Here is the difference. In Star Wars sure there are unexplained things, as there should be, it works best with an amorphous backstory which gives the storytellers freedom. However in Star Wars the characters on screen and the basic stakes are obvious about 3 minutes into the movie.
Vader shows up, walks over some dead guys like he dont give a crap. He chokes a guy to death and throws him to the side like a rag doll. He threatens the Princess.
Leia shows up she is cute, obviously brave and she talks back to the badass Vader. We like her immediatley.
Right from the start we are like "this Vader guy is a bad dude and someone better beat him and this Leia girl is cool as hell, someone needs to bust her out." Thats really the basics of the movie. Evil Knight takes Princess prisoner. Farm boy and good knight attempt to rescue her." Its so simple.
If anything this should be more focused like that, we don't need the crap about teh New Republic sucking and all that. But ofcourse gotta set up the climax to all of this in the cross over movie. It should be focused on the characters on screen plus the stakes of why is Thrawn so bad and why is Ezra so good.