The Mandalorian did this with an AT-ST walker before (and also a TIE Fighter), but it's nice to see this sort of thing again.
By the Force, Abrams is such a fucking hack.
Not every threat should be both over the top and background trivial just because Glup Shitto has a Midi-Chlorian count of over 9000. 
I hate Star Wars so much, but that's just because I had all these amazing ideas for what they could do with the setting and it's just the same damn thing every time
God, for being "kid's movies" it's like they never sat down with a kid and actually got some good ideas for it
I know kid me would have been so disappointed to see the ending of TLJ and been like "I could be a hero too?, and then having the rug pulled out from under me with ROS
Lucas dismissing them as "kid's movies" always came off as deepling disingenuous. My dude you made a movie about the Weimar Republic falling to fascism where half the scenes are people talking to each other in a giant legislature hall. I know you're a dork but you 100% do not believe it's "Just a kids movie".
I think he said that as a "just kidding, unless..." dodge of the dodgier parts of his writing.
From what I gather Disney got pretty scared after TLJ so they nuked it by bringing back Abrams and demanded he make something to make the G*mers happy...but he lost his sauce too and made a big ol' stinky.
Pretty much
Especially with how you would be going into the movie and get caught completely off guard with the return of Emperor Palpatine
Unless you'd been playing Fortnite a week before the movie came out and saw the in-game announcement that Emperor Palpatine was back and in charge of The First Order
Could you just shoot him? Sick of his bullshit.
Nope, they had the Star Destroyer fleet project a giant TV screen where ol' Sheev yelled at everyone
Fucking Palpy is so annoying I STG, go get some more work done at the EmpSuRecon center you old fuck https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Emperor_Palpatine_Surgical_Reconstruction_Center
So that's how, somehow, Palpatine returned.
He had sauce to begin with? VII was an exhausting retread that was too busy hating the prequels and destroying everything the original trilogy built up to for a boring reset to the status quo.
You can tell that Phantom Menace is a movie for babies because it has a cartoon rabbit, race cars, and the implication that electoralism ever worked.
Only if you're born special, like in the Harry Potter treats.