Shazam was better than I expected.

One Upon A Time In Hollywood was less good than I expected.

Insidious Chapter 3 was better than I expected after the first 2 which I didn't like at all and had no positive expectations for that third movie, at all.

Frozen was better than I expected when I first thought it would be just another Disney kids movie with lame slapstick comedy.

My correct expectations for the mess that TROS ended up being were nothing but observations in the development of a trilogy (or lack of development) and the specific disregard for development in TLJ towards a the third movie that forced said third movie to tackle and tag a lot of things without the resources.

I don't know if you are trying to project yourself in how you function using your own observations of how you may have found that you auto-suggest yourself into not liking something, but I don't work that way and there is no point in you trying to make claims about how I work when you don't even know my real name. It costs me nothing to say: "I was wrong, this movie is better than I expected."

I see a lot of people blaming exclusively the Last Jedi for the trilogy not being coherent. I disagree - I think that the Force Awakens led the foundations for bad story-telling, and is at least equally to blame as the Last Jedi for the trilogy not feeling coherent. (This, aside from the fact that the real blame is the lack of planning within Disney in the first place - who does a trilogy without knowing where it's going? Jeez.)

Anyway - here's a challenge, if anyone wants to take it up: One of the biggest quoted flaws for the Last Jedi is how they treated Luke's character. My thing is - how was the Last Jedi supposed to treat Luke? The very first scene in the Force Awakens has the main villain looking for Luke, because he's missing and absolutely nobody knows his true location. What kind of excuse is the Last Jedi supposed to come up with to explain Luke's disappearance without Luke looking like a total arse? When the next movie begins, what the hell is Luke supposed to say that still makes him look like a hero?

The Last Jedi took some risks and ignored some stuff from the Force Awakens, this is true, but I sincerely also don't think the Force Awakens placed good foundations in the first place. JJ Abrams threw a bunch of stuff in the air in hopes that the next directer would catch it and run with it. It didn't work out.

Anyway, I always hoped RoS would connect the trilogy finally, but it didn't, and I left the heater having enjoyed an underwhelming Star Wars movie.

I'll be reading your full impressions once I watch the movie at the end of the week.
It's a shame though. I enjoyed The Last Jedi for what it was, but they capitulated to loud and angry minorities.

I agree that TFA started things off on the wrong foot. I wanted to love it. I liked it okay but I personally wanted an original story before diving back into the familiar. When it was over, I said to myself "This is the new crew. Now that this is out the way, let's see where this goes..." and I was excited.

I saw TLJ review scores and I was even more excited. I saw TLJ and...I didn't enjoy it. As an audience member, it wasn't my job to write the story or say "They should have done this." My job was to watch the film and be entertained. I wasn't. I was actually bored and couldn't even turn off my brain and enjoy it in any capacity.

BUT based on your challenge, Luke could have just said something like:

-"I've been expecting you."

-"There are forces at work that you don't yet understand."

-He could have gone there to train at this sacred Jedi training ground to get more powerful for the unknown threat out there. He was "The Last Jedi" and Kylo and his Knights were looking for him.

All pulled directly from my ass in thirty seconds. Probably all sucked but I'm not a writer 

*On a different note, if I WAS a writer, I'd have had it be revealed that Finn was "Order 66'd" into joining the rebellion. That he was the reason the First Order was tracking the Rebellion in TLJ. He would spend the rest of the trilogy trying to redeem himself and that's what he would be trying to tell Rey. That's my personal fanfic, though.

Could've been looking for Palpatine. Which he needs to do alone because there's no one in the universe who'd stand a chance.

But, obviously, they could've only done that if they had planned out this trilogy in the first place.

This is a funny idea. Though that would've created continuity problems; Finn isn't a clone, while the early Stormtroopers were clones that had the Order 66 and other stuff programmed into their heads to be super-loyal.

As a random guy on the internet, I will let you know that I feel completely entitled to re-write a movie for the professional writers

These are honestly not bad. He could have totally been training - and I was thinking that he could have easily created a new Jedi academy in hiding after Kylo wiped out the previous one. The biggest issue remains, though, is that he is unnecessarily not communicating this with anyone in the resistance - or at least helping them while they are actively getting pummelled out there. Even if he had good motives it's very uncharacteristic of Luke to not be there in the first place. 

Yeah that was weird, especially since they all randomly come across it. But this is all because there was never any direction on where to go with these movies. I've been excusing that for this film, because it was already clear from the previous one that this would be the case.

Makes sense. I'd reason that jumping in when he wasn't ready was the reason Han got captured and he's stuck with a Robo-Hand. He learned not to be impulsive and risk losing everything. And last time just thinking of Leia put her in danger. Couldn't risk communication with "Smoke" out there somewhere.

But again, just my personal "What if" story. I'm mostly happy with what we got. Sooner or later I'm gonna rewatch this trilogy and I suspect with all of the answers I'm going to enjoy the whole thing a lot more. Same thing happened to me with the prequels. I don't ignore the many flaws. I just enjoy them more now.