It’s so frustrating too because the atmosphere, casting, acting, even the characters are really compelling. But they just absolutely refused to take any risks. It’s like they just didn’t get the whole point. Rey needed to become a gray character, and kylo needed to be redeemed. And they both had to live with it and shoulders the burdens of their past. Luke needed to accept that ultimately people are people and you can’t expect to entirely subvert either your baser or more noble emotions and instincts.

So much clumsy and lazy storytelling, taking shortcuts on one side, astronomically improbable coincidences to abruptly thrust the plot forward, baffling detours into shenanigans filler material that leads nowhere special, just to justify a visual sequence or to sell toys.

There’s some great ideas in there, as well as the unpopped kernels of other great ideas. So much unfulfilled potential, with tantalizing, infuriating glimpses of what could have been.

It’s like Lucas cracked the code with Empire Strikes Back, with a team of equals all working together and ready to push back on questionable ideas and impulses… then Lucas never tried that workflow again.

Then Disney fumbled the ball by allowing the goddamned “mystery box” approach, by requesting a misguided thing, summed up in the following sentence - “That thing you did with Star Trek… do it with Star Wars!”

Also, the prequels had fun and interesting world building. Look at games like battlefront and fallen order or all the new aliens we were introduced to.

The prequels made star wars feel larger than the original trilogy, the Sequels made the world feel smaller. No new alien race that plays a big role, no new worlds of interest (maybe the red salt planet, but it’s a barren wasteland), no new ships or technology.

Unlike the prequels (spanning decades, wars, and planets) the Sequels don’t have anything to build off of to save them.

The prequels are pretty solid outside of maybe the middle of Attack of the clones. The lightsaver battles and special effects are way better