But the important question is: Have you seen CATS?

The film wasn't perfect, but I don't see how it was legacy destroying.

I thought the wayfinders were a poor excuse to get the characters out hunting. Palpatine's plan to bring his granddaughter to him seemed overly complicated and nonsensical (why not just start talking to her in her parents' voices once he sensed her "awakening"). Kylo Ren was too conflicted from the beginning to be Rey's only antagonist for 3 films. They missed inserting a beat anywhere that involved her getting her ass handed to her (think Luke on Bespin). Palpatine's death was stupid.

Here's the rub. I think JJ had an overall vision for a trilogy and put a lot of pieces on the board for the future directors to play with. He notoriously sucks at endings, so he probably didn't have one in mind, but my guess is Snoke = Palpatine was the plan from the beginning (Snoke knew too much about what happened between Vader, Luke, and Palpatine on the second Death Star). Rian Johnson took his creative license and swept the board clean, putting Kylo Ren in the position of Supreme Leader, decimating the Resistance, killing Luke Skywalker, and establishing the connection between Kylo Ren and Rey. Sadly, with Han and Luke both gone, it falls to Leia to be the old guard to guide the Hero on this last leg of the journey, and the reality is that Carrie Fisher wasn't there to fill that role. Basically, Rian accidentally wrote the next film's team into a pretty tough corner.

So Rise of Skywalker is an attempt to pull some of those original ideas out of the fire, trim off the charred bits, and piece them back together. The seams are readily apparent.

It's important not to view the OT with rose colored glasses though. Star Wars was shot as a pretty awful film that was saved in the edit. ESB's sense of galactic scale and time are VERY fuzzy (how long was Luke's training? What's the distance from Hoth to Bespin? How long does that take at sublight speed, which isn't a fantasy concept...). Vader = Luke's father is a plot turn that makes no sense based on the preceding film, which required Obi-Wan's weak ass "certain point of view" explanation. What exactly was the group's plan for saving Han at the beginning of ROTJ? Everything that happened on Endor's forrest moon is nonsense.

Star Wars is more about characters, growth, and redemption. I thought this new trilogy told a fresh tale in the same style as the OT. I'm looking forward to future entries in the universe that hopefully split the 3 big pieces of a Star Wars film into their own sub-genres. Jedi movies. Space battle movies. Fantasy espionage.

My main gripe/example of how Rise of Skywalker destroys some of the preceding films' legacy is the very fact that Palpatine mysteriously survived the end of RoTJ. The very sacrificial act that redeemed Vader and any emotional weight felt by the audience were pretty much negated by the throwaway line of Palpatine's saying "I've died many times."

For example, a much more compelling story arc in TRoS would have been the sith cultists are attempting to resurrect Palpatine using the dark side and our heroes have to stop it. When they inevitably fail, ok, then he's back. It would have made things more interesting and felt less sloppy (to me anyway). This is just one of many examples where they could have polished some core ideas in TRoS and made a more interesting and unique narrative.

I'm definitely not arguing the OT as high brow cinema and ignoring their flaws, but it's challenging for me to look past a lot of the issues I saw in TRoS which didn't seem to affect The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. I don't think the blame rests solely on JJ either - I think it was probably a mistake to have Chris Terrio on-board. I'm not going to say Lawrence Kasdan is Shakespeare, but he seemed to have an overall greater grasp on the spirit of Star Wars and keeping things interesting.

Rian Johnson isn't blameless either, but there are certainly ways they could have preserved his artistic vision and made a more coherent film. It's hardly fair to say he painted them into a corner just by doing something different and "subverting our expectations" - whether or not you agree with the choices he made is a different argument for a different day.

I think there were good ideas here and there, but it tried to fit too much into one film rather than try to offer a satisfying finale to the sequel trilogy. Again, the majority of blame there rests with whoever decided against having an overall outline or roadmap for this story. I know the OT didn't have one, but Star Wars has since outgrown its plucky origins and warrants a little more thought than was given here.

I believe Palpatine's line is actually, "I've died before", specifically referring to his ROTJ death. That he managed to project his "soul" onto a clone doesn't negate Anakin's redemptive act of defying his master and saving his son. The EU played with this a LOT.

I'm inclined to agree with your second paragraph. The opening crawl made my skin do the same. It was the worst case of tell not show.

I didn't use the phrase "subverting our expectations", so it feels like your lumping me in with the TLJ hate squad. I'm not a member. I liked that film for the most part. I do think Carrie Fisher's death made moving forward from the position he put everyone in at the end of the film much more difficult. That's the corner I'm referring to. I believe we would have seen a lot more training sequences involving Leia and Rey if Fisher had been available to shoot them, and the story wouldn't have required us to immediately jump into action.

Personally, I think Rey's story was pretty satisfying. The only thing I thought it was lacking was a personal moment for her where all hope was lost. A moment she probably should have had in TLJ. They toyed with that idea a time or two (stranding herself on Ach-to), but they never let it stick for longer than 5 minutes. Too much to do and not enough film to do it. I think the overall theme of rejecting her ancestry and choosing her destiny was great.

My kids loved it.

Also, I loved The Force Awakens, but it?s a beat for beat remake of Star Wars. ROS is a looser remake of ROTJ, with ex-stormtroopers replacing Ewoks, us seeing the Bothan spy, an apprentice turning on a master, and a tower that needs to be taken out to disable the enemy weapon.

Rain gets credit for giving his dark entry a more unique plot, even if it was basically the OJ Bronco chase.

Sorry - I wasn't trying to lump you in with TLJ haters - that quote is just tossed around all the time when it comes to that film and Rian's modus operandi during production.

And, I mean, people are enjoying this film so clearly I'm either too analytical in how I consume media or I am no longer the target demographic of Star Wars. It's hard for me to believe the latter since I did really enjoy TFA and TLJ despite any aforementioned flaws.