ST Collaboration, teamwork and individuality of the ST’s creatives

I hope this thread title is broad enough to not be redundant.
I’ve digested the film over the last day or so, and tried to work out what I think. I can’t imagine defending it as passionately as I have defended TFA, but nor do I agree with any of the camps who think the film is terrible.
Overall, I think it is a truly great film, and a truly great Star Wars film, but with a very big BUT, that I think means that the sequel trilogy is horribly compromised.

And it’s this; we have a trilogy in which it is on record that there is little to no collaboration between the creatives leading each instalment (and this is still true of IX, even after CT’s departure, as J.J. didn’t create TFA expecting to create IX, so it’s unlikely he prepared for how he would end the story)

It was relatively easy to overlook this problem after TFA, because JJ left a lot of things open, and I guess that that can reasonably seen as generosity towards the people who followed.

However, with TLJ, the issue becomes THE issue of the sequel trilogy. With a few, actually quite minor, adjustments, TLJ could be Episode VIII AND Episode IX. It almost completely wraps up the story of the sequels, leaving only a final confrontation between Rey and Kylo Ren as the likely climax of IX. As such, it works on its own terms (in my opinion, of course).
But, the question it leaves me with is this: How much of TLJ’s story was resolved in IX because Rian Johnson (understandably) began to feel ownership of these characters, and (still kind of understandably, considering CT was due to take over) either didn’t want someone else to finish the story, or didn’t trust someone to do so?

Would TLJ be the same film if, as well as having a blank slate, RJ had had to sit down with CT or whoever and actually crack the story for the last two films?
Would Luke have made his last stand in TLJ and had his noble end (which I think worked amazingly well) if the story for the sequels was worked on collaboratively? I can’t believe that it wouldn’t have been in the final episode if that had happened.
Or even, post Carrie Fisher’s death, should there have been (and has there been) meaningful work between RJ and CT/JJ to approach the writing of IX without Carrie? eg, with collaboration, would the writer of IX have wanted to try to change something in the last act of TLJ to help with dealing with the Leia issue?

So yeah, this thread isn’t for discussing inconsistencies or anything like that, but for looking into quotes about the making of the films from the perspective of collaboration vs individuality, and the impact on the films (positively and negatively)
Because as it is, TLJ has put me in the unique position of me feeling like it may well be objectively THE best Star Wars film (with some big flaws) while also feeling at the moment an almost complete lack of excitement for the final episode - the story I was invested in is pretty much done. And done well, very well. But done. IX will have to work very, very hard to be something other than an epilogue or a stand alone film.

Thoughts?

 

If JJ brings back his creations like Maz (and her pirate gang) and uses them to shore up the Resistance forces (kind of like the Ravagers in Guardians of the Galaxy), then brings back his Knights of Ren and fleshes them out into a real Legion of Doom, there's plenty he could do with the conflict in IX.

And it wouldn't even require introducing any new elements into the trilogy, just bringing back ones he's already created.

The final installment of a trilogy is supposed to just be about wrapping up loose ends anyway, and the only end left is: Who will win the battle for the galaxy, the good guys or the bad guys?

That's enough to build a movie around.

 

That’s a good point, and that’s something I could definitely get behind. Though there’s still an element then of JJ starting and finishing his trilogy, with pretty much a saga’s worth of story right in the middle of it. Which isn’t that bad a thing, I guess.

 

The only thing TLJ (and the real-life tragedy of Carrie's death) really took off the table for IX was mentor characters (Snoke, Luke, Leia). Seems like this was the primary function of the film, as far as developing the story goes.

Which seems to have (mostly) been a deliberate choice to focus in on the new generation in the last installment of the saga.