The sequel trilogy was appalling. To be honest, I'd say it's time to end star wars as a film franchise.

unfortunately you are probably correct. sad, the thing has potential, but ... it's Disney.

I liked Rogue One. But outside of that, the only Star Wars film I found myself enjoying from start to finish was Star Wars 77. It's pretty much the perfect blueprint for the blockbuster film genre. It's only major downside was Mark Hamill's acting and, without Rogue One, the whole rebellion felt contrived. Like Rogue One, it's darker, grittier, had more supporting cast, and felt much more organic and like it exists in a universe. Once you get past this film, the franchise becomes far less detailed and FAR more cartoony (mainly from Return of the Jedi forward). Rogue One is the only Star Wars film I found that felt like a worthy successor to Star Wars 77, it captured the spirit a lot better.

I've heard people describe Empire Strikes Back as "dark and depressing" but it's Star Wars 77 and Rogue One easily crush it in either of those categories... depressing isn't the word I'd use, maybe melancholic/sad. I thing about Empire Strikes Back being the darker thing began  as a meme from the Kevin Smith film Clerks, because before that I remember it being "the slow Star Wars film where they didn't blow up a death star." Empire Strikes Back was definitely a big sleeper hit in the franchise, moving from the worst received to the best received after Clerks. So basically, Empire Strikes Back has Kevin Smith to thank. Not just that, but the entire franchise, Star Wars was ultra-unpopular in the early 90s, something only dorky losers were supposed to like (I remember hiding my Tie Fighter disks from friends =P).

Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi weren't bad, I don't find them anywhere near as close to as great as people make them out to be. They had FAR too much filler which wrecked the pacing, lots of blatant merch advertisement in the films (people list Boba Fett as one of the main reasons these are good, he's a pointless character), and the dramatic scenes involving Hamil gave me chills of revulsion: especially the Way over the top hammy as fuck "NOOOOOOOOOO!" scene. The battle at the end of Return of the Jedi was dumb compared to Rogue One, very contrived with Admiral Akbar and such making irrational decisions many of which blatantly cowardly that just conveniently fit the plot. Bringing up Rogue One again, unlike Admiral Akbar, Raddus didn't leave his balls at home.

I'm not going too deep into Episode 1-3. They were filler city mixed with horrendous acting - so bad it's sad. The space battle scenes were slow as hell, there was nothing fun about them The lightsaber battles were interesting. Story was stupid as hell, and the dialogue is some of the worst I have ever seen in any film. There's some decent scenes, mostly those not involving Christian Haydensen in his adult or kid form (and it's not even all his fault, well, the adult version of him at least, the dialogue and plotting for his character was more sickening than it was for anyone else). Despite the good scenes, they exist in a pile of shit, and so the films might as well be piles of shit.

Episode 7, plot contrivances aplenty! The characters randomly changed from heroic to cowardly. They randomly stumbled upon the exact shit they needed. And the whole thing was just Star Wars 77 all over again for the 3rd time, and much worse. On the bright side, the acting was great compared to all of the other Star Wars films outside of the first one (minus Hamill). Pacing was also a lot better than the 1-3 and 5-7. But overall, it's just another over-budgeted sub-par formulaic blockbuster. People complained about this one having a girl as the lead, who the fuck cares? No one cared about Annie in Episode 1-3, who was undoubtedly a little bitch.

Episode 8, was better crafted than 7, while it still had its contrivances, they weren't nearly as blatant or painful as Episode 7. The cast was more engaging than the first film. In my opinion, while not very good, probably the best Star Wars film in the mainline since Starwars 77, except I much preferred the far grittier, more detailed, and visceral Rogue One. I think my main complaint for Episode 8 was that it was cartoony, but every single mainline Starwars film from Return of the Jedi onward was cartoony. Other than that, it's well paced, well acted, and the plotting is a lot better than the last film.

I'm going to rank and score all of the Starwars films I've seen, it's based on my opinion, and it's relative, so the fact my top film on the list gets a 10 doesn't mean I think it's a perfect 10 film in the context of ALL films, just in the context of this franchise:

1. Star Wars Rogue One - 10/10

2. Star Wars 77/Episode 4 (though, this is a redaction, so I prefer calling it 77) - 8/10

3. Star Wars Episode 8 - 6/10

4. Star Wars Episode 7 - 3/10

5. Empire Strikes Back - 2/10

6. Return of the Jedi - 2/10

7. Episode 1-3 (I don't care which order because a pile of shit is a pile of shit). all of them are less than 1/10

And my opinion on whether or not Episode 7-9 should be canon? I think it's irrelevant whether they're canon or not, but mostly because I don't give a shit. From an objective business standpoint, decanonizing them would be retarded. 

Decanonization would basically confission that they are very bad. They would also need to give back the money to everyone that watched it.

For what reason? Because they know it is trash.

I have seen even more videos about and even "updates" on the rumors. It sounds like a big war was happening inside Lucas-Films:

-Inside Lucas-Films there are two factions: Kennedy’s faction, mostly integrated by an activist group and the ones mostly resposible for TLJ, and Lucas’s faction, integrated by some members like Jon Favreau (The Mandalorian) and Dave Filoni (The Clone Wars), alongside other loyal members to Lucas’s vision.

