There’s a lot of awkward repetition, some of it is well meaning and other elements that feel way too clumsy. I mentioned in the other thread that the PT never feels like Star Wars, and while many inclusions are on the right track I’m not sure it ever get it entirely right here. They must have spent a lot of time on the whole “what is SW to the audience” but just settled on vaguely following the heroes journey, a few iconic bits, a few new things that feel out of place. My major issue is that while finding the ST to be pretty entertaining it’s always just shy of hitting the right mark, like just one more draft, just one more take, just one more adjustment.

The PT always felt like a vague idea of what could work slapped together over a Summer at the ranch, instead of a “kill your darlings” kind of effort where extraneous junk was culled and a proper storyline was given life. Here it’s more that the broad strokes are being painting but the edges are fuzzy, the delineation hasn’t been given enough time. They’ve put effort into fixing the “big picture” or the “idea of Star Wars”. But I’d prefer to see stuff involving the Imperial Remnant or a wilder Outer Rim story away from all the doomsday machines.

The whole thing does feel very meta though. Kylo and Rey are fighting over the toys. Give me back my lightsaber etc. Now in TROS they’re battling over ownership of a DSII collectable. But I guess the problem was always how to expand this stuff further without so many farcical gags or lore breaking moments. There are only so many X-Wing battles and monster escape scenes that you can do before the space wizard bag of tricks is empty.