A good and balanced analysis by the channel Films&Stuff of why TROS doesn’t work as a film for many (12 min):
The broken structure of Rise of Skywalker
While it may not work for some, a great many seem to love this film, including myself. I found his argument that because we didn’t see landings that indicated a problem to be silly. And his analysis that Rey redid her journey in one film is off. Star Wars has always had a larger structure than a single film, but each film has always followed the 3 act structure and this one did as well Rey goes on her final journey - her final test if you will.
Maybe you loved it, and that’s fine, but the majority of audiences didn’t, which seems to indicate that there’s something wrong with the pacing and structure of the movie. That’s what the video is about, it isn’t about not having any shots of the heroes landing on a planet, although that is part of the pacing problem.
Sequel movies have a hard job in coming back to revisit the same characters and places with a new story. They were never going to please everyone. I think they set up to please the people who wanted to be entertained and I think they succeeded.
That’s my main problem with the movie. JJ didn’t want to make a meaningful movie, he didn’t even want to make a good movie, he just wanted a big dumb blockbuster that lots of people would enjoy without really thinking about it.
The box office numbers are not final yet, but it has done very well. People have wanted to see it and keep seeing it.
The box office numbers are still disappointing. Keep in mind that most people were expecting this movie to make almost as much as TFA, and the ones who successfully predicted the current box office numbers were labeled as pessimists.
The numbers indicate that the critic score is way off on RT. The audience has not been that divided and a great many love it and have called it the best Star Wars since the originals.
Where are you getting this from? The audience reception is almost as divided as TLJ, and even the people who like it know it isn’t even close to being as good as the OT.