Star Wars Episode 9 currently the 3rd lowest reviewed movie in the series by critics

[StuOhQ]

Hiku said:

Considering how Rian Johnson painted JJ Abrams into a corner, I think this film did about as well as it could, given the position it was in.
I do feel that it was almost like two movies crammed into one though.

I don't love everything about TLJ, but Johnson only painted the next director into a corner if they were completely inflexible in their creative process. Snoke being dead, Rey being a nobody, and the Resistance in desperate need of a turn in the tide literally opened all doors for ANYTHING to happen. 

JJ actually read and signed off on Johnson's script before shooting began - said so himself. He just didn't think it would be HIS business to pen a sequel to it, so the departures from his vision didn't matter. When he was brought back on, rather than working from Trevorrow's sequel to TLJ, or creating his own sequel to it, he duct-taped together parts of his original ending with Treverrow's work and added in bits of inspiration from a conversation he held with George Lucas. 

... and we got a Frankenstein's monster of a script, rather than a fresh sequel to the last film in the series.