Having seen TLJ though, I now understand it could never be what I was expecting and that’s because RJ has a compulsion with this movie to do the exact opposite of what is expected. It was a pretty common belief that everyone was expecting TLJ to be the movie that was going to be different, darker and setting new ground after the safe bet that TFA was. So in order to do the opposite he just made another rehash movie (simply disguised a bit better by jumbling it up a bit with the edges blurred) which is what everyone didn’t want. Even the darker themes are subverted by the constant stream of tone killing humour. This movie is literally RJ giving the middle finger to a fandom and it’s expectations, making writing choices solely directed at doing the opposite of what the fandom wanted or expected, no matter the cost to the story and cohesion to the overarching saga and previously established characters and lore.
.Val
This attitude wearies me. Just because you didn’t like it and it wasn’t what you wanted to see does not mean RJ is giving fandom the middle finger. Some fans hate it. I get it. Some fans loved it. You didn’t like the humor. Some people did. You didn’t like how your expectations were turned. Some people loved how it made the story fresh and different. You didn’t like the homages to the past, some loved them. There are obviously very different opinions. But constantly saying that RJ or Disney set out to ruin the franchise is just so… Use your heads. You are part of the billion dollar package that Disney wants on board to buy tickets and merchandise. But they can’t tell the same old story. Heck, they can’t even seem to use anything similar. It sets up a catch-22. Sometimes there is no pleasing people. But at least come up with something that actually makes sense. RJ, Kennedy, or Disney trying to deliberately alienate fans makes no logical sense. It is a tired refrain that has been sung since GL sold to Disney.