Mixed feelings for me. I think the characters introduced were pretty good and the acting was solid all round but the whole thing just has a feeling of 'been there, done that' to me. These films were just not fresh or creative enough in their stories, world building, visuals or set pieces for me (though TROS did try to remedy this to a degree).
TFA should have been a bold, fresh take on the franchise with groundbreaking visuals - it wasn't. Sure, it's entertaining enough but it showed very little imagination or creativity with it’s story. It made huge money though so it was a win for Disney.
TLJ I applaud for doing what it did and trying to subvert expectations but the film nearly collapses under the weight of all this subversion, almost forgetting it had a story to move forward at times and it ended up delivering a rather strange experience that had some good moments and some downright eye-rolling stupidity among other things. Overall a badly paced film that seemed very uneven in tone and seemingly left the franchise in a dead end.
TROS I think is the strongest of the three in terms of entertainment, visuals, and world building and was an attempt to right the perceived 'wrongs' of the previous instalment (which illustrates one of the problems with this trilogy), but this isn't without it's issues either, bringing back Palpatine because... reasons? It's a crowd pleasing film for sure and at least it pushed things visually more than the others did. It's a good SW film but not a great one in my opinion.
I enjoyed all three films to varying degrees, they were all entertaining, but they’ve definitely burnt me out on these ‘saga’ films, so I’m actually thankful it’s at an end. The storylines are becoming too repetitive, with planet killing weapons in two of the three movies, hidden identities of major players yet again (boring!) amongst other nostalgia that’s been mined. I think the force powers have gotten a little over the top into superhero territory also, which kinda takes the peril out of things if our heroes are immortal near-gods who can do pretty much anything, the Force in the OT (and to a slightly lesser extent the PT) had a bit more mystery about it, with the enhanced abilities, telekinesis etc, it almost made it more credible and believable than what’s been displayed here, with curing death and teleporting objects across distances (Hmmm. Where have I heard that criticism before I wonder Mr Abrams). Even the ship designs were just OT designs with a lick of paint in the main (X-Wings and Ties) - compare that to the varied designs from the PT that really looked like they came from another era.
Back to the original question, did this trilogy add anything meaningful to the saga? Yes and no. It introduced Finn, for example, who was played brilliantly by Boyega and they had this great concept of a character and yet they barely did anything with it. Rey - again, played very well by Ridley didn’t have anything like enough conflict for me and came across a bit too ‘safe’ yet her arc was dictated by the shoehorning in of Palpatine after her parents seemingly being no-one one minute then being the granddaughter of the biggest bad in the galaxy. Poe just seemed to be ‘Han Solo lite’ that just had some backstory rammed in at the last minute in TROS, yet was again, played well by Isaac. They didn’t know what to do with these characters and sometimes and it showed. This trilogy had some great characters that were ultimately let down (but by no means by a lot) by the material somewhat.
I know this sounds like I’m a ST hater - I’m really not, I’m just giving my honest critique of it now it’s over.
I think the Star Wars film franchise needs a few years off at least now, and whatever comes next needs to be something new, new cast, new villains, new everything, and it needs planning out with a clear creative vision.
