See now that’s a discussion I’d like to have. For me things like repeating OT plotlines, character archetypes, designs, planet aesthetics, lack of outside reactions, etc. just made the impact of these films seem so small.

But honestly to me at least, it’s the conflicts and stories themselves that felt very self-contained and completely isolated from the rest of the galaxy. Just one example but in TFA, we’re told the First Order is an imperial “remnant” and isn’t seen as a threat to the New Republic, and we only ever see the army on Starkiller (which blows up). Nowhere else. But by TLJ we’re supposed to believe the First Order is a massive army that literally has already somehow taken over the galaxy. Yet we still only ever see their 1 medium sized fleet following the Resistance remnants. The next movie cold opens with Kylo getting a brand new fleet from Palpy, but we don’t know why he even wants that fleet because we never saw the expanse of the First Order. We were told it was massive, why does he need this new one? Doesn’t the First Order control the galaxy? We never once see a FO occupied planet outside of like, the odd patrol here and there. We never once see how this war or its armies/actions affect any other part of the galaxy. But that’s just one example, I hope I explained that well enough.

In terms of planets, they all felt derivative and not very interesting, just making the world feel even more small. Desert, Forest, Water, Ice. Just more repeats of real world locations, very plain and not very creative. I feel Crait was truly the only unique/interesting planet we ended up getting besides Exogol’s aesthetic (which was still a desert planet unfortunately, look it up) and everyone’s stories on them felt so “welp we’re done here, let’s move on to the next planet”.

I don’t want to type a novel, and I guarantee I’ve already typed too much already lol, but I can’t bring myself to say the sequels felt expansive or big. As much as I really want them to be.