My favorite part is that Disney had an incredibly deep, colorful, and compelling extended universe to draw from with their sequel movies. Didn't have to be carbon copies (and of course that would not have been wise) but alot of the hard writing work was already done for them. By actual authors.
And they chose to dump it all out and put it in the hands of a bunch of hollywood hacks and committees. Lo and behold it sucked.
It was so simple:
- Antagonist: Imperial Remnant
- Protagonists: Solo twins
- Skywalker has a Jedi Academy, with a new generation of characters
- New Republic is integral part of the setting, political warts, growing pains and all
- Use Thrawn (at least as the initial villain)
I cannot give people the time of day who defend these movies. They're objectively trash and there was no real reason for it to be.