Hal 9000 said:
… the finished film in isolation would imply to me that he was just not interested in carrying on the themes and setups the previous film gave him to work with.

We’re not the only ones to have an issue with his desire to put the franchise on its ear. There is an interview with Daisy where she says as soon as she read the script she went to Rian and said “we need to have a talk about what’s happening here”.

I wasn’t interested in several parts of JJ’s film, Snoke and Phasma among them. However, Rian just discarding them seems lazy and/or disrespectful to all the work that went into them in TFA; actors, designers, costumers, writers,etc. They were presented as major characters, much to the delight of a huge portion of the fan base. All the fan speculation the past two years was all for nothing.

Rian treated them the way major characters are treated on Game Of Thrones - You found the character and their story interesting? - too bad. That’s the main reason I stopped watching GoT. It became a waste of time. I’m not terribly interested in the ST. But I am glad it’s back in the hands of JJ.