7 and 8 do not link together. The characters from 7 are not the characters from 8,
Rey was someone in TFA,
Snoke was a mysterious new emperor in TFA, TLJ said he was a joke nobody
This is just, literally factually false
Kylo was Vader obsessed in TFA, 4 minutes later in TLJ (in universe time) he isn’t
This is character development
When people defend 8, they are defending their love of the movie and their parasocial love of Rian, not its cohesiveness in the trilogy or how well it meshes with the other 2 films.
This is probably true but doesn’t actually mean anything. TLJ fans would probably still like TLJ even if it didn’t link up well with TFA, but it doesn’t change the facts.
and ROS he is back to Vader obsessed.
There is no way that Rian thought she was a secret Palpatine when he made 8.
ROS then said he was back to being a mysterious new emperor (clone thing). This is on record that JJ did not expect Rian to kill off the big bad unceremoniously.
These are true but have nothing to do with how 7 and 8 link up whatsoever.
For the record, I don’t really buy that the contradictions between 8 and 9 have anything to do with this feud between JJ and Rian. Especially given JJ’s reaction to TLJ, his Rian’s involvement in TFA and JJ’s involvement in TLJ, and JJ’s… entire mentality and behavior during the production. I think it’s more likely that JJ doesn’t care enough about or have enough of a concrete idea of where he wanted to take the characters and story of the ST to really agree or disagree with Rian’s decisions in TLJ.
I mean, if JJ always wanted Rey to be a Palpatine or a Kenobi or whatever, or Snoke to be Mace Windu or Plagueis, you’d think he’d put literally any of that in TFA. Or at least say something about it to Rian during the production of TLJ.
The Rebellion didn’t treat Luke that way. They didn’t hinge all their hopes on whether or not he showed up to help. Despite his abilities, he was still just one man, and one small part of a larger faction.
This is a good point, but given that there’s more than a generation between RotJ and TFA, and given the in-universe circumstances of the ST compared to the OT, it’s not like it’s unbelievable they’d put that much fixation on Luke in TFA but not in ESB or RotJ.
TFA puts in a lot more effort setting this up than setting up any other alternative. They spend a lot of time going on about how the galaxy views Luke as this legendary badass, whose mere presence would turn the tide of the war. Compared to the complete lack of time they spend on why Luke coming back would be a big deal, like if he was making some secret weapon on the island or looking for some ancient Jedi artifact.