At first I didn’t understand why TLJ left so little story threads for future entries, feeling more like the final act of a story, than the middle one. In the context of what I wrote above it makes perfect sense. Future Star Wars movies won’t have these connective tissues like in the past, because it prevents the general audience from connecting with it, or worse even go and see it, since they need to have seen the previous entries to fully appreciate the new film. TLJ has eliminated that problem.
TLJ is the penultimate story if the Saga. It had to tie up a lot so that 9 could complete things.
RJ hasn’t left much to complete. Kylo Ren and the FO need to be beaten, such that freedom can be restored. The end.
What other story threads, mysteries, or familial relations are left to explore? Finn and Rose can continue their akward romance, I suppose?
I can see how it was aiming to do that. Your theory about it resetting/rebooting things would make sense if they were going to continue the story, but with news that RJ will be doing an unconnected trilogy, it makes no sense.
The announcement of a new unrelated trilogy fits into my narrative perfectly. They will continue to make films indefinitely. The fact that the trilogy is unconnected, implies there’s no connective tissue with the rest of the saga. Hooray!
You have argued above that we need to know the filmmaker’s intent an RJ is a huge Star Wars fan so I don’t see how that equals deconstructing what came before. If the correct interpretation must incorporate the original intent, then you are quite mistaken in your deconstruction/reboot theory.
Who says RJ takes away the same things from Star Wars as any other random fan? He may have a unique view point, that no other fan shares. Either way, he was hired by Disney to do a job, not to be a fan, and as far as I can see he lived up to their expectations.