Try as I might, I just can't divorce these actual movies from the stories of their production. It was a bizarre exercise watching TROS, I found myself almost entirely unable to pay attention as to what was happening on screen because
I was too busy picking out why the thing I was seeing had been put in the movie. Luke's diatribe on Ahch-To? Placating TLJ haters. Rose being totally sidelined? Placating TLJ haters. Palpatine returning? Direct result of the trilogy not being planned and the three-movie arc lacking an antagonist. Lando's "they always come" line? Again, direct shot at TLJ's themes, returning to the Star Wars status-quo. Chewie getting a medal? Fan service. Carrie Fisher's b-roll being incorporated into the film with CGI? Couldn't just write her out, probably for commercial reasons. Immersion was impossible, the whole thing felt so artificial, as though it was made in a lab by robots. TFA, TLJ and particularly TROS were clearly unplanned as a trilogy, rather being individually crafted responses to the environment in which they are released.
I don't blame Rian Johnson for that. I don't even really blame JJ Abrams. I 'blame' (and, frankly, even that word feels too strong. This hasn't RuInEd My ChIlDhOoD. All this trilogy has accomplished is diminishing my enjoyment of the Star Wars brand substantially, I just find it hard to care anymore!) Disney and their committees for playing it so damn safe. But that's to be expected. Like Bling (and Martin Scorsese!) said, this is how the film industry is trending now - big budget, vapid movies that are devoid of any soul, tailor made to meet specific audience expectations. In this case, Star Wars(tm) is now an established thing that I expect to see change very little going forward. Episode IX is how Disney ultimately views the brand now - it's a simple story of good guys, bad guys, action set pieces, CGI aliens, lightsabers and nostalgia that you can package and sell as toys, snapchat filters and theme park rides in Orlando. IX was never going to be deeper than that.
I've never been the biggest fan of the Marvel movies for much the same reason, with the exception of a few of them, they all feel like substantially the same movie to me. That's where this trilogy has taken Star Wars. The series has always been heavily commercialised, but the movies, even as the marquee products, exist to serve the brand now, rather than the other way around.
As for the movie itself: I dunno. It was a thing. I enjoyed some of the action set pieces I guess? I walked out and I'd already forgotten half the movie, and I have no desire to see it again. We got two good Star Wars stories this year, and neither of them were IX.
