The final entry in the Skywalker Saga met its fair share of issues in filming and dropped to an incredibly polarising response from critics and fans alike. It was a feast of visuals and non-stop action, but many believe it didn’t do its characters justice and fell flat on a few storylines.
The film is also known for its retconning of various moments from the previous films (such as demoting Rose from main character status), but it also has its fair share of inconsistencies and continuity errors. Here are ten.
Where Are Leia’s Clothes?
From watching the original series of Star Wars films, we all know how becoming one with the force works. A powerful force user dies, and then they disappear into nothingness but have the power to come back in ghost form. In The Rise Of Skywalker, we see Leia cling on to death in order to turn her son back to the light.
When it works, she gives up and departs in a heart-breaking scene. When she finally dies, however, the sheet on her bed falls completely flat, as if her clothes have disappeared with her. This doesn’t fit the continuity of previous Star Wars films, because we’ve seen both Yoda and Obi-Wan disappear into a pile of their own clothes.
What Is This Crazy New Healing Power?
As with Leia’s flying ability in The Last Jedi, the sequel trilogy was always going to need to bring in some extra powerful new force abilities in order to keep things moving forward. As such, this crazy new power Rey has access to isn’t exactly an error in continuity, but it does make the previous films make a lot less sense. By healing a snake early on in the film, Rey is able to foreshadow her ability to heal Ben Solo (twice) later on. If this was a power that Jedi could harness, why had we never seen it before in a Star Wars film?
C-3PO Should Be Able To Overwrite His Programming
One of the main missions the main cast undertakes during The Rise Of Skywalker is to take a look inside C-3PO’s memory in order to discover the route to Exagol. We see the horrifyingly sad moment where 3PO says goodbye to his friends who he won’t remember, and we’re introduced to the brilliant Babu Frik.
However, if Return Of The Jedi is anything to go by, then C-3PO actually is able to overcome his own programming if needs to. When the Ewoks are trying to worship him, he says it’s against his programming to impersonate a deity; a few moments later and what’s that he’s doing? Impersonating a deity.
We Never Found Out How Maz Got Luke’s Lightsaber
In Episode VII, JJ Abrams allowed the newly introduced Maz Kanata to be the one who had possession of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber. “A good question, for another time,” she says when asked why she had it. One would assume that Abrams set this up just to see how a future director could explain it, but when he was unexpectedly handed the final film, he realized he had no answer (remind you of Lost perchance?). His own question from episode VII ended up creating a continuity error that leaves the origin of Luke’s lightsaber an unexplainable mystery by the end of the Skywalker Saga.
The Final Scene Doesn’t Match Up
Whatever your thoughts on the final scene of The Rise Of Skywalker, you’d think it would be a carefully crafted piece of cinematography that avoided all possible mistakes. It was ending one of the biggest series’ of all time, after all.
Considering this, not much was done to keep Rey’s expression and hair consistent between shots, because it changes about five times just during the roughly one-minute-long scene.
They Don’t Need To Crash Land The Falcon
It has been shown many times that the Millennium Falcon is a powerful ship capable of a lot of cool stuff. One of these things is its ability to land and take off vertically before speeding off into the distance. When the Falcon is landing on Kef Bir, they end up ramming the ship into a hill sideways due to an ineffective landing gear, but all they needed to do was slow up and bring it down vertically like it has done many times before.
Why Does Luke’s Ship Work?
When Luke raises his ship from the water for Rey to use, a couple of problems arise. Firstly, the ship is slightly different from the one shown in the flashback in The Last Jedi. However, more of an issue is that this flashback showed Luke destroying the ship.
It was broken, with its door being used as the entrance to his hut, and then left underwater for many years. Somehow, this damage is all reversed in The Rise Of Skywalker and Rey flies off without a hitch.
There Are A Few Characters We Shouldn’t Have Heard
The lore of Star Wars canon is certainly our most reliable source in determining how and what the force can do. It is made very clear that a Jedi has to learn how to become one with the force; it doesn’t just happen. That is why Ben Solo is unable to do it at the end of this film, and why Samuel L Jackson’s Mace Windu shouldn’t be able to be heard when Rey hears the voices of the Jedi. Furthermore, characters from the Star Wars canon who exist outside the film series (Adi Gallia, Luminara Unduli and Aayla Secura) all died without learning the ability, so they shouldn’t be able to be heard either.
Wexley’s Ship Change
Temmin ‘Snap’ Wexley is one of the great, underappreciated characters of the sequel trilogy. That’s why his death hits so hard in the final battle. Unfortunately, the ship he is in doesn’t really add up to what we had seen before.
When the crew is seen boarding their ships, he is getting into an A-Wing fighter. The ship he is in when Poe watches him get blown up is very clearly an X-Wing.
“…Somehow, Palpatine Has Returned”
Star Wars purists might claim that the return of Emperor Palpatine is a continuity error in itself. It undermines the sacrifice of Darth Vader and turns the powerful ending of Return Of The Jedi on its head. Whatever your opinion on it is, it’s clear that the explanation of his return makes no sense.
The biggest, most powerful villain the galaxy has ever seen returns from death with more power than ever, and its explained with “somehow, Palpatine has returned”. If there was any kind of explanation, this wouldn’t have made the list, but overturning the conclusion to the original franchise with a “just ‘cos” doesn’t do the continuity of The Rise Of Skywalker any favors.
