The Star Wars sequel trilogy released by Disney split the fan base. Some fans want the sequels scrubbed from existence and retconned from the Star Wars timeline, while others believe they represent a new benchmark for the saga. But the 50% drop in worldwide box office returns between Episodes VII and IX would suggest that most casual viewers were pretty ambivalent about the trilogy.
Since there was no roadmap from the beginning and the creative team just made it up as they went along, the Star Wars sequels don’t even really hold up as a complete three-volume work in the way that the two halves of Lucas’ saga do. And it’s a shame, as some of the characters it introduced had a lot of potential that was wasted.
10 Best: Finn
John Boyega was seriously underserved in this trilogy – by the end, he was reduced to yelling Rey’s name – and the actor himself called Disney out for it. As a character, Finn had so much potential that was squandered. He arguably should’ve been the hero of the sequel trilogy. A Force-sensitive ex-Stormtrooper who was orphaned and brainwashed by a ruthless dictatorship would’ve made a much more interesting protagonist for a Star Wars trilogy – and a better example of a non-Skywalker “nobody” – than Rey Palpatine.
Instead of meandering through the galaxy in search of random plot devices, the sequel trilogy could’ve charted Finn’s journey from Stormtrooper to Resistance fighter to Luke Skywalker’s padawan to Jedi warrior who takes down the First Order and defeats Kylo Ren.
9 Worst: General Hux
Domhnall Gleeson is a fine actor, as seen in Ex Machina, About Time, and the Black Mirror episode he was in, but anyone who only knew him from the Star Wars sequels would think he was a smarmy, hateable bit player. His character General Hux is resoundingly one-note and painfully unlikable.
Hux is shown to be Kylo Ren’s sniveling underling who disagrees with everything he tells Snoke, apparently just because he hates him. The Rise of Skywalker seems to confirm this when Hux becomes a turncoat for the Resistance and says, “I don’t care if you win, I just need Kylo Ren to lose.”
8 Best: Poe Dameron
Another character with a lot of potential that was wasted and an incredible actor whose talents were underused is Poe Dameron, the hotshot Resistance pilot played by Oscar Isaac.
In The Force Awakens, Poe was introduced as a starfighter pilot with Luke Skywalker’s passion and Han Solo’s charisma. In The Last Jedi, he staged a mutiny because his superior led everyone to believe they were going to die instead of just explaining her plan. In The Rise of Skywalker, he’s randomly revealed to have a history as a spice runner, contrary to the backstory already laid out by a bunch of books and comics by writers struggling to explain Abrams’ incessant “mystery box” teases.
7 Worst: Kylo Ren
Adam Driver is a fantastic actor who brought as much nuance and pathos as possible to the material he was given in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, but there was very little to work with. The themes of the story kept changing as the reins of the trilogy kept swapping hands.
Kylo Ren was conceived to be a wannabe Darth Vader who isn’t as menacing. But since Snoke turned out to be useless, Hux was laughably weak, and Phasma was sidelined, if Kylo wasn’t going to be an intimidating villain, then there was no villain in this whole trilogy who seemed to pose a real threat. Ben Solo’s redemption in The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t feel earned in the slightest; it just peddles a toxic romance to pander to Reylo shippers.
6 Best: Captain Phasma
In The Force Awakens, Captain Phasma was introduced as a badass First Order commander who keeps the Stormtroopers in line. Gwendoline Christie knocked her performance out of the park and Phasma quickly became a fan-favorite side villain like Boba Fett that fans looked forward to seeing more of.
Unfortunately, Phasma’s arc in the trilogy turned out exactly like Fett’s. In the next movie, she proves to be hilariously easy to defeat and goes out completely unceremoniously with Finn’s corny “chrome dome” line.
5 Worst: DJ
Benicio del Toro’s hacker character in The Last Jedi is technically unnamed, but he goes by “DJ,” which stands for “Don’t Join.” The guy’s name is literally “Don’t Join” and Finn and Rose are surprised when he doesn’t join the Resistance.
DJ telegraphs from the beginning that he’s going to betray them if the First Order offers a better deal, but it’s presented as a shocking twist when exactly that happens.
4 Best: Rose Tico
Although she’s only depicted briefly, Rose Tico was introduced as a lovable new addition to the roster in The Last Jedi. Kelly Marie Tran gave a terrific performance and it was interesting to see an everywoman character join the ranks of the main ensemble.
Then, of course, Rose was reduced to a background character in The Rise of Skywalker. J.J. Abrams said that the casting of Tran was the thing he was most grateful for from Rian Johnson’s work on The Last Jedi, then only featured her for 76 seconds of screen time (seriously) in his two-and-a-half-hour movie.
3 Worst: Supreme Leader Snoke
The motion-capture magic of Andy Serkis was wasted on the role of Supreme Leader Snoke, who can only be described as a store-brand Emperor Palpatine. Whereas the original trilogy saved the Emperor’s reveal for the third and final chapter, J.J. Abrams put Snoke on full display in the first sequel movie.
Rian Johnson tried to just do away with the derivative, razor-thin villain in The Last Jedi. Unfortunately, Abrams came back and created an abundance of plot holes by bringing Palpatine himself back from the dead (somehow) and revealing Snoke to be one of his diabolical creations (somehow) in The Rise of Skywalker.
2 Best: BB-8
Droids have been integral to the Star Wars universe since the original 1977 movie focused its entire first act on C-3PO and R2-D2. BB-8 isn’t given a huge role in the sequel trilogy, but it’s always a delight when he’s on-screen, especially when Poe Dameron is scratching his belly like a dog.
The character was brought to life brilliantly by real mechanics as opposed to CGI, with a distinctive voice created by comics Bill Hader and Ben Schwartz.
1 Worst: Luke Skywalker
Every member of the original trilogy’s holy trinity was short-changed in the sequel trilogy – Han was killed off before sharing any more scenes with Luke and Leia flew through space like Peter Pan – but the most egregious was the treatment of Luke Skywalker.
After being reduced to a MacGuffin in The Force Awakens, Luke was recharacterized as a bitter, milk-swilling grump in The Last Jedi. In theory, Rian Johnson’s deconstruction of the Jedi myth is sharp and subversive. In execution, it falls flat. It doesn’t have anything to say about the hypocrisy of Jedi teachings beyond a couple of on-the-nose jabs at the franchise itself.
Mark Hamill, perhaps the biggest bona fide Star Wars geek in the saga’s massive ensemble, didn’t even think of the character he played in The Last Jedi as Luke; he jokingly referred to him as “Jake Skywalker.” Fortunately, the second-season finale of The Mandalorian offered Star Wars fans a surprise appearance by a much more familiar Luke.
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