A disjointed mess of a trilogy

All three films made over a billion.

Disney got exactly what they wanted.

I think the seeds of destruction were planted in the first film. JJ Abrams set up a bunch of his "mystery boxes", which is a storytelling misfire waiting to happen since there is no plan. How can you construct enduring themes that pay off properly if nothing is plotted? But, yeah, then The Last Jedi drove it into the ground by "paying off" the mystery boxes with a bunch of nonsequitors and anti-climaxes, replacing the themes with sorta new themes. Then Rise of Skywalker doubled back again. It undid a lot of those anti-climaxes (which, granted, had a kind of power by being twisty) and tried to pay things off in a more fan-servicy way.

From the start, there was also a clear committee hand guiding this thing. Too much producer meddling. "What do fans want?" Seemed to be the big question. Which is dumb. "What's the best story?" That's your question.

So, instead of throwing us X-wings and never mentioning midi-chlorians or Jar Jar Binks, and instead of shipping Rey and Kylo and making Rey's parents be "somebodies" after all, they should have thought, "What's the next thing that should happen in the Star Wars story...?"

The big problem there, of course, is that there's no good answer. The Original Trilogy told a coherent story with a beginning, middle, and end. Additions on either side have proved awful.

I suppose they'll keep cranking out these turds as long as geeks will camp out on the sidewalk for a week to see them, but there's certainly no remaining artistic justification.

I think the flaw was the initial plan to use three different directors for the films. That worked for the original trilogy because Lucas seemed to have overall control of the story, and passed the nuts and bolts directing off to others for the 2nd and 3rd films. And really, if there is a weak link to the original films it's a lack of a coherent story due to a lack of pre-planning by Lucas. Star Wars was a stand-alone film, and he had to alter some things to send the story in the direction he wanted in the next two.

If Abrams had been allowed to make all three films, I think the new trilogy would have been a lot better. Instead, he was told to pass the baton to Rian Johnson, who was originally meant to pass it to Colin Trevorrow for part 3. And while Johnson made what is a great film on its own, it was a terrible follow-up to the even better film Abrams had created. It made all the mistakes Lucas made in terms of not following one consistent story, and when Abrams ended up having to wrap up the trilogy, he had to more or less start from scratch.

Personally, I think part 7 couldn't have been any better, and it set the stage for what could have been a great trilogy. The story could have gone any number of ways, but it should have built off the first film. We probably should have learned who Rey was in part 8, and it shouldn't have been a Palpatine. Personally, I feel a perfect closure to all 9 films, and something that was hinted at in part 7, would have been for Rey to be a Kenobi. Obi Wan Kenobi failed Anakin Skywalker, and if Rey Kenobi had found a way to redeem Ben Skywalker in part 9, it would have brought things full circle.

In any event, there are any number of directions the films could go, and rather than a great film, a really good film, and a lackluster film that had to reinvent the wheel just to tie things up that together barely tell a cohesive story we could have had 3 great films that told one well-crafted story.

Rian Johnson really was the major factor that messed up this trilogy. He took the stuff that was set up in the force awakens, pissed all over them, and swept them under the rug with stupid and throw away answers just so he can set up his own bullcrap. Which caused the rise of Skywalker to be a a mess because they had to fix what Rian Johnson did to the trilogy the best they could witch end up being a rushed cluttered mess