Legatus Legionis
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As you have stated, these sequel trilogies feel like cheap rip-offs of other Star Wars sources, IMO.
Nothing feels authentic nor original.
The sequels to me is Broken.
All the king's men can't put it back together again (Humpty Dumpty reference).
Rogue One was basically two short movies back-to-back; one was really awful and the other was kickin' rad but ultimately sunk because the first half failed to get me to care for the characters in any meaningful way. Solo was... fine. It was... competent. I daresay some parts even approached fun. But ultimately it was completely unnecessary and the behind the scenes drama is probably what ruined it (it could have turned out as either Ant-Man or the most recent Fantastic Four and ended up somewhere squarely in-between).
The Force Awakens was good; yeah it's a little fan-servicey and very re-hashy but that's exactly J.J. Abrams' shtick, it's the one thing he probably does exceedingly well (see also: Super 8) and I personally thought it was exactly what the franchise needed after the prequels basically destroyed anyone's reason to have any faith in the future films. The Last Jedi would have been the perfect Star Wars movie had all the boring business on Canto Bight been about half as long and twice as meaningful in the long run, but it filled at least part of a hole for me and made the universe a little darker and I appreciated that. I will note that KoTOR II is my favorite Star Wars game so I'm definitely not adverse to some deconstruction. That most of the criticism of the movie is flat out factually incorrect (the whole "Rey never fails" thing being the most absurd one as she spends almost the entire movie objectively failing in most of her goals and the tests set out for her) and/or politically motivated makes it easier to ignore, especially considering the film still did exceedingly well, was a critical and commercial success, vocal minority, etc. etc.
Also, again, J.J.'s only really a great filmmaker when he's doing clear homage and while I think that was perfectly fine for TFA that's not going to really fly here, but I'm cautiously optimistic that this will be a fitting if not amazing end to the trilogy.
I think about the only thing that would cause the film to "fail" for me would be if Kylo is redeemed and Rey falls; or maybe if she has to sacrifice herself for his redemption, at least if they try to play it as a "Kylo was the real main character all along" twist which knowing J.J. is at least... kinda plausible?
Midichlorians and whiney Anakin already broke Star Wars, the original New Hope trilogy crafted an epic fantasy and heroes journey from peasant farmer to Champion battling the Dark Knight and evil Empire, the 'prequel
tore the fantasy down so ot became just another sci-fi setting
Force Awakens helped redeem it,but I had already lost interest, so havemt actually finished watching any of the stories after that. (I've started watching both Rogue One and Last Jedi, but didnt feel compelled to stay and so couldnt tell you how they ended)
I mean, Vader redeemed himself after:
A. Killing his mentor, Obi Wan.
B. Um, killing off all of the Jedi. Including the kids.
C. Killing, just, you know, a genocidal amount of people.
So ... it's good to have low standards, amirite?