Both JJ and RJ reverse engineered the OT to figure out where to go with their part(s) of the story either in an attempt to replicate the Star Wars formula, or to deliberately starkly deviate from it at key moments, but neither feels like a good, and natural way of developing a story to me. It feels very artificial, like the writer is constantly aware someone (the audience) is watching over their shoulders, and so the entire trilogy is shaped by what the writers’ believe are the audience’s expectations, and they either chose to cater to, or subvert those expectations.
There are only 2 films I can think of in the entire saga that didn’t do the above (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back).
Writers are always aware the audience is watching/reading. Knowing that isn’t a bad thing. Catering to it CAN be a bad thing, depending on how indulgent the writers get. Pandering is absolutely a bad thing. But many good, natural ways of developing stories involve keeping the audience in mind. “Write for yourself first” is great advice for any storyteller, but that “First” implies that there ARE other concerns to keep in mind as well.
But creation (especially on a scale this big) isn’t all inspiration and desire. Sometimes you have to plink and plunk at it, and that can feel (or appear to be from the backseat) artificial in the moment. That’s where the craft comes in. Passion can’t get a project across the line alone. Often you have to “artificially” introduce things that didn’t just appear in a flash, hand-delivered from the muse.
But that’s also a huge part of why I feel like judging finished work mostly on suppositions of behind-the-scenes machinations and making-of anecdotes isn’t very useful. Most of the audience will never know HOW a thing got made, or what went into its making, or even think to wonder about that aspect, and it honestly shouldn’t really matter. What matters is if it works or if it doesn’t - and if it doesn’t, WHY it doesn’t should be pretty clearly explained without having to go “I bet the guy who wrote it just didn’t feel it like this other guy did.”
Granted, The Rise of Skywalker was very obviously fumbled in its execution and I imagine there are plenty of behind-the-scenes stories we’ll hear eventually as to why it’s such a mess. But acting like the very business of creating fiction is somehow “artificial” because they had knowledge of “the formula” and chose to tinker with the recipe for their own purposes seems like a weird read considering how often that exact bit of business is NECESSARY as a creator to come up with solid work.
Just because we notice the artifice involved in creating and maintaining good fiction doesn’t mean that by the mere fact of our noticing it that it’s now BAD. That’s unfair not only to the writer, but to us as well, because it assumes that we shouldn’t be smart enough to spot seams if we’re looking for them. Of course we are. Most audience members are, honestly. The magic of a good story is that it distracts us from looking, or it engenders enough goodwill that even if we do spot the seams - we don’t care. In some cases, even the seams look good to us.
Basically, what I’m saying is: The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t work because the elements IN the story aren’t well-thought-out, and aren’t executed very well on top of that. If I’m not willing to indulge an imaginative exercise as to how a fabulous movie I watched this weekend was written and executed - like, for example, I didn’t finish watching Little Women the other day and conjure up a possible story as to how Greta Gerwig adapted the book to explain why it worked the way it did - I don’t know that it makes sense for me to do that when JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio drop the ball.
I do think it’s safe to assume they didn’t MEAN to drop the ball.
Well, not all of us think they dropped the ball. But the rest of your post I highly agree with. Formulas are a key ingredient in stories. A great many writers adhere to a formula. Many firmly believe you must have three distinct acts. some don’t care and just want to tell a good story. So I don’t think it is a flaw at all if Abrams sought out and copied the formula from Lucas. That means he was trying to make a Star Wars movie. He failed to do that with his Star Trek films. He played it safe with TFA and I think it shows. That film lacks something that I think he found with TROS. I think what he did worked very well. Sure the film is a non-stop ride, but I have yet to find (or agree with other ides put forward) anything that is a major flaw in the story.
The only flaw I could think of was the 16 hour limit. I think the story sticks to that up until the saber battle on the old Death Star. I think Rey’s defeat of Kylo Ren and the return of Ben Solo wrecked the Emperor’s plans and so he put the countdown on hold while Kijimi was destroyed and until he could sense that Rey was coming to him again. The story feels like that is what is happening and the 16 hour countdown isn’t mentioned other than the first time. I think the story works beautifully and really cements this as the end of the saga. So many things work and enhance the original. And I don’t think Abrams reconned or reversed a single thing from TLJ. I don’t see a single course correction. The story feels organic like Palpatine was always the one pulling the strings. And while how he came back is never really addressed, he is on a planet full of Sith believers who all seem to want him back and are following him. And I’ve seen some interesting hints that Palpatine’s return and Rey being a Palpatine were Abrams original ideas back when he did TFA. To me this was all a natural conclusion to the trilogy. Nothing felt out of place. And with Anakin saying “Rey, Bring back the balance as I did,” it really blows apart the argument that Anakin wasn’t the chosen one and that his sacrifice was negated by this trilogy. Sometime after ROTJ, Palpatine was resurrected by the Sith followers to try to start things over again and that led to this Sequel Trilogy and his (and the Sith) final defeat.
And one of the things that has amused me since first viewing is that the Star Destroyer over the Forrest Moon of Endor was destroyed by the Holdo maneuver. Just another nod to Johnson’s TLJ.