I see it the other way, 8 was an alright movie if it was standalone and not part of SW. The things most people disliked are fine if it was some generic sci-fi action movie. “Jake Skywalker” is a nonissue if you don’t think he’s supposed to be Luke, the quippy lines were common, the weird bits like the Mary Poppins scene or the Holdo maneuver are acceptable in some other sci-fi movie. Wouldn’t have been a masterpiece, but it’s still relatively put together.

9 struggled to be a film. Remove it from SW and it’s almost worse— 8 could feasibly be greenlit and released by lazy execs, but 9 would’ve been cancelled in production. Pacing was jarring to the point of feeling unfinished, plot was one of the least coherent in a mega blockbuster, and story conveniences were nauseatingly poor even if it wasn’t Star Wars. It feels like they just put something together real quick without the editors and it got leaked. None of it was serviceable. And god, not to repeat myself, but the pacing and story were horrid.

Add it back to SW, and the Sith life transfer/dyad nonsense is as much an affront to Lucas’s story as TLJ Luke. Possibly more: sure, doing that to Luke was shit, but TRoS butchered basic Force principles. It’s like a bad DM fucking up a pivotal NPC vs fucking up the entire game system.

I dislike both of them nearly equally, but I could probably watch 8 again. 9 is like an indecisive amateur’s attempt at Lego Star Wars machinima, down to poor editing and an inability to order scenes. Didn’t see another movie so sloppy until Thor: Love and Thunder.