Regardless, the real reason people don’t see as one vision is because TLJ seems to go against everything TFA values.
It’s upsetting to me that Episode IX is already being hated on before it’s released. I loved both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, but there is no disconnect between them. The Last Jedi expanded so much on the Star Wars legacy and mythology, something that will help Star Wars still keep going on for another forty years without being worn out. There are many people out there who were disappointed with Episode VIII simply because the film didn’t play out as the movie they wrote in their head leading up to its release. The extreme reactions are ridiculous, unbearable, and disgusting for their behavior for not liking the movie.
I have much less interest in seeing IX than I did in VIII. The main reason for this, and one of my biggest gripes with The Last Jedi is that it didn’t really leave any loose ends. That’s kind of an issue if you want to generate anticipation for your next film.
I really liked the story and characters in TLJ (except for Finn’s story, which I think was a little half-baked). In that respect I agree that there really isn’t a disconnect between TLJ and the preceding film. But I think there is definitely a tonal dissonance between the two films.
J.J. understands how to write dialogue and especially comedy that is more consistent with the OT, which borrows heavily from old Hollywood and especially the screwball comedies of that era. By comparison, many of The Last Jedi’s dialogue and comedic moments are less quick-fire screwball banter and more rooted in recent popular culture (crank calls, your mama jokes, literally brushing-it-off) and stuck out to me immediately. Now that we’re going back to J.J. for IX, it kind of ensures that VIII will be the kind of strange black sheep of the Sequel Trilogy.