You guys are joking or purposefully selectively forgetting a lot if you’re seriously positing that TLJ wasn’t a big middle finger to Abrams’ TFA.
I seriously wonder the same re: selective memory in regards to people who think it is. I’d honestly recommend watching the films again, you’d be surprised at how wrong you are on all counts. The middle finger is an entirely imaginary one, and only seems that way because your predictions and hopes were off base.
- Hux a serious officer and rival to Ren is immediately turned into a punchline in TLJ
He isn’t a punchline in TFA sure, but he’s certainly still a rival in TLJ. As to his seriousness, I’d say it’s about the same in both. He’s not making jokes in TLJ, he’s the butt of them. He’s a “rabid cur” in both films.
I find it amusing that people say TLJ supposedly undermined Hux, when those same people complained he was an unthreatening and worthless character when TFA came out. Now these people claim the opposite was true, just to disparage TLJ. I’m sure they’ll find a way to complain that Hux wasn’t funny enough in Episode IX.
- Snoke the character that set off the entire events of the ST, seduced Ben to the Darkside, raised an army to overthrow the galaxy and built a superweapon that wiped out the Republic is dispatched as soon as possible without any ceremony after being used as a convenient plot device in TLJ
Snoke has a far bigger role with much greater relevance to the plot at hand in TLJ than TFA. Just because you expected him to survive TLJ because of his role in the lore pre-TFA doesn’t mean his death undermines TFA. In any way.
- Maz Kanata a wise Yoda like figure is turned into a cartoonish video game character
Are we talking about the same character who crawls across a crowded table to stare at Finn in TFA?
- Luke Skywalker whose original reveal at the end of TFA was to have him meditating in the air surrounded by flying boulders was then turned into cranky old man hiding from the galaxy. The rest of the Luke issues in TLJ are related to his OT persona and not relevant to this discussion but are probably the most egregious transgressions of the film.
TFA was the film that sent him into hiding in the first goddamn place. I’m honestly baffled that anyone expected anything else of his character other than reluctance.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. TLJ didn’t contradict TFA at all. In fact it doubled down (hermit Luke, Rey a powerful nobody, First Order’s prominence, Snoke an unexplained rando), and fans got pissy because what they wanted was for TLJ to undermine what TFA, but in the way they wanted.