The Emperor is the head of the Empire, which was the main threat of the original trilogy. Another separate threat would be introducing a new and separate antagonist. Lucas never did this. Snoke and the First Order was the primary antagonist, setting up Kylo to supplant him. Having an extra force to fight against that The First Order also has to fight against would have convoluted everything, be that threat another force or Knights of Ren.
TFA establishes Luke was ashamed due to Kylo turning to the dark side and that’s why he went into exile. It’s in the crawl and repeated in dialogue from Han.
No one lost the ability to use the Force, if anything it’s more widely believed in during TFA than ANH. Even non-Jedi/non-Sith characters use the Force (Maz).
Kylo is the leader of the knights of Ren. That is the only thing we know about them outside of the Kylo Ren comics.
I’m just saying that Johnson developed what Abrams introduced. If you have a problem with what was introduced, your issue is with Abrams not Johnson.
You’re not getting my point. You’re nitpicking little details that don’t 100% match when that’s not remotely the issue. The crawl in TFA did NOT mention anything about guilt or Kylo at all. Maz did not use the force. Kylo is not the leader of the Knights AT THE TIME of the movie alone. You’re bringing in things from other sources, when I was specifically saying that within the context of TFA and TFA alone, things could go anywhere.
When Lucas wrote the original movie, SEVERAL aspects were totally ignored, changed, and retconned for Empire. For example, the SW Emperor wasn’t a threat, he was still, at that stage, a useless bureaucrat and not part of the plot.
Or, you know, Vader being Luke’s father, the biggest rewrite of all.
The point is that things can be changed for the better–you just have to use your imagination. That’s what this entire editing hobby is about.