So that is actually one of the things I disliked about TLJ (and almost all the new films, in general), is that they make the Star Wars galaxy so small. In theory, Star Wars is an endless universe, but for some reason, most of Disney’s creators have trapped themselves into telling small stories.
IMO - and I may be totally off-base about this - what made Star Wars the success it became, is because the films depicts what feels like real worlds. It’s dirty, down to earth and when we travel around the galaxy with Luke, Han and Leia, it is relatively easy to imagine that there are thousands of other worlds out there. The OT shows us part of the world, but it hints at a galaxy that is so much wider and complex than what is shown; e.g., when Han Solo talks about the Kessel Run, Obi Wan talks about the clone wars, or the bartender tells Luke that droids are forbidden in the bar, we see the hints of a wider galaxy outside of the films. And for all their faults, the prequels still worked, because even as they fleshed out some of the backstory of the OT, they expanded the universe further.
The sequel trilogy completely fails in that respect. It starts cutting away the politics that was supposedly in the story (the New Republic) and its razor sharp focus on the “Resistance”, making this story about a marignal tiny group of people within a huge galaxy. It then compounds it’s problems due to JJ’s inability to comprehend basic physics. It’s obvious that Han and Rey should be unable to see the Republic capital blow up - but apart from the absurdity of the thing, it also makes the galaxy feel small when our heroes on some backwater planet can visually see what happens in the galactic center (compare and contrast with Kenobi and the destruction of Alderaan).
TLJ makes the universe even smaller. The Hyperspace battle in TLJ literally takes place over less than 24 hours. In that period, Finn manages to travel back and forth to an entirely different planet (before leaving, Poe tells Finn that they have 18 hours of fuel left) and infiltrate the First Order fleet. Rey teleports from Luke’s hideaway planet to the same fleet within that same period (compare and contrast with ESB, where time is visibly shown to pass between Luke leaving Dagobah and arriving at Bespin). Basically - distance has no meaning in the sequels - it’s literally harder for me to travel from Europe to the US on earth, than it is for Finn and Rey to travel across the galaxy. And of course, by the end of the movie, the Resistance is basically non-existent (though JJ pretty much ignores that completely in RoS).
RoS of course sins in other ways, by bending everything back to Skywalker vs Palpatine. The entire sequel trilogy thus ends up being a myopically small story, in a small galaxy that feels smaller than Earth, about two families fighting over who will rule it. TFA was focused way too much on resembling the OT, and at the end of the day, neither TLJ nor RoS did anything to effectively expand the Star Wars universe. Which is why - IMO - Disney is now left with nothing to build upon, and seem to be unable to do anything but prequel movies and series.