Having seen the film four times and having read a lot of opinions, I think I see some of the problem. Rian wrote Kylo too well. And while his words failed to convince Rey, they seem to have convinced some members of the audience. Kylo is trying to destroy the past. That is his thing. That is not the story that RJ gave us.
TLJ is a mirror of TESB. It is in a different time and setting and the purpose of the story is very different. TESB was a personal journey for the characters while the Rebellion, having successfully escaped Hoth, rendezvoused and regrouped, untouched by the Empire. TLJ sees the Resistance flee the FO only to be followed, hounded, and nearly annihilated. But we still get the same journey for our characters. In both cases it is of personal growth. In TESB, Luke is trained by Yoda and Han and Leia finally admit their feelings. In TLJ, Rey seeks training form Luke, only to find him unwilling, so she takes what little he had offered her and the ancient texts. But she got to him and her actions bring Luke to help the Resistance in their time of need. Luke distracts while Rey rescues. Poe learns how to be a leader instead of just a foolhardy hero. Finn grows form someone always wanted to run to someone now willing to stand and fight. Neither movie takes the wider conflict any further. The FO had destroyed two Resistance bases and reduced the their number, but not their message, and the Resistance has destroyed two of the FO’s largest ships.
The question is, what’s next. We now know that Abrams and RJ coordinated some between TFA and TLJ. The screenplay for TLJ was already written before TFA was finished and led to some edits to TFA. And given that Abrams had a TV background, I think we can assume that they are telling a coordinated story. There was a story for IX. No idea what direction it will take now that Carrie has left us. Will Abrams junk it or just rework it? Who knows. But at the end of TESB we are left with Han frozen and the rebellion baseless. In TLJ we are left with the characters intact but the Resistance in shambles, but with hope. But in TESB, we have a galaxy wide Empire that is strong and unwavering. In TLJ, we have a First Order just beginning its conquest, not yet cemented or truly in power yet. The crawl uses the word reigns, but I take that to mean there is no force to oppose them rather than they have actually taken over anything and the rest of the text of the crawl agrees with that as does the movie dialog. It also provides a reason why Leia’s call was not answered. But the final scene in the stable shows that Luke had again brought hope and if word has reached Canto Bight, it will spread across the galaxy and give courage to those who want to resist the First Order’s conquest.
I think that rather than deconstructing the mythology, this movie is just forwarding the mythology in a different way. RJ had an ending setup for IX. This was leading somewhere and he didn’t let Carrie’s passing change this story because I believe he knew how to rework the ending. The other director did not want to so Abrams came back. With his background in TV, and teams of writers and working on series that can introduce new twists, I bet they have something in mind for the IX finale. It may not be quite what RJ had in mind, but if they handed Abrams and ending and he sticks with it, it could be one hell of a movie. And I think at that point the mythology side of this trilogy will be obvious. The OT wasn’t a story of redemption until ROTJ. We are in the middle of this trilogy and I doubt we can see where it is going so jumping to conclusion such as deconstructing or resetting, is probably a bit premature. This was the setup the the saga finale. Seeing it as anything else is, in my mind, an unjustified misinterpretation.
+2