Oh this could get long, I don't talk about the sequels often lol. But I recently had to rewatch the entire trilogy as research for the podcast, so I have some more solid opinions on this now, so let's go.
Rey is a character who suffered from a fairly basic set-up in TFA that went exactly nowhere when her trajectory changed in TLJ and they couldn't figure out how to fix it in TROS (and the studio execs came in and enforced certain things to happen because they figured it would make certain fans happy). Rey IS her own character, she's not just like... Luke 2.0 or whatever, but the general set-up of "young hero stuck on their own in their life they can't escape and who ends up forced into an adventure when adventure happens to find them" is... not the most original thing in the world. It can be REALLY GOOD when executed well, there's a reason it's popular, but nothing about Rey was like... insanely original aside from the fact that she was a woman as (one of) the main character(s) in Star Wars films for the first time.
And then Rian Johnson took this pretty basic set-up that everyone understood and went "what if I threw this on the ground and spat on it and crushed it for good measure to be Edgy" and that's how we got TLJ with "Rey Nobody" who somehow already knows everything she needs to know which makes her ENTIRE JOURNEY to go find Luke completely meaningless and shifts the story from being about HER to being about LUKE. It's dumb, it's stupid, and it was bad writing.
Not following the very obvious character arc set up for her in TFA means that Rey as a character vacillates back and forth between motivations and characterizations in each new film. So it's hard to know like... who Rey even IS as a character, what's important to her, what she cares about, why she even WANTS to be a Jedi, what kind of Jedi she'd actually be, etc. In the first film, she's on a very basic journey of learning to let go of the idea that someone will come back for her on Jakku in order to recognize that it's better to find ways to connect with new people than push aside those relationships for one that has already gone. This is why she leaves Finn at the end of the film to find Luke in the first place, she can't let her connection to Finn be what holds her back any more than she could let her connection to her parents hold her back. She has a greater destiny out there to follow that she can only answer if she learns how to let go. In the second film, her entire motivation surrounds saving Kylo Ren for some reason and, as mentioned before, she apparently already knows everything she needs know and doesn't need any training or guidance of any kind which leaves her exactly nowhere to go as a character. In the third film, it's all about figuring out how to connect to the Jedi of the past for... reasons and struggling with the sudden revelation that she is Palpatine's granddaughter and therefore has extra capacity for darkness in her or something.
There's nothing consistent about her across the three films which leaves Rey and her story just... in the dust. She could've been a perfectly good and enjoyable hero character had they just let her follow the path she was set up on in TFA, and instead we got... the mess she became. I LIKE Rey, I think she's occasionally fun and I like the relationship she has with Finn and Poe in TROS, but she got absolutely SLAUGHTERED by this trilogy.
But that is NOTHING compared to what happened to Finn.
Finn is unarguably the most interesting and unique character introduced in TFA. A stormtrooper deserter with the potential to be Force sensitive AND the main love interest for the other main female character? A stormtrooper who could become a JEDI, the clear potential for a stormtrooper rebellion, the parallels and connection between Finn and Kylo that so clearly demonstrated that theme of choice (with Finn being someone raised in darkness who chooses selflessness and compassion anyway vs Kylo who was raised in light with all the support and resources he could ask for and still chooses selfishness and darkness), the possibility of having true CO-LEADS for the first time with Finn and Rey as like two halves of one hero with the romance being there to lift them BOTH up rather than relegate one of them to the side. The potential here with Finn was LIMITLESS, it was INSANE.
And ALL OF IT got squandered. Every last ounce. Finn got COMPLETELY sidelined in TLJ, separated from all of Rey's storylines and replaced by Kylo Ren, his Force sensitivity was not further explored, the entire story with the rebellion could've been what jumpstarted his stormtrooper rebellion plotline and instead he got thrown off into some weird casino c-plot bullshit to try to thrust him into a new romance that wasn't with Rey, and he was just constantly being physically hurt by other characters as though it was a joke of some kind. TROS attempted to bring SOME of it back by having him going on more missions with Poe off-screen, allowed Finn, Poe, and Rey to be an actual trio with a relationship together, and hinted at the Force sensitivity more than once. But by the time TROS came around, the damage had been done and it couldn't manage to come back from that, so Finn ended up developing nowhere in that film and does basically nothing but follow around Poe and Rey wherever they go, more sidelined than ever but at least he's not constantly being hit and he IS still involved in the main storylines in a way he wasn't in TLJ.
The options were all SO GOOD for Finn and we got resolution for exactly none of them and because of how badly John Boyega and his character got treated, we'll likely never get any real resolution for his character EVER because he is understandably not going to come back to Star Wars after this. I haven't yet forgiven Rian Johnson for the choices he made in TLJ that ruined Finn.
