Exactly. The biggest problem with the sequel trilogy is the three movies really weren’t produced as a singular trilogy; they were all written by different writing teams when all three should have been written beforehand with one coherent storyline.
That was their original plan, when Michael Arndt was supposed to do it. But for some reason he wasn’t able to achieve what they were looking for, so they rushed in a new draft, cribbing liberally from ANH, and it all went a bit south after that decision.
This is the main reason why they are not following through with more movies annually like they had announced originally. Not because Solo underperformed (an unusual case with too many variables at play), but because the lack of cohesion and limited time available to make each movie (it takes three years, go-to-whoa, but they only schedule two years between release dates) just wasn’t working out. They needed to take a step back, but luckily could fast-track TV to keep Star Wars alive in the meantime.
Do you have a cite for that? My understanding is that they didn’t use anything from Lucas’s scripts, and that he was kind of salty about it.
Also, regarding Solo, I believe a great deal got changed when Disney panicked and burned the directors, such that the final product would be unrecognizable next to the original plan.
They didn’t for the sequel trilogy, but Solo was a different situation. I’m not sure how much of the final movie was what Lucas was planning, but he was definitely the instigator.
It being developed so early, and then interrupted, and then having the directors swapped out and 80% or more of it reshot is why the official budget was so high, and the box office considered a loss, but that’s way too messy a situation to fairly assess. Disney, especially CEO Bob Iger, blames the release date being too soon after The Last Jedi came out, which was his call. He takes the hit on it, not Kathleen Kennedy.
Oh, my bad - I completely glossed that you were talking about Solo and not the prequels.
I actually just watched “The Mandalorian.” It was ludicrously good, just fabulous. As good as Star Wars or Empire. Each episode was 45 minutes long and felt like it was ten.
What amazed me about this was that I’d have told you “this universe is just completely out of ideas” and I was wrong. It has made me think about just HOW you create new stories in an existing universe, and I’ll be thinking about it for weeks.
Whatever the drama behind the camera, though, the movie in front of the camera is perfectly fine. It has a coherent story put into proper order that hits all the required beats, relatable characters, and good action set pieces. The fact it was a box office disappointment can’t really be explained by the quality of the film. Many Star Wars films that were WAY worse made more money.
I can’t actually dispute what you’re saying, but the effect was still that I left TFA excited to see what was going to happen next: my interest kept building up, over the course of the movie; and it ended on a note that made me think, with enthusiasm, I Want To Buy A Ticket To See The Next Part Of The Story!
The followups didn’t do that. The prequel trilogy didn’t do that; and SOLO didn’t do that, and I guess ROGUE ONE couldn’t — and TFA maybe had an unfair advantage when it comes to getting there, but the thing is that it did get there.
I think I mentioned upthread, I personally thought that as a side story in the Star Wars universe, Solo was…fine. It wasn’t great, but it was serviceable. As Han Solo’s origin story, it was just plain bad (“What’s your last name?” “Last name?” “Yes, who are your people?” “I don’t have any people. I’m alone” “…I’ll just put down ‘Solo’” 
). Between the two, it was a mediocre, forgettable movie, released in an era in which there are at least a dozen big budget FX movies released every year.
It was also a franchise movie that was a prequel side-story to the main franchise, so it was kind of a tweener. The other “A Star Wars Story”, Rogue One, was just a much better movie on its own, and also did a much better job tying itself into the main franchise.
Yeah, I felt the same way when it came out. There’s a lot I still like about TFA, but it very much benefits by not resolving most of the issues it brings up - who’s Rey, where’s Luke, how did Maz get his lightsaber, what’s Snoke’s deal? Knowing that most of these questions won’t actually have a satisfactory answer - or any answer at all - robs the movie of a lot of its impact.
Hell, I feel the same way about TLJ, except that it’s even worse, because it actually provides a bunch of answers, and every single one of them is undone in the next film, to the extent that it comes across as almost petty. Like it’s the result of a personal beef between Abrams and Rian Johnson, and not the result of an organic story process.
Rogue One is my favourite Star Wars of all Star Wars movies. The story speaks to me on a very personal level such that it moves me to literal tears. I rewatched Rogue One over the holidays with the RiffTrax for it. The riff track was amazing; however, it was a funny experiencing laughing while tearing up.
/Agreed. Solo isn’t bad per se, but it never goes beyond “generic action-adventure-comedy”.
To me, personally, it’s terrible because they took what should have been an amazing story and turned into dull filler. For example, the idea of exploring Han’s family, even a little bit, might give us some insight into his character and values, or seeing how he learned to understand whatever language the Wookies use would be a pretty cool plot beat. Instead all the meaningless things are given WEIGHT AND PORTENT (the dice, which nobody cared about) while the really important aspects are stepped over.