Eh, I've never thought of Empire Strikes Back or Star Wars (I presume you're referring to one of them) to be impressive filmmaking feats. Don't get me wrong, I think they're great films, but there's no single aspect of them that wasn't done as well or better elsewhere.
I think that's true of
all SW films, TLJ included. Now, I love Star Wars and I enjoyed TLJ a lot, but I wouldn't necessarily say it was all that revolutionary - Unless even some measure of originality is now revolutionary (which may actually be the case, not just in Star Wars but in terms of entertainment media in general - A sad state of affairs for sure, but this is what we get when huge corporations like Disney are in charge of such a large percentage of it. Risk isn't palatable to shareholders, so playing it safe and giving people what they want seems to be the way).
Star Wars has never been perfect, none of the films have been masterpieces. I enjoy the expansive world and its characters first and foremost (as I do with say, Gundam and its similarly variable quality output) and if they feel engaging to me, I'm willing to overlook some of the production flaws - I'm looking for fantasy escapism and entertainment rather than high art. But as with any film, I have my preferences when it comes to direction and script. Lucas is a terrible dialogue writer, no arguments there, but I don't think he's a bad director and personally I'm of the opinion he's a good ideas man - It's his universe after all. When I consider the prequels, I think if someone else with a better idea of how humans actually communicate (sorry George, but I'm not convinced you've ever actually had a normal conversation) had been writing the characters' lines they would have seemed a whole lot better.
Abrams on the other hand, I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion is just a bad director, or at least not one whose style appeals to me. It's too frantic, it doesn't spend enough time on anything and while the dialogue in his Star Wars films hasn't been Lucas level, that's probably because the characters barely have anything but the shallowest plot advancing or cliche things to say. Johnson actually made the new characters interesting in TLJ. Abrams ignored all that in TRoS.
In TRoS we learn (through a new character who has no time to be developed themselves) that Poe used to be a smuggler... and? TLJ developed him as a hotheaded wannabe leader who didn't actually have the wisdom to lead. He learned. He grew. That had plot relevance. In TLJ Finn learned he doesn't just have to see himself as a tool but has value as an individual. That made him grow as a character. In TRoS he learns (through a new character who has no time to be developed themselves) there are other Stormtroopers who deserted like him... and? Backstory that has no effect on the plot or how the character behaves is pointless and is not a substitute for development. As
@WMD mentioned, Rose was totally wasted. Let's establish a new character, give her depth and motivation and then just relegate her to a side character. Great. Even Finn and Poe didn't recieve particularly satisfying endings - It was Rey and Kylo's film, and if it had just been their film centred on them it probably would have been better. All the moments in the film I genuinely enjoyed were theirs.
I think if we've learned anything, and if there's something I hope Lucasfilm will learn, it's that giving the middle film of a trilogy to a different director than the first and last films is a stupid thing to do. I think it's fairly obvious Abrams simply decided to press on with his own ideas and largely ignore Johnson's, which has resulted in a film with way too many poorly developed ideas and characters crammed into far too short a runtime. If Abrams had done all three, perhaps TRoS would have been better. But then TLJ probably wouldn't have been as good.
On rewatch, I actually don't mind them too much now but only if I get into the frame of mind that the prequels are, essentially, Star Wars' Old Testament with deliberately stilted dialogue etc. The Phantom Menace is guff, but the duel with Darth Maul is genuinely spectacular to watch. Attack of the Clones is utterly horrendous - it's the film that needs to focus on developing Anakin's character so that he can believably become Vader and drive the narrative forward. It fails on every level. Well, almost. It's worth watching for Christopher Lee with a lightsaber. Revenge of the Sith suffers primarily because of the mistakes made in the previous film - we need to believe in the Anakin/Padme romance, we need to care deeply about these characters. And we don't.
