Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker’s Backlash Is The Opposite Of Last Jedi

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker’s Backlash Is The Opposite Of Last Jedi

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JJ Abrams’ Star Wars 9 has faced a backlash from critics, making its divisiveness the opposite to what hapenned with Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi.

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Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker’s Backlash Is The Opposite Of Last Jedi

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is facing a backlash, which makes it similar to what happened with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but the nature of it is actually the reverse of what we saw two years ago. Directed by Rian Johnson, The Last Jedi became the most divisive Star Wars movie ever made when it was released in 2017, splitting fans and critics and tearing a hole in the fandom.

It’s into this cavernous split that J.J. Abrams delivers his Star Wars 9, with The Rise of Skywalker aiming to get fans back on side and serve as something of a course-correction for Disney’s sequel trilogy, while also wrapping up the 42-year story that is the Skywalker saga. It’s a tall order even without the controversy around The Last Jedi, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker attempts to put the fire out with one hand while dousing gasoline on it with the other.

It’s likely Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be a success for Disney regardless of any backlash, although perhaps a smaller one than they’d hoped, but it’s clear there is one that exists all the same. This time, however, the divide is not only on the opposite side from where it was with The Last Jedi, but made all the more complicated as well.

The Last Jedi’s Backlash Came From Star Wars Fans

Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker’s Backlash Is The Opposite Of Last Jedi

Prior to the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, everything looked good for the middle chapter in Disney’s sequel trilogy, and the eighth installment of the Skywalker saga overall. Rian Johnson had already been given the keys to a new Star Wars trilogy, the trailers had been well-received, and most of all the early reviews for The Last Jedi were overwhelmingly positive. And then audiences saw it, and things took a major turn.

That isn’t to say all Star Wars fans disliked or hated The Last Jedi, but it’s clear that’s where the divide comes from. For all that most critics and many fans were pleasantly surprised and thrilled by Johnson’s bold choices and unexpected character decisions, just as many moviegoers felt that it was disrespectful to what had come before, undid or rejected too much of what J.J. Abrams had setup in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and ruined certain key franchise figures, most notably Luke Skywalker, who turned from hero of the original trilogy into a hermit who’d cut himself off from the Force and no longer believed in the Jedi ways.

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A lot of the arguments highlighted similar points, but from different approaches: Snoke’s death was either a masterful twist or a waste of a villain with zero explanation; Rey being nobody didn’t gel with The Force Awakens, or it went back to the core themes of the franchise; Luke’s arc was brave and poignant, or a complete betrayal. Critics almost universally liked or loved it – it holds 91% with them on Rotten Tomatoes, for example, and 85 on Metacritic – while the complaints came from a very vocal section of the fanbase. Again, for reference, it holds just 43% on Rotten Tomatoes with audiences, much lower than even the prequels.

It goes beyond numbers, of course: for two years, a lot of online discussion around Star Wars has been taken up by the backlash to The Last Jedi, some of which has been fair and reasoned, some of which went way too far in terms of vitriol and abuse. Exact numbers may be hard to find, but whether minority or majority, Star Wars: The Last Jedi was undeniably divisive and broke the Star Wars fandom.

The Rise Of Skywalker’s Backlash Is Mostly From Critics

Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker’s Backlash Is The Opposite Of Last Jedi

With the fandom split, J.J. Abrams, a director with previous in being a crowd-pleaser and delivering fan-service (although also no stranger to fandom controversies of his own either), returned to the saga in order to Force heal it. Since he also directed The Force Awakens, setting up lots of ideas that he didn’t envisage having to payoff back then, it was expected he’d return to many of them in some way despite The Last Jedi, including the identity of Rey’s parents, Snoke’s identity, and the Knights of Ren.

In that regard, much of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker reads as an effort on behalf of Abrams and Disney not to please the whole fandom, but more so those who weren’t fans of The Last Jedi. It doesn’t completely retcon everything, but there are a number of decisions that read as designed to revert back to what Abrams originally envisioned (if he envisioned anything at all, because he’s notorious for starting but not finishing projects), and to get those fans on board, such as the return of Emperor Palpatine. It’s seemingly worked: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker currently has an 86% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, putting it much more into the upper echelons of the saga in that regard (it’s actually the exact same score as The Force Awakens).

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Conversely, however, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has received negative reviews from critics. It has just 57% on Rotten Tomatoes, and 54 on Metacritic. The reviews have strongly criticized the movie for how overstuffed it is, especially in the first act, and for how safe it plays things, which is most definitely a response to The Last Jedi. Star Wars is rarely so unpopular with critics – only The Phantom Menace has a lower Rotten Tomatoes score – and it’s clear there’s a strong, bad feeling about this one from reviewers. That in part comes from the fact so many critics loved The Last Jedi, and then The Rise of Skywalker not only undoes that, but makes such different filmmaking choices, perceived as by-the-numbers and taking the easy road where The Last Jedi was challenging and inventive.

The Rise of Skywalker’s Backlash Makes The Star Wars Divide Worse

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was supposed to piece everything back together: to give a fitting conclusion to the Skywalker saga, but also to bring fans and critics alike back onboard after the divisions caused by The Last Jedi. Whether or not Star Wars 9 is still inspiring such heated debates two years from now as The Last Jedi does remains to be soon – although it seems likely, because this is Star Wars after all – but what can be said is that The Rise of Skywalker has had the opposite impact to what it intended, and actually made those divides worse.

This is far from definitive and doesn’t speak for every single fan, of course, but it’s easy to see that many of those who loved what The Last Jedi did, critics and audiences alike, are let down by the choices made in The Rise of Skywalker. Conversely, those who hated The Last Jedi may find more to like in The Rise of Skywalker, but it doesn’t erase the dislike and controversy to the previous movie, but instead adds to it.

Complicating matters further are that there’s a section who believe that, even if they didn’t like The Last Jedi, that Abrams should’ve continued more clearly on from it for the sake of trilogy continuity. Or that, if The Rise of Skywalker is overstuffed and not wholly satisfying, it’s because Johnson gave Abrams a mountain to climb. There may be clear divides on each movie, but looking at the bigger picture of the sequel trilogy, then the backlash to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker just makes the division messier and a whole lot worse.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rise-skywalker-last-jedi-backlash-reversed/

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