I mean, the notion that destroying a planet was somehow a massive outlandish threat in a universe where basically everyone has the technology to propel thousands of tons of mass at many times the speed of light always felt pretty fucking stupid in the first place. Every single hyper-drive capable ship in the universe could turn an entire planet to dust in seconds.

It wasn't just an assassination though. They defeated their two most powerful leaders; both of their Sith lords, at that. They destroyed their main battlestation and a large chunk of their military leadership along with it, decapitating the rest of their forces.

And it doesn't end after the battle of Endor. The Empire is defeated, yes. So they celebrate. They begin reconstructing the New Republic and the New Jedi Order. But there's still an imperial remnant, and wayward warlords throughout the galaxy. So a large chunk of the story following the Original Trilogy is them hunting down and pacifying those imperial remnants.

There could have easily been a trilogy made just from the material that already existed. They didn't have to try to rewrite the whole thing, and do an ass job of it at that...

Agree to disagree. I don't begrudge VIII as a movie on it's own. In the theater I had an okay time and unlike the toxic fans I at least grew to appreciate things like Rose, but you can't consider VIII in a vacuum because it was never meant to be consumed that way. It's the center piece in a trilogy.

I would argue that the fact that these interpretations can be rendered from the movie alone, means that we aren't dealing with a true Abrams style mystery box, and that even if we were, the general speculation about them doesn't leave us scratching our heads wondering about a narrative direction for these characters.

It's not a polar bear on a tropical island. In the context of the Star Wars universe most of Abram's choices have implications.

Those Implications where ignored by Johnson. It's misguided to blame Abrams for trying to leave questions that mirror the original film. If VIII had built on any of it, at all, we likely wouldn't be having this discussion. We would be talking about how VIII took the threads of familiar from the previous movie and actually made it good.

It's not on Abrams for Johnson's narrative left turn. At release The Force Awakens was incredibly well received. It wasn't until after VIII dropped that people really started to tear into Abrams for not keeping narrative control, and deflecting the blame from Johnson onto Abrams.

I find that outrageous.

Any collaborative story teller worth their salt can draw the through lines for some of these characters and tropes. It's not on Abrams for choosing to leave the story about space wizards open ended on what is the opening note of a familiar trilogy. The worst thing you could say about the Force Awakens is that it plays too safe. Which, for an opening movie isn't a problem unless the rest of the trilogy sucks.

I don't think it would have been perfect if Abrams held the wheel for all three films. It's the nature of fandom to nitpick and complain, but it at least would have been consistent. This trilogy is a narrative mess and it got that way because of Johnson having no skill as a collaborative story teller and likely little love for Star Wars.

Johnson did to Star Wars what Abrams did to Star Trek.