I think TLJ is divisive precisely because it seemed to be crafted to cater to those who found no interest in TFA. Everything set up in the Force Awakens, from the map to Luke to Hux and Snoke, to the Knights of Ren and Rey’s history, are all either ignored or confirmed as narrative dead-ends to be used at face value and then discarded. It is not that this makes TLJ bad. On the contrary, taken in isolation it works well.
I mostly agree with this. TFA was amazing in the cinema but after getting it on DVD, I came to the realisation what a bad film it was. Aside from the fact that its ANH again, the first half of the film is just a string of insane coincidences that get everyone to where they need to go. Not only that but its barely linked to 6 at all, like there is a film missing in between and, presumably, just so that they can do ANH again. Though, I admit that a few of the setups might of paid off so I was still interested. R1 was ok.
I walked out of TLJ on the day that it opened and it killed my love of SW for a long time. Ive only recently just started watching the films again. Aside from Luke trying to murder someone is their sleep, he abandoned his friends, causing one of them to die. Kylo went to the dark side, murdered TONS of innocents and blew up planets because his uncle tried to murder him? Character motivation flips constantly, the plot felt like a filler episode of TCW TV show and there are a few violations to cannon. Yes, people can disagree with me on this last one but its my opinion. Weaponizing hyperspace and allowing force ghosts, who can pop up whenever and wherever they want, the power to destroy things with lightning was a terrible idea. Yoda was goofy like the way in ESB to test Lukes patience, not his actual self and the list goes on…
But TFA was the start of a very different story, and to follow it with this is like forcing the pieces of two different puzzles together. It doesn’t matter if Rian’s oil painting is better than the crayon imitation of Star Wars from JJ, when put together it still results in a royal mess.
This.
I also dont want the mystery of Hans backstory explained to me ether. Sometimes the mystery is better than the actual answers. Will never watch.