The Force Awakens was a bigger problem than Last Jedi
As a person who stands by the narrative that the last jedi is still the most tolerable film of this new trilogy despite all the hate and massive backlash. I found the force awakens a far bigger mess for this new trilogy that Rian Johnson could not really dig himself out off for two major reasons.
1. Rey
2. Luke.
One of the biggest problem the series ever made was not to give Rey some kind of truthful back story from the beginning. the more I think of it, the more I now despise JJ Abrams mystery box concept. JJ should have ditched that concept and given rey a good set up back story right from the force awakens. we don't need to learn everything about her but we needed to know something substantial.
Secondly Luke's character was wasted in the force awakens, I think Mark was angry that Luke is not truly in the film and barely says a line..no lines to be more precise. what was JJ thinking? did he think fans wanted to drag this character's story out? this is a movie not a TV show of 14 episode to develop characters nicely.
I think if they had avoided this errors, Rian Johnson would not just have done his own stuff and destroyed the entire series in the end.
When you mess up the new lead character (Rey) and the anchor character (Luke) from the beginning, it can only lead to a bad end.