Oh, how the mighty have fallen. As “The Rise of Skywalker” puts the final nail in the coffin of Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Keneddy’s new Skywalker saga, we need to be reminded that the trilogy actually had a decent start with “The Force Awakens.”
For all the complaints that the first installment of the new trilogy was using the same blueprint as 1977’s “A New Hope,” it ended up being the most universally well-liked film of the three chapters. With an impressive 8.0 rating on IMDb, it paved the way for, what could have been, a potentially great trilogy. Of course, that greatness never occurred for many fans, as director Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi” shook things up, riling up many within the hardcore fanbase, to the point where a “course correction,” as Disney CEO Bob Iger liked to call it, had to be implemented for the final chapter, “The Rise of Skywalker.”
And so, because Disney decided to play it safe, and tried to return to the wholesome roots of Star Wars lore, we got a disastrous conclusion with ‘Rise of Skywalker.’ No risk was taken, the stakes felt worthless and the characters were as thin as cardboard. What happened? Well, you can blame Rian Johnson if you’d like, as he most probably will be the ultimate villain for the failure of the trilogy since what he did was a complete 180 to fans expectations. He tried to introduce the series to 21st-century way of thinking. Bad idea? Well, when you have to deal with millions of nostalgists, and that is what Star Wars fans are, always looking back at the past instead of the way forward, taking a 2019 approach on a 4-decade old franchise might not be the way to go. No wonder “The Last Jedi” made $300 million less domestically than “The Force Awakens.”
Of course, all of this is still left for interpretation, and history will make the decision for us, but what Johnson did, by taking a multitude amount of risks in “The Last Jedi,” was isolate fans in favor of critical acclaim. I liked the film, but the way Disney went about it in ‘Rise of Skywalker’ was even more of a tragedy. They decided to listen to the hardcore fanbase and try to course correct the path that Johnson gave them. They decided that taking the safe route, adhering to fan demand, was the right way to go. And maybe it was, but what it ended up doing was giving us a dud of a final installment, one that obliterated the more-than-decent path that the first two movies had paved for director JJ Abrams to run with. Disney had a lot to lose by making another ‘Last Jedi’. The billions they churned out to George Lucas to buy his beloved franchise could not be for nothing. The game plan they have, with a new trilogy surely coming our way and a slew of Disney+ spinoffs coming, they couldn’t afford to give Johnson the win — they had to defy him, all for the sake of adhering to the bottom line.