did Rose go?)
It wasn’t a perfect movie (what is?), but I enjoyed it at the time, the disconnect with the previous lore (and movie) was suprising, and felt a bit jarring at the time. Now that expanded story has filled in a bit (you can see the seeds of Lukes failure in the Mandalorian) I feel more positive about most of the story direction. Last Jedi could have maybe used a litle more lead in.
In general though, I agree the movie gets way to much flak. Unexpected plot developments keep things intersting. I think JJ and Disney deserve the majority of complaints for allowing a trilogy to feel like it was made up on the fly.
I look forward to seeing what Rian Johnson does with a chance to make a cohesive story.
If the quote you’re referring to is: “Many Bothans died to bring us this information.” You might be a little mixed up here. That quote is from Return of the Jedi and is in reference to the second Death Star and no actual plans are mentioned. As to the plans stolen in Rogue One it’s never directly mentioned just how Leia got the plans she hides in R2D2 in A New Hope, and was a subject of a lot of speculation and several conflicting old-extended universe stories.
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The three movies were disconnected, initially by design. The original plan was to have three different directors and give them free rein to do what they wanted. That could, theoretically, work if the only connection between the films was that they took place in the same shared universe. But these were supposed to be a true trilogy, with continuity of characters and story. And then Abrams and Johnson basically went in completely opposite directions with the first two films, making the third film all but impossible to make coherent. So in desperation, they ditched the third director and brought Abrams back, presumably in part due to the backlash from that certain segment of the fandom who hated the Last Jedi. I don’t really fault Abrams for the mess that is the Rise of Skywalker. It was setup to fail almost from the start. I don’t understand why they didn’t take the Marvel/MCU approach and put someone in charge of the whole project. They could have still had 3 directors, but a Feige-like figure could have kept everything on target, whatever they wanted that target to be.
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Three directors with a central person could have worked.
If only there was someone deeply knowledgable with a large fan base 
(Filoni!!! )
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You nailed the missing element - Dave Filoni. He cares a lot about cohesion, continuity and story telling. JJ Abrams does not, his approach might best be described as ADD. He can’t seem to pay attention to a project long enough for it to be good from opening scene to closing credits.
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But it also started 13 years earlier, when Jyn was a kid. So the starting point is pretty close to the end of Episode III where Vader is observing the Death Star construction.
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This is the way.
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Fair point, but it was only a few minutes of a rather long movie (we just saw it again on Saturday in theater). So 3.85. 
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I mean…that kinds is, but they really hit a home run with Mandalorian bringing those kids’ level of enthusiasm and sheer joy for Star Wars to the small screen.
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To the contrary, I think Disney has amplified the “marginal misogynistic racist choads” to deflect from the awfulness of TLJ. It wasn’t the characters or the actors that were the problem, it was the plot. Look at us, forcing tension by running away at a very slow speed, but we can take a side trip to a casino!
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They did it with the first trilogy, and the second trilogy demonstrated how the alternative (one director for all three) is not necessarily better. The trick is to allow directors to retain their individual creativity, while providing a flexible framework within which to work. But JJ Abrams just decided to cram Johnson’s ideas into the restrictive boundaries set by rabid fanboys, which was, shall we say, unsuccessful.
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I liked that The Last Jedi (briefly) challenged the whole premise that the Jedi are a force of unquestionable and unerring good in the galaxy. Luke was right: they were a bunch of arrogant bastards who unwittingly sowed the seeds of their own destruction and the rise of the Empire.
After Kylo Ren killed Snoke and then he and Rey teamed up to fight the Royal Guards it actually felt like she might consider his proposal to leave Sith and Jedi behind to try something new. Then everything just reverted back to the default settings again.
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Good point. I always forget the OG trilogy was three directors, thankfully Lucas was there to keep the general story arc well supported through the entire series.
I did actually like episodes I to III overall (Mainly 2 and 3) but they definitely suffered from Lucas as an auteur without some creative checks (ahem racist trope Jar Jar, oh and midichlorians, and the edits to III to VI ugh why…).
Despite the problems of I to III they (and the clone wars) did start us towards the realization that the Jedi are imperfect, which Rian actually built on pretty well.
You have found me out as a very casual fan I’m afraid! I’m quite sure you are right.
I thought The Last Jedi was great. Also, it was very obvious how the people complaining about how awful it was depended on specious arguments to suppor their position.
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The Last Jedi was, by far, the best of the final trilogy. And Abrams’ Rise of Skywalker the worst.
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Even so, it had some really good bits, and ultimately holds together way better than it has any right to!
