Yes, expectations need to be higher.

Rating: Null/10 (25 December 2019)

This is Star Wars, this is not Fast and the Furious, Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, or Mission: Impossible where a fun time at the cinema is just enough. Star Wars has a very special place in our culture and has as much influence, impact, and recognition as The Godfather, expectations are going to be high and there must be an attempt to meet them. Unfortunately the franchise under Kathleen Kennedy's eyes has been stumbling and fumbling and as The Last Jedi perfectly illustrated neither she or her followers care about respecting the lore, the fans, or the hero's journey with which it is supposed to pay respects towards. The prequel trilogy by Lucas was not great, but it at least was telling a cohesive storyline and had vision, where you can completely see a beginning, a middle, and an end, which is nowhere to be seen with this trilogy. The Force Awakens clearly established something, The Last Jedi threw everything out the window in favor of telling a middle and end, and here we have The Rise of Skywalker which is trying to re-do a middle and an end. Watching all three clearly illustrates that there was no idea or understanding of where to go after The Force Awakens, and that none of the writers and directors hired for each of the three episodes saw eye to eye, in particular JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson.
The movie is a mess, it is a Frankenstein-like creature of picture that feels rushed and cobbled together at the last minute, with no real story flow, inconsistent writing and direction, and ineffective attempts at fan service. It is not all bad, some things kind of work, but ultimately the best it is able to rise up to is being a forgettable but somewhat entertaining waste of time on a Sunday afternoon...When for the END of the Skywalker saga it should've really been in vein of other more recent epics of genre cinema like The Return of the King and from earlier in the year Avengers: Endgame(Which does have some problems, but still delivered exactly what audiences wanted to see and left a lot of people going back to see it again).
Time to re-read Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, if you have not its a great continuation of the original three movies with great writing, a consistent storyline, and is totally respectful to the legacy characters.