The sooner viewers realised how badly it was a remake of ANH and returned the franchise to pre-ESB status quo the better but for a lot of people they were too giddy on a new film being out.
As time went on more and more criticism was brought towards it and the later films had a combination of both increasing said criticism for the trilogy as a whole but also strangely enshrining TFA as "not the shit one" from the Sequels.
TLA threw a lot of things out the window like Snoke, Rey's background, Luke, basic physics in space when it came to arcing blaster fire in space... and even simple time keeping since everything Finn goes off to do [is not only literally the plot to Spaceballs with parking ticket violations and all, but] takes place within the 18 hour window given for the main "Rebel" ship's fuel reserves. This also included the several days that Rey spent "training" with Luke.
Which made anything TROS was going to attempt even harder, so a lot of the crap Rian did in TLA was ignored by JJ. Not that there was a coherent overarching plot in place to start with.
Original films could get away with that, it was an new, ongoing story development which had bumps it would inevitably hit and yet still followed a trilogy format well enough of the first film being contained enough no others would need to follow it.
If "Star Wars" [Episode IV: A New Hope] was the only film ever made it would still work well enough as a standalone. The ending has the good guys win, the Death Star is destroyed, there's a parade where the main characters get medals, cheery music plays and everyone is happy and smiling - despite the fact the galaxy is still ruled by the Empire.
Empire stomps all over the good guys from the start and leaves them in a worse state than they started with Han captured, the Rebels scattered, Luke now missing a hand and traumatised by his encounter with Vader on Bespin. But that's because there was a plan [RotJ] to still resolve the story and tie up loose ends so having the good guys lose meant the story wasn't ending on a negative, it was just the Second Act before the heroes would turn things around.
Quite a few trilogies end up doing this and while it's possible many copy what Star Wars did the basic idea is well establishes storytelling tool.
As for the Prequels they could only ever move towards the start of A New Hope and while again they follow the same format of the first film destroying some big space structure, a parade with cheery music, the loss of a mentor, and a promise of future things, the Prequels were still confined hard by the fact they could only ever tell a story that ends leading up to ANH. AotC much like Empire ends on a somber note with the Clone Army forming and leaving on early model Star Destroyers to the Imperial March showing the audience that the Empire is coming. RotS goes hard on things ending badly for the good guys but again that's because it needs to given the setting of ANH.
Rogue One worked well for this reason because while it did tell a story not many might have known, the EU had done the Death Star plans capture a few times, it still remained confined by the narrative needed to set up ANH. Although there are still a few gripes in places such as just how soon before ANH it ended up being, and personally I don't think the first Vader scene was needed on Mustafar. If he had only been in the hallway it would have made his appearance far, far more horrifying.
Disney Sequels however just made things one film at a time and either ignored or pissed all over previous material.
The sooner viewers realised how badly it was a remake of ANH and returned the franchise to pre-ESB status quo the better but for a lot of people they were too giddy on a new film being out.
As time went on more and more criticism was brought towards it and the later films had a combination of both increasing said criticism for the trilogy as a whole but also strangely enshrining TFA as "not the shit one" from the Sequels.
TLA threw a lot of things out the window like Snoke, Rey's background, Luke, basic physics in space when it came to arcing blaster fire in space... and even simple time keeping since everything Finn goes off to do [is not only literally the plot to Spaceballs with parking ticket violations and all, but] takes place within the 18 hour window given for the main "Rebel" ship's fuel reserves. This also included the several days that Rey spent "training" with Luke.
Which made anything TROS was going to attempt even harder, so a lot of the crap Rian did in TLA was ignored by JJ. Not that there was a coherent overarching plot in place to start with.
Original films could get away with that, it was an new, ongoing story development which had bumps it would inevitably hit and yet still followed a trilogy format well enough of the first film being contained enough no others would need to follow it.
If "Star Wars" [Episode IV: A New Hope] was the only film ever made it would still work well enough as a standalone. The ending has the good guys win, the Death Star is destroyed, there's a parade where the main characters get medals, cheery music plays and everyone is happy and smiling - despite the fact the galaxy is still ruled by the Empire.
Empire stomps all over the good guys from the start and leaves them in a worse state than they started with Han captured, the Rebels scattered, Luke now missing a hand and traumatised by his encounter with Vader on Bespin. But that's because there was a plan [RotJ] to still resolve the story and tie up loose ends so having the good guys lose meant the story wasn't ending on a negative, it was just the Second Act before the heroes would turn things around.
Quite a few trilogies end up doing this and while it's possible many copy what Star Wars did the basic idea is well establishes storytelling tool.
As for the Prequels they could only ever move towards the start of A New Hope and while again they follow the same format of the first film destroying some big space structure, a parade with cheery music, the loss of a mentor, and a promise of future things, the Prequels were still confined hard by the fact they could only ever tell a story that ends leading up to ANH. AotC much like Empire ends on a somber note with the Clone Army forming and leaving on early model Star Destroyers to the Imperial March showing the audience that the Empire is coming. RotS goes hard on things ending badly for the good guys but again that's because it needs to given the setting of ANH.
Rogue One worked well for this reason because while it did tell a story not many might have known, the EU had done the Death Star plans capture a few times, it still remained confined by the narrative needed to set up ANH. Although there are still a few gripes in places such as just how soon before ANH it ended up being, and personally I don't think the first Vader scene was needed on Mustafar. If he had only been in the hallway it would have made his appearance far, far more horrifying.
Disney Sequels however just made things one film at a time and either ignored or pissed all over previous material.