That's the weird thing. The prequels are unwatchable, badly-written and tacky CGI orgies (even in scenes where unconvincing CGI isn't required),
but they do feel like three connected stories, all part of one coherent arc...this guy doing this, going here, and this happens because of it, etc.
These sequels...good grief.
There was no master plan...there couldn't possibly have been. Nothing about these three movies says so. Each one seems to have been in response to the one before:
The Force Awakens attempting to wash out the bad taste of the prequels and get back to what everyone loved about the originals. Then
The Last Jedi attempting to respond to (accurate) claims that
The Force Awakens was just a lazy, unasked-for rehash of 1977 ("so let's just go in some subversive, WTF?! direction"...congrats, mission accomplished). And, finally,
The Rise of Skywalker responding to the near-universal hatred of
The Last Jedi with everything that marked TFA, cranked up to 11.
They're just two-hour responses to the previous release, IMO.
"Oh, you didn't like that? Okay, then how about this?" Just keep throwing stuff at the wall, Disney, and see what sticks. And shovel in enough fan-service/call-backs, visual razzle-dazzle and Moments™ to hope the viewers don't notice how hollow and unsatisfying it all truly is.
That isn't storytelling.