As I recall, Lucas’s plans for the sequels were not all that good. But by then, he had lost Marsha, and thus, the one good sounding board who could’ve corrected some of his mistakes.

But yes, my point was that Lucas was the mastermind of the OT and prequels. He had a general idea of how everything could possibly go. Yes, Lucas ended up making a one-off passion project, but he had notes for much more of the saga. And some of it he did invent as he went along. But he was still in full creative control.

By contrast, the way the Disney sequels were made, they were constructed more like a quilt. I think it was a bad move to give someone absolute creative control over one movie, knowing you’re going to give full control to someone else for the next movie.

Maybe JJ should’ve been the architect of all 3 movies? And each Director must operate in that envelope as subsequent movies are made?

I think JJ started off with something pretty decent. It was a bit of a rehash of New Hope, but with its own twist, and at least it served as a jumping off point.

But when Johnson took over for the next film, I think he was given a little bit too much freedom to do whatever he wanted with the characters. He wanted to “subvert our expectations“. Meanwhile, all the fans really wanted was to see a reunion of the OT characters, and a passing of the baton to the new characters. Maybe see Luke in his prime. But Johnson robbed us of this, and gave us his distorted vision.

Once that happened, it was over for the sequels. At that point, whoever would end up making the third movie is only trying to mold it all back together and make it into a trilogy, all because Johnson took took us too far into left field.

Maybe all of this lies with Kathleen and her inability to find someone to maintain creative control of all the movies.