I remember at the time of TFA, JJ said something like “every SW movie needs a cantina”. It’s not a big deal I guess, but it feels like this is the overall mentality that has been applied to these films rather than any need to tell a coherent story. In the case of Snoke, clearly JJ and Kasdan were thinking “every SW movie needs an Emperor” (not to mention an Empire, a Death Star, a Tatooine, a Hoth, a Dagobah cave scene etc etc etc) without much thought beyond the visual aesthetic of such a character.
Don’t get me wrong, I like these new films, but my ‘head-canon’ seems to be veering towards seeing them as interesting alternate interpretations of SW and TESB (with a dash of ROTJ) rather than legitimate continuations of the OT.
It’s odd to me since I consider TFA to be a soft reboot that starts the franchise out in a similar fashion and then the Last Jedi takes it somewhere different.
TLJ is basically an alternate TESB while TFA is basically a retelling of SW with the same exact story beats etc.
Kind of what I’m saying in a way is just that.
TFA left you with a point at which everything was left off at in just the same manner that ANH did so obviously TLJ will have to deal with that challenge but it did what it could by taking the story in a new and interesting direction that I think served most of the characters very well.