Because Disney is doing a horrible job. Visually The Last Jedi is amazing but story-wise it's a complete mess that contradicts both itself and the previous film(s). Behind the scenes there is no real leadership. There was no goal or vision for the new trilogy, they literally hired three separate directors and told them to make whatever movie they wanted but it had to have X characters. There were no notes from the studio going into TLJ from TFA, only some from J.J. which Rian Johnson threw away. Rian didn't like Abrams' direction so he changed everything, and now Abrams has been brought back and doesn't like what Rian did so he's changing everything again. The studio has given Abrams no notes for this movie now either. All the characters are inconsistent between films, there's been zero worldbuilding in the movies, there is no big bad, and there is no actually purpose to this trilogy. What is the endgame here? What are the stakes? Who's actually in control? According to TFA, even with the senate destroyed the First Order can't gain control of the galaxy, but in TLJ they have complete control of the entire galaxy even though it hasn't even been 24 hours since TFA ended. Not to mention they've been systematically throwing out the original characters. R2 is barely in these movies and when he is he just sits around and does nothing. Chewie also sits around and does nothing except fly the Falcon every once in a while. Ackbar was killed off-screen. These movies sole purpose is to just make money. Every single movie has new ships, stormtrooper designs, characters, costumes, and alien creatures just so Disney can sell more toys. Even if the story takes place in the past they still have tons of new stuff so they can sell the toys for it. This new movie will have a totally new organization (because that's something you introduce in your final film right? Along with a brand new big bad guy) that exist because they're going to be featured heavily in StarWars land. Then these films bank on people's childhood nostalgia. 90% of the positive comments I saw on the trailer were people excited solely because of Lando, the Emperor, and the Death Star. No one cares about the new characters. Kylo is the only one with a shred of a story arc. Rey is a stale block of wood but is also instantly perfect at every task presented to her. Even Mark Hamill himself has complained about how she's like Luke prime despite never going through the things Luke had to to master his skills.
And then there's the behind the scenes stuff. Aside from no vision or direction from the studio apart from what characters and marketing to include, Lucasfilm has been a revolving door of quitting/fired directors. Abrams is already the second director for RoS, Rogue One was mostly filmed before they swapped directors and refilmed most of the movie, and Solo was more or less completed before they fired both directors and refilmed the entire movie. Kathleen Kennedy (head of Lucasfilm) hires directors, tells them to make whatever they want, never bothered to check in while the movie is filming, then after the fact decides she doesn't like what they've done, fires them, and brings someone else in to waste hundreds of millions more to save the project. I loved Rogue One, and even liked Solo, but this is a horrible way to run your studio. And Solo lost Disney hundreds of millions of dollars. Go back to 2016 and everyone would tell you you're crazy if you believed that a brand new StarWars movie would not only not crack a billion dollars, but lose money. Marvel knows almost exactly what story they want to tell 5 years before they tell it, but they still give each director freedom within that story. Compare that to the current trilogy and there's no real consistent story arc here. Episode 9 is being treated as a standalone film because Episode 8 messed things up so badly that there's no story to tell from where Rian left us.
This is the conclusion to a trilogy yet the main bad guy is already dead, the main questions have already been answered, Luke is back, Kylo's mask is back, the Resistance is rebuilt again, a new villain is being introduced, and a completely new story is being introduced with the main points of the last one being completely dropped (after that movie dropped the main points of the one before it, too). Yeah, I'm not looking forward to this.
~Thylo
