Daisy Ridley was supposed to be the Luke Skywalker of this generation, what with her character Rey destined to become a feminist icon etc. etc. Hey, that’s what we were being fed by the media and Disney! However, the Disney-produced “Star Wars” trilogy failed many hardcore fans once “The Last Jedi” was unleashed in theaters to furious debate. The criticism which followed wasn’t necessarily directed at her, but more so the mouse house, the writers and directors, but, most specifically, ‘Jedi’ filmmaker Rian Johnson. Ridley had to bear the brunt of it because of how important and central her character was to the new trilogy.
In a new interview with the DragCast podcast (via Comicbook.com), Ridley tackles ‘The Rise of Skywalker,’ the final film of the Disney trilogy, which was met with a major shrug by critics and audiences alike. However, although Ridley does believe that most fans appear to like the final film (I digress), she admits not understanding why a vocal contingent ended up acting all nasty towards the film:
“[The reaction] changed film by film honestly, like 98% it’s so amazing. [For ‘The Rise of Skywalker’] it was really tricky,” explained Ridley. “January was not that nice. It was weird, I felt like all of this love that we’d sort of been shown the first time around, I was like ‘Where’s the love gone?’”
She continued, “I watched the documentary, the making-of, this week, and it’s so filled with love; and I think it’s that tricky thing of when you’re part of something that is so filled with love and then people…You know, everyone’s entitled to not like something but it feels like it’s changed slightly. I think in general that’s because social media and what have you.”
In my review of “The Rise of Skywalker” I wrote:
And so, what we’re left with here are characters that we don’t necessarily care about as much as we thought we did. Despite all the hoopla created by the Disney marketing machine, Rey, Poe, and Finn are just not as interesting a set of characters as Luke, Han, and Leia. That, in the end, will be the downfall of this trilogy. Johnson laid the groundwork for a new and interesting direction, but Abrams decided to adhere to fan fiction instead of going out in the wild blue and taking some much-needed risks. “The Rise of Skywalker” is business as usual.
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is available for purchase on Digital and Blu-Ray.