I actually like Kylo best in TFA because I think, much like everybody else, that's where we see the real potential for what the character could've been. Kylo in TFA is really set up to just be "another Anakin" where he went dark but can still be saved by the love of the father/son bond and then he ISN'T. They set the audience up SO HARD for that eventuality, for Kylo to be secretly not as evil as he seems, for him to be someone who can be saved like Anakin was saved, so you're sitting there expecting that to happen during that scene on Starkiller Base with Han, which is why it comes as such a shock when he kills Han anyway and turns the ENTIRE NARRATIVE on its head by telling you that Kylo IS NOT ANAKIN and isn't going to be saved the same way if he can be saved AT ALL (and it's heavily implying he CAN'T BE SAVED). TLJ basically just redid this entire narrative from TFA all over again except with Rey and the dyad, but because they did it with Rey and the dyad, there ended up being a bunch of people who ended up VERY invested in Reylo as a thing and so the studio then caved to that in TROS and saved Kylo despite that never being in the original plan according to Adam Driver.
And I think it would've been kind-of interesting to have this character who seems like he should be able to be saved like Anakin, but not everyone CAN be saved, not everyone WILL ultimately make better choices when given the option, some people are just going to double down on their darkness and commit to being evil. I like the subversion of expectations from what we were given with Anakin, the way he's like the inverse of Anakin in so many ways and looks up to "Darth Vader" as a role model of sorts without ever understanding the choices Anakin actually made, both good and bad. And if TLJ had actually, you know, expanded upon what TFA had already established instead of just saying the exact same thing all over again, maybe we could've gotten a more interesting story out of his character.
Which leads us to Luke and his role in "creating" Kylo. Here again we get what seems to be a lack of agreement between the people in charge about what this story was supposed to be and say. TFA sets up that Kylo is making his own choices, he's not brainwashed, and his primary problem seems to be with his parents. TLJ then turns around and says it was all LUKE'S fault, that Luke had a moment of weakness and it threw Kylo into a fury he's never come back from, but Luke's mistake is what ultimately led to everything that followed. And like... this isn't Luke. Maybe some people really enjoyed seeing Luke be this broken old man who just makes the same mistakes over and over again, but this wasn't Luke to me. I don't buy that Luke had an instinct that caused him to ignite a weapon in response to feeling the darkness in his nephew's mind, something he's only feeling because he's literally INVADING HIS NEPHEW'S MIND AS HE SLEEPS. There is nothing about his choices here that are in line with anything we knew about Luke from the Original Trilogy. Luke would never do this to someone he cared about, he just wouldn't.
The movie's insistence on making Luke into this broken beaten old man is also, as I mentioned above, a massive mistake because it turns the story in TLJ from REY'S journey into LUKE'S journey. Rey isn't the one who has to learn things and develop in this film, LUKE is. LUKE is the one who fucked up, LUKE is the one who lost hope, LUKE is the one who has to be taught a lesson about what it means to be a Jedi in the end. Rey does shit all in this film.
It also moves the focus away from it being KYLO'S CHOICES that led to what he's become to this weirder story about how Luke screwed up and has to fix it by... trusting that Rey already has it covered I guess? Instead of focusing on how Kylo made selfish choices and what actually PROMPTED those selfish choices despite all of the support he had and the legacy of his parents and the way that that parallels the choices being made by Rey and Finn, it focuses on LUKE, someone whose story has ALREADY BEEN TOLD. Kylo ends up a little bitchass victim in this instead of a character who is making clear and concise choices, something that was established when he killed Han in TFA, so his choice at the end of TLJ when he kills Snoke and takes over as Supreme Leader doesn't have the same impact when we've already see him make that choice in the climax of the last film. It's redundant and walking back the choice from TFA sort-of undoes everything that it's trying to say about the character and makes TLJ's conclusion feel wishy washy. Is he a tragic victim who has to be saved, or is he a villain who just needs to be eliminated? It's unclear by the end of TLJ.
Luke's role in "creating" Kylo was stupid on so many levels, both structurally and in terms of character. It never should've happened and it's an insult to who Luke is and has been to this story and I haven't forgiven Rian Johnson for THIS choice either. TROS does attempt to fix this and walk it back, as well, but much like with Finn, the damage was done.
So as far as I'm concerned, TFA is a solid film with a really interesting concept of taking a premise we all think is predictable and then subverting those expectations pretty intentionally, but the other two films are a complete and utter mess that aren't worth the 10ish hours of my life they have taken from me by watching them each twice now. There's a few fun moments in TLJ and TROS but I can't say that either film is like... a good or enjoyable film overall.