-Once The Force Awakens proved to be a bigger success than expected, Kennedy’s reputation inside the higher ups went up, and let her do whatever she has planned for the future of the franchise.

-Then for Episode VIII, Kennedy’s involvement in the movie was deeper up to the point that The Last Jedi has a lot of her influence. At the same time, Lucas’s faction has no power and has to just follow orders.

-After The Last Jedi backlash, Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, step into Star Wars and ordered Lucas-Film to retcon the trilogy and diverge as much as possible from TLJ. Alongside that, at 2018 higher ups were considering to remove Kennedy’s from her position because her contract was going to expire, but they didn’t have a replacement or someone who wanted to step on considering the “mess” before the Episode IX. Due to these circumstances, they decided to expand it for another 3 years (2018-2021) and let her finish the trilogy.

-Lucas’s faction then get more power inside Lucas-Film, and start behind the curtain a proyect to make at some point “non-canon” the new Star Wars sequels using the same lore created by the new managment. On top of that, their bigger involvement in the making of Episode IX get them the oppotunity to plant the seeds of that idea.

-However, Kennedy still has involvement in the making of the movie, and according to recent interviews with Daisy Ridley, she cut some scenes and gave the movie another “tone” than the one originally planned, something that bother Daisy considering that some of those scenes were action ones that she already filmed. The original cut was above 4 hours and considered to be split into two movies.

-Apparently, franchise has “devaluated” at Disney’s eyes. Merchandise and media concerning to the sequels are not selling according to their expectations (or even remotely well), up to the point that retailers don’t want to know about it. In contrast, both Season 7 of The Clone Wars animated show and live action The Mandalorian are succesful even with the fanbase.

-After all of these cicumstances and consequences, higher ups don’t want to sign another contract with Kennedy, and there are two rumored replacements: first one is Jon Favreau, while the second one could be a more “neutral” part and try to make peace at both factions inside Lucas-Film. Kennedy is not going to pursue for another contract, and rather, fund her own films production house, alongside some people of her current faction in Lucas-Film. But, she is going to make everthing she can to prevent her influence at the franchise get erased.

-The Fan's celebrations for 2020 and 2021 are canned, and according to these rumors, they are going to appear in 2022 with the new management team.

-The update on how to "erase" the sequels could be like this:

Future Star Wars media is going to focus on the time gap between Episode VI and Episode VII. The movies, books, comics, tv shows, etc. are going to tell stories following the events after Episode VI without touching the sequels. If the new content proves to be succesful, they are going to continue and then simple ignore entirely the sequel trilogy, never mentioning again and then jumping to expand another eras of the franchise. It is need to take in count, that this may be to most realistic scenario, and that the sequels are still canon.

Some of the videos in case anyone is interested, or want to point a mistake I could have written:

Not happening. What else is going to be canon? The old EU is reinstated? It would just be one giant mess. It’s better to come up with what counts for yourself. I never felt like the sequel trilogy actually fits after how Return of the Jedi ends, so it’s hard for me to see them as canon. Even regardless of whether they’re good as films or not.

I never felt that way about the prequels. They fit perfectly before A New Hope, and make sense. Obviously that’s probably because they’re part of George Lucas’s grand vision for the whole saga. Of the other new things, I liked Rogue One a lot, I believed that one to belong right before A New Hope immediately. It’s seamless. Okay you can moan about how those two thugs are on Jeddah one day and then in the cantina on Tatooine to harass Luke the next, but I don’t mind a joke like that. It’s the best of the Disney era Star Wars. I can also see The Mandalorian happening, I’d count that. And it’s a good show, I hope the Cassian and Obi Wan shows will be as good. Clone Wars and Rebels too, though they were started by George actually, and made and finished by competent people. The final season of Clone Wars, in particular the final four episodes, was absolutely amazing and wraps up the loose ends behind Revenge of the Sith nicely. Rebels as well, which actually explains quite some stuff ‘behind the movies’. The Solo film was okay as a film, but felt a little unnecessary, I wouldn’t say it doesn’t fit, but I wouldn’t say it adds anything either.

Old EU stuff that takes place long before the movies like the Bane series and The Old Republic is still canon to me, I don’t see how they’d conflict. Especially Knights of the Old Republic, which is actually hinted at both visually and in words in new material quite a lot.

So long story short; it’s such a mess now that it doesn’t really matter anymore what Disney does, I’m making up for my own what I think counts as canon and what isn’t.

What a mess.

Saw another video talking about Daisy "exposing" Kennedy's actions in Episode IX changing a lot of it.
The original cut was similar to the Trevorrow's script, that had a ton of connections to the prequels, but Kennedy decide to change in in the last minute because of that.
BTW, already read that leaked script and was pretty good. It felt like Episode III but with the new cast.

All I know, is I never want to see Kathleen Kennedy or J.J. Abrams name on anything I care about ever again, Marvel is so lucky to have Kevin Feige.

I am always going to be pissed that they screwed up the last chance to have Hamill, Ford, and Fisher all together.