Everything wrong with the Sequel Trilogy

Well, most things wrong with the Sequel Trilogy. I'm sure I missed some.

A while back, when I made a post about writing sequels to existing stories, it was pointed out that I didn’t mention the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. The reason I didn’t talk about it there is because I had a lot to say about it, and it deserved a post of its own (this post, in case that wasn’t already clear).

Just to balance out all of my criticisms, I’m going to lay out everything I liked about the Sequels here. The actors were extremely talented and gave their performances everything they had. There were moments when they were able to convince me when I was watching a better movie. They deserved better movies. Visually, these films are the best Star Wars has ever looked. The sets look great, the CGI is excellent, and I love the character designs of the villains. I loved the music, and I think it set the tone really well. Snoke was a really cool villain for a movie and a half. I love how the First Order represented Neo-Nazism. Kylo did a great job of showing how tyranny can be glorified and the allure it can have on disenfranchised young men. I also loved how they tried to humanize the stormtroopers through Finn. I also didn’t hate the twist with General Hux being the spy. As he said in the movie, he didn’t care if the rebels won: he just needed Kylo Ren to lose. I really like the idea of the Sith employee abuse finally coming back to bite them. If you turn your brain off, you can have a good time watching the Sequels. I enjoyed them as a kid, and kids are the main audience after all.

Now that that’s out of the way, why was the Sequel Trilogy bad?

Note: this post contains spoilers for the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, if anyone cares.

Different directors

The Prequel Trilogy, for all its many, many flaws, was united by George Lucas’s singular creative vision. It feels like a cohesive whole. The Sequels, by comparison, feel incredibly disjointed. The Force Awakens, directed by J.J. Abrams, relied heavily on nostalgia. It was, beat for beat, a recreation of A New Hope. It felt like Star Wars, if not particularly original Star Wars.

The Last Jedi, directed by Rian Johnson, felt more like a subversion than anything else. Luke turned his back on the Jedi, Snoke was killed in the middle of the movie, and Kylo became the main villain. All decisions that felt incredibly unlike the Star Wars we had come to expect. The film made a purposeful effort to separate from Star Wars films of the past. Tradition and precedent were rejected. Long-established foreshadowing was subverted to move the narrative into never-before-seen territory.

Then we got The Rise of Skywalker, again directed by J.J. Abrams. This movie went on to systematically retcon every aspect of the previous film. Kylo’s helmet was rebuilt. The Youngling Slayer 9000 was rebuilt. Rose was completely removed from the plot and replaced by a character equally uninteresting. Snoke was completely forgotten. Somehow, Palpatine returned.

Treatment of original characters

I actually liked what the Sequels did with Leia. Seeing her as the General of the Resistance was pretty badass, as was showing that she had Force powers and briefly joined Luke’s Jedi Order. I liked her as a mentor figure to Rey. I will admit that the scene where she somehow uses the Force to fly through outer space was pretty goofy.

On the other hand, I absolutely hate what they did with Luke and Han. Han begins the Sequels in the exact same way he begins the Original trilogy: as a smuggler and outlaw, on the run from dangerous enemies, who cares for nothing and no one except himself. They completely undid the amazing character arc he had in the Originals, only to try and rehash that same arc in one movie and then kill him off. The result, as anyone could have predicted, fell completely flat.

I didn’t think it was possible, but they did Luke even dirtier in TLJ. Luke’s entire thing in the original trilogy was becoming a Jedi, reforming the Order, and saving the galaxy. You’re telling me that a new threat affects the galaxy, and he doesn’t care? Luke nearly gave his life out of his belief in his father, a man who had turned to the Dark Side and destroyed the Jedi. You’re telling me that when his nephew does the exact same thing, he tries to kill him in his sleep? And then, when that doesn’t work, instead of trying to redeem his nephew or reform the Jedi, or do something, he just turns his back on everything and everyone and runs off to an uninhabited planet to sulk? And don’t even get me started on his death scene, which just felt incredibly stupid and pointless. It’s obvious that the writers never understood his character, or simply didn’t care.

I can’t really say anything about Lando because I honestly forgot he was in the Sequels until I did my research for this post.

