The simple fact is, TFA is not a direct sequel to ROTJ. It’s more so it’s own story that takes place after ROTJ.
I can agree with this. That’s why I wish this was it’s own series instead of keeping the episode numbers. There’s clearly another trilogy worth of info that we’ve missed. Maybe that info isn’t important to this current tale, but it is important to the larger story.
A person miffed that the ST undoes the victories won in the OT and resets the galaxy to Empire vs Rebels with no explanation is a person with a valid complaint.
It is a valid complaint, but people use it as a main reason why the new movies are bad. No, they’re just not what you wanted, and that’s okay.
Snoke’s rise to power isn’t important in the ST though. Most of all the information you need for the story that’s being told is there.
The simple fact is, TFA is not a direct sequel to ROTJ. It’s more so it’s own story that takes place after ROTJ.
It is a sequel to ROTJ. The fact that it takes place so many years later is all the more reason to set the scene. It’s a cop out to expect the audience to accept anything just because a lot of time passed. It’s not important to the story how 3PO got a red arm and cosmetic changes are expected. It is important how the Empire/FO recovered under the rule of a Sith(?) after it appeared thoroughly beaten.
I think JJ went a bit too far in the make it it’s own thing department. For first time SW and more casual fans it’s not an issue. But for bigger fans, of course we want to know what happened in the meantime. But this isn’t the Luke/Leia/Han story anymore.
For the most part, I really don’t have a problem with the sort of en media res sort of approach he took, it feels very true to Star Wars, as if once again we’ve missed some preceding episodes (which allows for mystery and surprises).
But I do think the crawl for TFA could have explained things better, and I think that film could have used at least one Death Star briefing-esque scene to set the stage for what the First Order really is.
But I truly don’t think knowing who Snoke is is all that important, based on what the story is. The whole point of this trilogy is that it’s impossible to get rid of the dark side entirely, so the fact that he’s a somewhat generic and ambiguous dark side user works pretty well. Do I think it’s possible they could have fit in a throwaway line that he’s an ancient Sith lord or whatever? Yeah, sure. But I don’t think it’d really add as much to the story as people think.