The Mandalorian Season 2

[Fyraltari]

Just keep him out of Middle-Earth, is all I ask at this point.

1) Oh god no.
2) Is Tom Bombadil the original mystery box?

1) Remove the Original Cast from the sequel trilogy and set it in another time period altogether -- either the far future or the distant past. IF you set it in the future, you can leave holocrons recorded by the original characters that can serve as plot points to the new ones. That way you don't have to elevate your new heroes by tarnishing the old ones, and their generation of war to save the galaxy means something. Let them buy a few decades or centuries of peace, not less than one generation.

You don't have to tarnish the old heroes to elevate the new ones, all that was needed was for the new generation to protect what the old one had built: basically, don't have the New Republic fall (nor Sidious come back).

3) Give Rey a character arc. Don't simply start her off as all-powerful. Allow her to start as a promising candidate and become a badass superheroine over the course of the three movies, as in the OT. Give her weaknesses and flaws. Give her a Leia-like mentor if you want to make this about female empowerment so you don't have her under the wing of a male Jedi master. But allow her to be a nuanced character with both weaknesses and a character arc, don't simply start her off as superwoman.

That's not on Johnson, Abrams was the one who wanted to have her arc all in the first movie.

4) Flynn the former stormtrooper shouldn't be a joke.

Finn.

5) For pity's sake, bring in someone who understands military SF and tell a decent story for episode 8 rather than the ridiculous chase we got.

Despite the name, Star Wars is as far from military Science-fiction as Science-Fiction gets. I mean, the main characters use mêlée weapons. Aesthetic definitely prevails against tactics there.

For me, this was one of the biggest disappointments. That opening to Ep 7 was actually really good. A protagonist who is a Stormtrooper goin' traitor? That could be an amazing story.

And then they just did pretty much nothing with him.

Really a shame. I'd have loved to see that film instead of what we got.

Maybe look into Kyle Katarn from the old EU? I'm not sure how much that part of his character was touched on in the games he was created for (I've only played the last two and it doesn't come up) but he's in books and stuff too.

the story beats from the Thrawn Trilogy (Luke's ill-fated attempt at a Jedi Academy

That's not in the Thrawn Trilogy, he still tries to get more training in these books. Are you thinking of something else?