I think some of the criticism that’s been directed at TLJ should be directed at TFA instead. TFA set up its sequels with having to answer so many questions that should’ve been answered by TFA itself. It worked as a first part in a two parter, and it should’ve been a standalone film to set things up, like Star Wars and even The Phantom Menace were.
One example is Snoke and the First Order. Why not just tell us how he rose to power and how the First Order came to be in TFA? Why leave it to the other movies? But no, screw it. TFA shouldn’t have left a mystery box for the other movies to fill.
Sure they could have answered some of these questions in TFA but there was nothing wrong with how they did do it. Trying to blame TFA for TLJ issues is like blaming the OT for the issues the PT creates. As a planned trilogoy, it was Rian Johnson’s responsibility to continue on the themes and story arcs that TFA started but he decided to not only give JJ the middle finger, but the audience as well by subverting every single expectation built in TFA and the years in between and even all the expectations he creates in his own movie. He’s just an outright fuckhead and I hate him for using one of the main saga episodes to make his non-conventional gotcha movie with a Star Wars facade.
.Val