I thought Abrams hit a home run in Ep. 7 and again in Ep. 9. His movies took me back to being ages 8, 11, & 14. Had he directed all three, I think the story of Ep. 8 itself and Ep. 7-9 overall could've ended up a whole lot better told & delivered. I think Ep. 8 has some good moments and is a decent movie, but it just didn't feel quite right, sort of disrupting the 3-movie arc, and this, to me, is the difference:

- JJ told the story in both 7 & 9 the way the story needed to be told.
- Rian told the story in 8 more the way he wanted to tell it, not as much in the way it needed to be told. Too many holes, too many ways the characters behaved that weren't fully in keeping with how they did in 7 & 9, ways in which plot points unfolded that not only weren't consistent with 7 & 9 but also weren't consistent with 1-6.

There's a guy on YouTube called Mike Zeroh and he seems to post stuff constantly with some degree of insider knowledge (at least to a point). I have no idea this guy's credibility factor, and his bias is quite clear (he seems insanely anti-Kathleen Kennedy). A few of his recent posts talked about ways Favreau & Filoni will end up closing loopholes to refine recent movie storylines to be consistent with and fit into the canon. I like at least the last idea, because it doesn't create further divide by essentially invalidating all that happened in the last 3 movies (a recent rampant internet rumor was that Disney would do that), instead just deftly weaving all the existing parts together both credibly & cohesively.

On a different note, especially as I hear more folks speak positively of Solo in hindsight, I really wish they'd go back to Ron Howard and do more movies in that series like they originally planned. The end result of his effort was fantastic, and the big "bust" it was financially (even though it still finished over $75M worldwide in the black) would've been lessened considerably if not for the "wrong" director decision in the first place that required re-shooting (successfully, IMO) somewhere around half the movie -- an unfortunate initial director choice/decision they made that clearly wouldn't be repeated since they ended up with the right guy.