I heard it described this way, and I feel there’s some truth in it: “Episode 7 is a love letter to Star Wars, but it failed to actually be Star Wars.” I absolutely feel Abram’s love of the franchise in it, and that’s a good thing. Somehow he just seems to have missed the core of what made the stories feel like Star Wars. He did an admirable job trying to course correct with 9, but man, how do you fix the errors of 8 🥲