Listen, director Rian Johnson could have easily taken over the director's chair for Episode IX, but Disney decided otherwise. They opted for JJ Abrams, who was the brainchild behind this trilogy and probably saw Johnson starting to interfere too much with his original vision of the way things should be going in the story.  Johnson's risk-taking was a breath of fresh air, but I never doubted that we'd be going back to business as usual with Abrams hopping on-board Episode IX. It had to go back to normality, especially after the backlash from longtime fans due to what Johnson concocted in"The Last Jedi." It made $300M less than Abrams' "The Force Awakens," which is probably due to hardcores not going to see it a second or third time in theaters, like they normally would with any other Star Wars movie, because, well, they were not happy with what they say the first time around.