I’m kind of surprised you didn’t speak up earlier, especially when everyone started to remark that it was likely there were two broken story forms. It might have been nice to see this view argued more directly, instead of sidled upon. (I blame myself for some of that.)
I had that same feeling, but I had initially attributed it to the ret-conning of important plot points from the first movie. Upon reviewing this movie alone, I would say that I got the sense that the action portion of the movie didn’t feel complete, say, like Star Wars or How to Train Your Dragon. I did, however, feel satisfied, unlike I do when reading a simple fairy tale. Perhaps that’s because they managed to get both an OS and RS, even if set up so the domains could be flipped around?
I’m still rather convinced there is a full, or at least much more fleshed out, story form with regard to the family that spilled over into the larger story… But, perhaps that should be a different topic.