I think the mistake is that after the original trilogy most fans just seem to want "more of the same" because they don't see the original trilogy as three separate films but rather "a thing". Spoilers from here on out.

The Last Jedi made perfect sense for what it was meant to be in the context of its trilogy. Yes, it had many faults but that is hardly a new thing for a Star Wars movie (except enough time has passed since the prequels that the kind of people complaining TLJ was "too woke" are more than likely to find reasons to argue that the prequels were actually great because they're comfortable handwaving their many weaknesses).

Most fans expected "another Star Wars adventure" following the common formula seen in so much Star Wars media: a chosen one finding their hidden power and overcoming obstacles to come out on top at the end with maybe a hint at a greater evil to be defeated the next time around. But that's not the story of a second movie in a Star Wars trilogy, that's the story of any episode in an episodic TV show. Trilogies have narrative arcs. And the second movie in a Star Wars trilogy is where The Empire Strikes Back, the mentor dies to give way to the underprepared hero, evil triumphs and all hope seems lost.

The movie did that. Luke Skywalker stalled the big bad long enough to give the unprepared Rey a chance to escape as he sacrificed himself the same way Obi Wan stalled Vader before allowing himself to be struck down. The rebels were decimated and forced to flee and regroup. All of this was very much beat-by-beat what The Empire Strikes Back did before.

But it was also a new movie in a new trilogy and it had to carry the universe forward rather than merely rehash what had been done before. The first trilogy had given many the idea that Jedi powers were entirely tied to bloodline, like a royal claim to the throne. The second had expanded on this with literal blood tests for Jedi powers, showing the Jedi to take kids with the right blood results out of their families to raise them under their watch and then demonstrating the futility and pointlessness of this approach as Anakin single-handedly murders all the younglings and wipes out most of the Jedis. It also showed the Jedi system as being contradictory and too obsessed with regulations while being not only incapable to defend its own but also mostly disinterested in preventing the rise of the Empire by eschewing politics.

The third trilogy allowed a fresh take on the Jedis: Luke's attempt to recreate the system that had allowed his father to become Darth Vader failed again by bringing forth Kylo Ren, his own fear of failure ruining any chance to save Kylo Ren from turning to the Dark Side. Meanwhile Rey, like Anakin a complete nobody with no noteworthy lineage, turned out to be uniquely talented with the force, punching above her weight even when confronted with the "classically trained" (but lacking serious guidance now completely undisciplined) Kylo Ren at least long enough to survive the outmatched encounter in the first movie.

The second movie of the new trilogy did what had to be done: Luke realizes the folly of trying to adhere strictly to the sacred texts and destroys them. Yes, this was not strictly necessary but the act was primarily symbolic as we hadn't directly seen much of them before: as Luke had to learn and Yoda tried to teach him before, being a Jedi was not about learning from books and only doing the right thing but about failure and confronting your fears and weaknesses not to simply defeat them but to learn from them. This is why Anakin fell for the dark side and why Luke failed to save Kylo Ren: rather than learn to acknowledge his fear and to see failure as an opportunity for growth, the fear had corrupted them. This is also why the ending scene with random kids using the force mattered: yes, it was very much on the nose but the point was that the force does not spring from the Jedi's sacred texts, the force comes from within and becoming a Jedi means growing as a person, not just getting better at using the force.

But that would have meant allowing Star Wars to evolve and that's not what many fans wanted, especially not when they were so deeply afraid of "politics" entering their allegory for a communist rebellion defeating the overwhelming American empire - err, sorry, I meant very serious apolitical sci-fi franchise. After all, they were already being forced into uncomfortable conversations about rooting for the genocidal ethnostate (not an ethnostate! they stopped using clones some time in the original trilogy but also it's woke identity politics that the storm trooper defector had to be played by a Black guy) wearing the sci-fi equivalent of Waffen-SS uniforms (there we go again calling everyone you don't like a nazi).

If you paid attention, the original trilogy was always more about the triumph of compassion over brute force and of friendship overcoming what a lone individual can not. Luke being potentially the most powerful force user would have meant nothing if he wouldn't have had Uncle Ben and Yoda helping him master his potential, his friends give him the emotional strength to continue and the rebels (and Ewoks) give him the opportunity to challenge Vader - and then Anakin's suffocated love for his own child winning against the Emperor's conditioning and allowing him to save Luke and defeat the Emperor.

And then Skywalker came out and threw all of that away in order to give us more slop and even bring back the Emperor so we could have a big fight scene with Kylo Ren randomly deciding to switch sides. Even if you disliked TLJ for the blue-haired girlboss blueballing our fighter hero or the Asian chick getting too much screentime or Luke being a pacifist or the gambling planet being a socialist soapbox or whatever complaint about politics you want to level at it, I challenge you to defend Rise of the Skywalker as a dignified Star Wars sequel rather than a hurriedly strewn together fan service shlock fest that completely flies in the face of both the trilogy and the larger narrative and thematic arcs altogether.

Sorry for ranting. I'll now step off my soap box again.