The word sequel in Hollywood is used mostly when they mean to say 'remake."
"Home Alone 2" wasn't the further adventures of Kevin McCallister, it was the exact same adventures of Kevin McCallister from the first "Home Alone."
"The Force Awakens" and "The Last Jedi" on the other hand aren't sequels to the Star Wars films, they're the exact same adventures but experienced by different characters.
The space battles, the long speeches about the Force, the captures and escapes, we've seen it all before. Sure they're entertaining and fun to watch, but ultimately the series ran out of plot five movies ago. The new characters are just doing what the old characters did.
The only reason Luke refuses to aid in the rebellion is because otherwise, there'd be nothing for him to do. And really, he throws the light saber over his shoulder? Would you do that with a gun?
The Carrie Fisher scenes are curious, they could have easily killed her early on in the first explosion, but once she floats in space to the spaceship you start thinking, "she was dead when this scene was CGI'd in. Then she spends the middle third in a coma, and you have to wonder what she was supposed to be doing in the middle third had she lived. It's a pleasant surprise to see her return for the final third. I suspect they're sitting on more footage of her that will turn up in the third film.
It also seemed they set up mysteries in the first movie to totally forget about them for this film. Snoke? What's his backstory? Umm, I guess we'll never know. Rey? They spent a lot of time convincing us her backstory is a big deal and then they just sweep it off. C3-PO's red arm, I think they totally forgot about that. George Lucas spent years just making it up as he went on, not really concerning himself with continuity or logic. I was hoping Disney would try to be a little more consistent.
