No, TLJ doesn’t exist in a vacuum. But when looking at it in context of the other films one thing you shouldn’t be doing is reading motives into things you don’t like. Unless you have some insight from something other than the films that the people making these films have some secret message or motive, you are just talking nonsense. As one saying that frequently goes around writers circles goes, an English teachers expounds on the meaning of blue in a particular work and when you ask the author they reply that there is no meaning, they just meant the color blue. When you try to put motives to people without a shred of proof beyond what you imagine you are seeing in the films, you are just making things up out of thin air. That I have a problem with. When you lift up Luke beyond his all to well documented human failings and say TLJ failed because Rian Johnson tapped into that humanity, you are falling prey to creating unrealistic expectations of the character. Rian even played on that in the story. He knew what you were thinking and took the character in a more interesting direction. That you don’t like that is fine, but stop taking your criticism of the direction he went and building this big conspiracy around it. You don’t like it. We get it. But if you come at it from a ridiculous set of expectations, I’m going to have something to say.
I come at this from the writer’s point of view. Writers have to be somewhat free to tell the story that compels them. Rian Johnson is a Star Wars fan. JJ Abrams is a Star Wars fan. It colors what they do with the characters. Their stories fit with the characters as they see them. It is not some great Disney or Lucasfilm conspiracy. It is them taking creative license to tell a story within a framework. I see what they were doing as I saw what Lucas did with the PT. There are some you can’t defend. There is a lot you can. Lucas sucked at dialog and performance choices. He could write a killer story. Abrams is great at crafting characters but is miserable at editing and endings. Rian likes to delve into the character and be more subtle. Their inspirations color what they do. Lucas was trying to create a movie serial (2 hour episodes similar to the old Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon) and he imbibed it with WWII and Samurai influences. I can’t really speak for Abrams, but Rian was open that he watched Twelve O’clock High, Three Outlaw Samurai, and To Catch A Thief to prepare for this movie. The influences show. I think he did it well, but that is not to everyone’s taste. But what he did is very specific and is not some conspiracy. He went against expectations to make a more interesting story not to subvert the Star Wars universe.
And I’m amazed that some on this forum have taken Kylo’s dialog as a direct intention of the makers of the movie. Kylo is the bad guy and like the previous Star Wars villains before him, he is not a reflection of where things are going, but where they shouldn’t go. They are not out to kill the past and destroy Star Wars. They are not trying to reset the Empire/Rebellion conflict. Remember, the ongoing conflicts are really secondary to the real story of the force. Episode I makes a big deal about the Jedi being weak because the force is out of balance. The OT was busy with Vader and the tyranny of the Empire, but it turned into the story of a son redeeming his father. To end the story, they have to deal with Kylo and Rey and bringing balance to the force again. It helps that I’ve been watching the animated series and how they have been focusing on that balance. So a lot of things that seem important in TFA or TLJ, I think are going to prove after IX comes out. Provided, of course, that Abrams isn’t the one who comes up with the ending. I suspect he isn’t. I expect to eventually find out that the broad brush strokes of the story came from Lucas and they have just changed the details laid on top of that. But that is just speculation. I eagerly await what we will see in about 16 months.