I've been thinking that the real problem with Star Wars (both Prequel and High Estrogen) and the Ghostbusters Reboot is that they're expecting to tell complete story over three movies. Beginning in one, middle in two, and end in three. So each series delivers two movies with neither a satisfying climax nor a proper cliffhanger.
By contrast Ep4: A New Hope had a real ending. So did Ghostbusters (OG).
We certainly enjoyed it. It has a Kill Bill feel to it. I'm not good with reviews that aren't spoliers. Suffice to say, though, there are some instances of gunplay ;-)
Money is part of it, but I think the netflix format is pushing too. We can get a dozen 45min shows released all at once, binge all day now. The art of telling the story, characters, side goofs, all takes time. So much can be done in 5-10 hours of a netflix binge. Even better when you get two or three seasons.
Its just a way to prolong the milking of the cash cow.
If I remember correctly, Lucas made sure A New Hope could stand alone if it flopped but he had plans for there to be 9 movies all along. After he made the prequel trilogy and saw that fans didn't like them as much so he scrapped the final trilogy, thus Disney got to write their own once they had the franchise. One of the only remaining Lucasfilms bigwigs who knows of the original Lucas vision is Dave Filoni which is why the animated stuff has been better than the films since Disney took over. Filoni should be the one running all the Star Wars stuff not Kathleen Kennedy.
I blame lack of character development, storywriting in general and directors/studio ego's, mixed with the mentality "we'll blast the audience with the special effects to compensate" In the case of Star Wars; the latest two installments even elevated the prequels to a higher standard of decent movies.
Sadly Marvel seems to be the only one "doing it right" with long term story arc and character development, while the movies are enjoyable and "follow-able" standalone as well.