Well, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is pretty bad. It’s a pretty upsetting end to the Skywalker story, as it does many of its main characters pretty dirty. Today, we’re going to be diving a little bit deeper into that, and taking a look at ten characters that Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker does pretty dirty. There’s obviously a ton to get into, so let’s dive right into this mess.
Kylo Ren
Nevermind put the mask back on. We don’t care that destroying your mask was a symbol that you wanted to move on and make your own mark on the world in a way that you determine for yourself. Put. It. Back. On. That’s exactly what this film is telling Kylo, which is sad. Then, the movie just sees Kylo basically not have any sort of arc until deciding that he wants to become good. Then, he’s thrown out of the final fight, kisses Rey for no reason at all, and then fades away because Jedi. What exactly they were going for with Kylo is a mystery, and it doesn’t come across at all.
Leia
Look, we all know why Leia’s development in this filmed happened the way that it did, but there were ways that this could have been avoided. Every single conversation that she had in the film felt forced around the dialogue that they had left of her, and one of her only important moments was when she communicated with Ben through the use of the Force. While that likely wouldn’t have been how the scene went if Fisher was still alive, it was still impactful. Everything else was not. Fisher would have changed this film significantly through script doctoring, someone should have.
Considering that her family allowed the team to use CGI to bring Leia to life if necessary, maybe that should have been done. The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t honor Leia’s legacy in any befitting way.
Rose
No matter how it is that you feel about Rose Tico’s character in any Star Wars film, she was done dirty in Rise of the Skywalker.
Rose was a major player in The Last Jedi, and seemed to be primed for a massive spot in TROS, as Rian Johnson set up her character to have an interesting arc. Instead, though, she didn’t. Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose had a total of 76 seconds of screentime in this film, which is absolutely baffling on many different levels. JJ Abrams himself has praised Kelly Marie Tran in the past, and said that she would have a huge part to play in this movie, which we know at this point is truly just a bald-faced lie. This is a shame, as Rose could have been a great character in this film.
Rey
Even the film’s central character got treated pretty poorly in this movie. Rey’s arc that centered on her finding family out of friends was pretty much destroyed in this movie, because surprise, she did have parents that love her! Also, she kind of just doesn’t care that she’s a Palpatine? And then isn’t mad at anyone who knew for not telling her? And then she weirdly takes up the Skywalker name, which isn’t something that she’d do? That’s not to mention the final battle, and the kiss, all of it. This movie really is a wreck, huh?
Poe
Surprise (there sure are a lot of them), Poe has an ex-girlfriend. That’s because there can be absolutely no gay relationships in Star Wars. You know, that actually feature significant, named characters. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to be edited out of the movie so easily, duh! There’s simply no denying that Poe and Finn have some of the strongest chemistry in the trilogy, and both of them (if not just Poe) flirt for basically 90% of all the movies. A relationship between the two would have just made sense, being a natural progression for the characters.
Finn
Don’t worry, we’re not done talking about this. Yeah, Finn was done dirty in a couple of other ways (the fact that he never told Rey what he was going to say, no matter how many times it was mentioned), but let’s keep talking about his boyfriend.
A throwaway kiss between two characters that we know nothing about is not a win for diversity. It’s thrown in to feign progressiveness. Now, if we’d actually had a moment between two central characters who have gone through a lot together and are in a spot where they realistically could end up as a couple, then that’s great. Disney just, isn’t quite there yet, apparently.
Lando
Lando is barely in this movie and then is creepy toward a woman that he knows nothing about. Well, that’s how this film ended up portraying Lando.
In actuality, there was supposed to be a lot more to Lando’s character in Rise of the Skywalker. He was looking for his daughter that was abducted by The First Order. Well, that’s likely Jannah. Suddenly, this somewhat creepy conversation that he has with Jannah is, not at all creepy. But, who needs to keep scenes in movies to add context, ya feel?
Maz Kanata
Maz did… nothing in this film? Maz Kanata used to be a really interesting character that seemed to have a lot of backstory to her that we would find out about in a later movie. Like, why did she have Luke’s lightsaber? Well, it doesn’t seem to be this movie that we’d find out, because Maz is barely even a part of this film. Maybe she’ll be expanded upon at some point in a later movie or side-story, but Rise of the Skywalker clearly wasn’t the time.
General Hux
Teehee I’m the spy teehee I’m not alive. That was literally Hux’s story in this movie. He was an interesting character that was completely sidelined except to fill a single plot point in this movie. It like… made sense in the context of the relationship between Kylo Ren and the general, but it wasn’t done in any sort of subtle or interesting way. TROS also made his death a complete throwaway, a huge blow to such a central character of the trilogy.
Anakin Skywalker
Anakin was robbed. His sacrifice meant nothing. Rey embodying every single Jedi does not make this better in any single way. Palpatine’s return was an absolute disaster and should not have happened. And that’s that on that everybody.