Treatment of new characters

I found Finn to be the most compelling character introduced in the sequel trilogy. Never before had a main Star Wars film focused on the emotional struggles of a stormtrooper. Finn was the audience's way of seeing behind the mask of the famously faceless soldiers, allowing us to understand that they were real people — not all of whom would be on board with the violence they were perpetrating. Finn was abducted, turned into a child soldier, forced to conform to a military regime, and expected to commit atrocities whenever asked. Him turning on them in TFA was really interesting to watch. However, it was clear by the end of TLJ that Disney had no idea what to do with him. Unlike Rey and Poe, he had no unique skills to offer, and the directors just gave him an unnecessary subplot with a one-dimensional sidekick to justify his inclusion in the films.

Throughout TROS, Finn keeps trying to tell Rey a secret. We never find out what it is, as the writers seemingly forget about it. The two prevailing theories are that Finn was in love with Rey, or that he was force-sensitive. Either of these might have worked. A third option was for Finn to convince other stormtroopers to mutiny. Instead, he does some meaningless action for half an hour.

Poe wasn’t ever extremely interesting; he was, however, extremely cool. Watching him blow up TIE Fighters was always fun. However, that doesn’t mean I was interested in him as a character, or in any internal struggles that he had. That wasn’t much of a problem, because I don’t think he had any. This is the biggest problem with the main trio of Finn, Poe, and Rey: a good character has external and internal motivations that drive them. In the case of these three, their external and internal motivations are the same: take down Palpatine. With nothing else driving them, their journey feels incredibly uninteresting.

And then we have Rey. The main character of this trilogy, supposedly a new Luke Skywalker. However, for a number of reasons, she never felt as likable as Luke. While some of the hatred levelled against her character may be a product of misogyny, a lot of it is valid. Among these valid criticisms is the accusation of Mary Suedom.

Flaws and weaknesses are what make a character interesting. They give a character depth, and watching them overcome and work around them can be incredibly compelling. A character without them can often feel boring. Hollywood in recent years, perhaps as a rejection of the damsel-in-distress archetype, swings too far in the opposite direction: female characters are not allowed to have flaws. Rey is one such character. She’s a great fighter, a great flyer, and a great mechanic. She learns Force abilities without even trying. She resists Kylo’s Force compulsion without any training, and immediately learns and successfully uses the Jedi mind trick. She beats Kylo, a trained force user, in a fight, the first time she picks up a lightsaber. And that’s just in the first movie.

We saw Luke use force powers in the Originals, but we also saw him work and suffer for those powers. That’s what made his growth from farmboy to Jedi Knight so compelling. In comparison, Rey pulling random powers and skills out of thin air didn’t just feel unearned; it made the characters around her feel irrelevant and useless.

Let’s talk a bit about the narrative mess that was The Rise of Skywalker. Rey's goal was to take down Palpatine. However, Palpatine wanted Rey to kill him. In simple terms, the protagonist and the antagonist both had the same goal and desired the same outcome, effectively putting the conflict in stasis. The narrative establishes that Rey cannot kill Palpatine because that would turn her to the dark side, but it also establishes that Palpatine must die to save the galaxy. This type of narrative climax is not new: typically, in a situation like this, where a main character cannot act to oppose the antagonist, the narrative has built up another character that can stand against the antagonist. I initially thought Kylo could kill Palpatine and use that moment as his ultimate act of redemption. However, I realized very quickly that that wasn't possible. Kylo had already taken down Snoke, the first central antagonist of the series. If Kylo were to then also kill Palpatine, it would completely invalidate Rey as a character. Kylo would have taken down every villain, and Rey would have just been a glorified vehicle for his character arc.

So, with only two characters set up to defeat the antagonist, one of whom cannot kill Palpatine for moral reasons, and the other who cannot kill Palpatine for narrative reasons, what did they decide to do? Well, they said that's right, let's just have Rey kill Palpatine, regardless of what we just said would happen if that occurred! This is where the conflict of the movie completely falls apart. The entire story thus far is Rey battling with visions of her turning to the dark side, and when she is confronted with a final decision, the movie just decides to ignore all that build-up for a sappy ending. What was the point of having the film's entire climax focused around Rey's moral conundrum if it was going to be ignored anyway? And I know the movie is trying to say that because Rey didn't literally strike Palpatine down, she didn't give in to the Dark Side, but that's just insulting. Is stabbing a man with a laser sword any less righteous than purposefully burning him out of existence?

