I know Star Wars has always been about the emotion, the themes, the archetypes, and world building has been secondary. However, this new story seems aggressively stupid when it comes to setting itself up.

Bad guy re-emerges via mysterious means. Already mysteriously has even bigger evil forces. Seemingly could
have done so before the time of Episode I.

This is supposed to be the final chapter. If it were episode 57 out of what would eventually be known to be 628, having bad guy show up out of nowhere in order to prompt an interesting character thing might work. Doctor Who does it well. But to pull this kind of thing in what is supposed to be episode 9/9 when everything about Palpatine save for his legacy already felt totally final, and not to give any sort of story credence to him or his infinite fleet while implying the First Order (which were comically overpowered in the previous movie) he set up by proxy was a pointless preamble he didn’t need is insulting to whatever sense of integrity the overall story had in terms of content.

Hey, maybe the content never mattered. But one thing the OT offered was a sense of sincerity about archetypes playing themselves out in stylized and weird ways. It invited you to take it earnestly. Here in TROS in particular, it is impossible to do so.

The best answer is what I’ve heard a clear consensus of: don’t think about these absolute basic problems (which only arise when reckoning based on prior Star Wars, aside from any outside sense of logic or expectation), just shove popcorn in your face and enjoy the jokes and flashing lights. It doesn’t need to make sense, and it’s good they didn’t try to do anything. Just pretend you’re at Disneyland riding Star Tours. And, hey, you were foolish to get excited by what was promised: a conclusion to the 9-part Skywalker story. All you should have wanted was animated window dressing that made you feel amused during the movie’s runtime.