I think based off what I saw and of how little made sense of TLD, it's pretty clear Rian Johnson just doesn't know anything about writing - about world building, continuity, character building, tone, or consistency. Everything was just all over the place and made little sense.
MAYBE, and it's a BIG maybe, when he has free reign to make his own trilogy entirely from scratch he'll be able to shine more, but I just don't see it. Perhaps it's possible that the establishing story/characters set up by Abrams was just SO far from his style that he just felt he couldn't do much with it and it bogged him down, but then.. Why hire him in the first place?
The movie seemed so disconnected from the OT aside from the fact that it had the Star Wars name slapped on it and featured Luke and Leia (the former of which didn't actually seem anything like Luke). About the one aspect of TLD that was decent was the visual effects, so at best he should be demoted to just handle that side of things.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident - all men and women created by the, go-you know.. you know the thing!" - Joe Biden
