I don’t think any of your thoughts really contradict my point either. Maybe the Sith in particular were the cause of this major unbalance that needed to corrected. I don’t think that fact really goes against the idea of there being a cycle of war and peace that just inherently exists in the universe, both ours and Star Wars. And, like I said, you can’t deny that cycle has existed up until the Skywalker Saga, and maybe ultimate balance is achieved by the end of TROS, but it still would make sense for the characters within the story to address that cycle. Especially if they thought balance HAD been restored and the cycle broken. So history repeating itself would make them question everything: if this war will ever end, if balance can truly be restored. Even the idea of there being a second chosen one raises the question of how often has the Force produce such beings? Regardless, maybe all of that ends up does end up happening by the end of the Saga. Both of those facts can be true. That the Sith cancer was destroyed, the Force has been healed, ultimate balance has been restored, but that doesn’t mean there will never be enemies to fight again. I think addressing it kind of future-proofs the franchise by pointing that out. I definitely agree with you that it would be nice for the Rey movie to be small scale and I hope for that too, but I honestly doubt there will never be a large-scale threat that takes place post Skywalker Saga.
Also the whole idea behind addressing this idea of the Star Wars cycle was to twist the way the ST just riffs off the Original Trilogy by making it a strength rather than a weakness. Or at least by making it sort of the point. I mean, all of the elements are already there. This just connects the dots.
It felt wrong to a lot of people that the happy ending of the original trilogy was replaced with the happy ending for the sequel trilogy. I just think a lot of that can be mitigated when the story addresses the fact the Clones Wars, the Galactic Civil War, and the First Order-Resistance War are all a series of wars that are inherently a part of life in the Star Wars universe. There are all just civil wars. Even the Jedi/Sith conflict is arguably a civil war if one religion split from the other.
I think if that was kind of the theme an edit were highlighting, it can help justify repetitive decisions like Starkiller Base, another Jedi Purge, Palpatine returning, etc. Because it emphasizes this idea of the cycle. History repeating. The wheel spinning. Generations forgetting and then making the same mistakes. It makes those story decisions feel more necessary because it adds to the point that the story is trying to make. If the events of the ST were what achieved the ultimate happy ending, then it still feels like it just stole that happy ending from the original trilogy. The ORIGINAL happily ever after.
Do you get what I’m saying? Return of the Jedi was THE happy ending. The only way retconning that really feels earned is if the Sequel Trilogy was trying to say that there really is no absolute happy ending. There are a series of bad beginnings and happy endings. If TROS is just replaced ROTJ as THE happy ending, then you’re kind of like, “What was the point of going through all of this again?”. The cycle theme kind of addresses that there will always be wars (external and internal) to fight, but even fleeting peace is worth fighting for. It just gives the ST another strong, coherent theme that connects each film that, upon release, we’re criticized for being a little disjointed.
But I definitely agree with your hopes that now the Sith (or at least the Banite Sith) are gone for good, and we will have a new and improved Jedi Order for future stories to explore new ideas. Regardless, I think this theme would probably always be relevant because of how universal it is. And like I said, the theme is arguably there already in the movies. You could emphasize them with new AI dialogue but you probably could still manage it without it.
But I def agree that they should start getting into Old Republic stuff! Crazy that they still haven’t.