There may or may not be a grand plan at work here but it seems like Abrams set a bunch of stuff up and Johnson turned a significant portion of it on its ear.
Yup, if by "turn it on it's ear," you mean, "throw it away." Literally. Luke throws away the lightsaber and calls it a laser sword FFS. Kevin Smith pointed out in his non-review that the movie is comprised of "Fuck you, JJ" moments. Big mistake to throw away those opportunities. Another thing that was interesting was Ridley Scott's take on it. Paraphrasing, he said that maybe Disney was just looking for a guy who was used to a 20M budget who they could push around and (this part's my theory) dangle a trilogy on a stick in front of Johnston to get him to do what they want. That said, I think there's more merit to Disney not being pleased with Johnson's script and whatnot but put a Dec 2017 release as priority over quality. Also, that trilogy news could have just as likely been to generate more hype and sell tickets. It worked on me; I was way more hyped when I heard he got his own trilogy, since I thought, "Damn, VIII must be amazing for Johnson to get three new SW movies."
One thing Lucas did, for better or worse, was display infrastructure. For all we know, each side now could probably be overpowered by the arms dealers supplying them weapons in the first place.
Now that would have been a good twist. I was half expecting a bigger threat to emerge since, yes, the Resistance faces an existential threat, but really, the First Order is so small. If the arms dealers sold out to some third party, who came and clamped down on
both the Resistance and First Order, that would have been something.
And Kylo is such an emotional wreck. He's believable enough as a leader of a small force of troops, but no way is he equipped to run any kind of government, even at the city level. Just not in his toolbox. I mean, Anakin seemed ill-equipped for his ambition of running things, but compared to Kylo, he was like Thomas Jefferson or something.
See, this is exactly where I
thought we were going! Kylo Ren steals control of the First Order, royally fucks it up, and either he tears *everyone* to the ground out of spite, or he turns against the First Order without directly aligning with the Resistance.
Edit: Fuckin A, man. This thread alone has more good ideas than Episode VIII.