And then we have Kylo Ren, the Darth Vader wannabe who was the main villain of the trilogy. He was, arguably, the character the writers could least agree on what to do with, and the one who suffered the most from its fractured nature.

Either because of bad writing, shortsightedness, or both, the Sequels were caught between a rock and a hard place by the end of the second film. TLJ ended with Kylo as the supreme leader and the only real villain, leaving him as the sole option to be the central antagonist for the final movie. But central antagonists in Star Wars are supposed to represent pure, unmitigated evil that must be vanquished with extreme prejudice, which stands in the way of Disney's desperate want to redeem Kylo in order to follow along with Star Wars’ message of redemption — and of course, never mind everyone who enjoyed the idea of a three-dimensional grey character being confronted with redemption only to choose evil of his own accord, and screw all those people who were looking forward to Star Wars interacting with the idea that not every fallen hero can be redeemed and sometimes need to be taken out for the greater good. Instead of all that, the grand fix was to say, scratch everything we just set up, here is Palpatine.

If Kylo was the main antagonist of the final movie, there was no one above him, meaning all of his evil actions were his own and became indictments upon his character. Palpatine was the get-out-of-jail-free card. By throwing him in the story for no reason, he could be the central antagonist of the narrative. Kylo could still be complacent while whole planets are destroyed because Palpatine's dominance over him shielded him from any moral responsibilities. Kylo’s adherence to the Dark Side could be viewed through the lens of Palpatine tempting, manipulating, and threatening him. Palpatine's re-introduction put Kylo right back where he started in TFA: with an evil master calling the shots that he could rise up against for a chance at redemption.

Disrespect of the Original Trilogy

Let’s talk about one of the most stupid decisions in cinematic history:

Palpatine was supposed to be dead. The movie tries to give an explanation for his return by throwing around terms like ‘cloning’ and ‘Sith powers’, but none of those lazy options come close to justifying bringing back a character that has been dead for 30 years.

On a narrative level, it cheapens and flat-out destroys so much of what was good about the previous Star Wars movies, showing the audience that villains can just be brought back into the story at any time, steals the wind from fighting those villains. Luke and Anakin’s struggle against Palpatine means a whole lot less when you realize they didn't actually defeat him. And of course, revealing a previously hidden villain that has been a secret puppet master almost always falls flat. Take The Dark Knight Rises as an example, with Bane and Talia Al Ghul. This is the same thing that happens with Palpatine and Snoke, though the whole test-tube baby thing makes it even dumber.

The reason why antagonistic switcheroos like this don't work is that a writer can’t just move all the terror and menace that one character embodies over to another. The opposite happens: because Bane and Snoke had no real agency towards the conflict, as an antagonist, they lose all their power and authority because they are now seen as nothing but pawns. Sure, Palpatine had other movies to build up his own terror, but his secret puppeteering in the Sequel Trilogy makes him feel so far removed from the narrative that it is hard to give him any real credit. His appearance in TROS simply raises more questions than it answers, and climaxes are meant to be the place where questions of the narrative come to a close; not the place for new questions to emerge. Introducing Palpatine in the third movie of this trilogy may have been the master plan all along, but the way it was presented makes it seem like a panic reaction to save Kylo from villainy.

Conclusion

So what made the Sequel Trilogy bad? I haven’t covered everything here, but these are the main points. The trilogy had two different directors with very different visions, and suffered as a result. It misunderstood and misrepresented beloved characters like Luke and Han. Its main characters weren’t nearly as interesting or as likable as they could have been if Disney was willing to take some risks. And by bringing back Palpatine, especially the way they did, they took weight away from the story of the Prequels and the Originals.

Also, can we just talk about how badly the quality of lightsaber fights has downgraded? We really went from the duel on Mustafar to this.