if for some reason you believe it's impossible for a film to retcon things, why not just save us both some time by opening with that, rather than having this pointless little back and forth?
it's a really weird time to argue for death of the author when we're talking more or less specifically about directorial intent and we have the interviews from people involved
it's also kind of weird to argue for death of the author while also insisting the emperor was only established in 5, when he's mentioned multiple times in 4
It’s impossible for 8 to have undercut 7’s core themes, because 7 doesn’t have any.