Trilogy Tribulations

What happens when a massive corporation forgets that it's supposed to be filming a trilogy? Empirically, the answer is Star Wars: Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker.

The implied message of Rise of Skywalker seems, to me at least, to be "Let's all pretend The Last Jedi didn't happen." J. J. Abrams does not appear to be a fan of the state in which Rian Johnson left the Galaxy Far, Far, Away:

• The Resistance seems to be in essentially the same state as it was at the end of The Force Awakens. They certainly no longer all fit on the Millennium Falcon!
• Rey has gone from a no-name orphan to Crown Princess Rey Palpatine, heir to Sheev I. Johnson was pretty transparently attempting to deconstruct Star Wars' emphasis on hereditary destiny, but that's been quite effectively blown out the airlock.
• Hyperspace ramming is brought up, then immediately dismissed: clearly Abrams got wind of the objection that ramming from hyperspace would make all space battles completely pointless.
• The Resistance's plan (call for help) is essentially identical to what they tried in TLJ, but this time it succeeds for no reason instead of failing for no reason.
• The Finn/Rose romance was dialed way back; Rey and Poe each have more of a romance arc than Finn does in this movie.
• Leia now promotes Poe rather than demoting him. (His on-screen rank progression is Commander -> Captain -> General.)

Indeed, what would have to be explained to someone who had seen TFA but not TLJ?

Well, Luke died; he's a Force Ghost now. Snoke and Phasma are dead, but they were glorified extras anyway. Kylo Ren took over the First Order. Rey saw Kylo Ren without his shirt on; I guess that's important.

It really says a lot about Episode VIII that "shirtless Kylo Ren" is one of the most "critical" scenes for understanding the events of Episode IX.

So how did it come to pass that TLJ could be replaced by a 30-second montage without the viewers' understanding of the trilogy being meaningfully impacted? Obviously, the trilogy wasn't written as a trilogy. Disney decided to take it one movie at a time to the point of allowing Johnson to deconstruct Star Wars and Abrams to deconstruct Johnson's deconstruction. But will they pay the price for their lack of vision?

Oh, and I totally called Leia's death being shot in silhouette!