For what everyone calls the greatest movie franchise of all time, it’s not stressful that Star Wars has a whole lot of moments that need to experience the full power of the Dark Side; moments we DO NOT WANT, as it were.
Keep in mind:
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Dethroning Moment of Suck. - No Real Life examples including Executive Meddling. That's just asking for trouble.
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This page is only for the Star Wars feature films. The TV series are listed on the DMOS pages for Live-Action TV and Western Animation.
The Phantom Menace
- Retloclive: The way the Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul duel ends. There's being caught off-guard by your opponent's actions, which was obviously what the movie was going for, but then there's also poor film execution that makes Maul come off like he's missing a couple brain cells. For no explicable reason, he just stands there while Obi-Wan hangs on for dear life, but is obviously seen hatching up a plan by constantly looking in the direction of a spare lightsaber. Like it's too much work for Maul to realize that Obi-Wan is looking at Qui-Gon's lightsaber on the floor. Maul then continues to just stand there as he allows Obi-Wan to force jump over him, force grab Qui-Gon's lightsaber, and then continues to just stand there as Maul gets sliced by said lightsaber. Wow. Just wow. He was already in They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character territory, but this was just sad. note
- Luca Earlgrey: The battle against the Droid Control Ship, which is won by...nine-year-old Anakin accidentally flying to the battlefield on auto-pilot, crash-landing into the station, and destroying the reactor when he meant to fire on some other targets. As someone who watches Star Wars for the space battles, I find this the most disappointing out of all the "rebel/resistance group vs. some major enemy target" battles; it feels less like actual canon and more like someone decided to adapt a random child's self-insert fic that they wrote in 10 minutes. Battle for Naboo tries to salvage this fight by having another, deliberate pilot attack the station's shield generators, but it's only so that Anakin can fly in and commence accidental heroism, and Disney revoked the game's canon status to make way for the Sequel Trilogy, so as far as Disney canon goes Anakin destroyed the station without any help.
Attack of the Clones
- Retloclive: The film in general is quite infamous for how bad the romance side-plot is between Anakin and Padme, but the worst moment of said romance comes from Padme just accepting the fact that Anakin had just confessed to her how he slaughtered an entire village of Sand People down to the last man, woman, and child out of Revenge for his mother dying. Any sane person would just nope right out of there and call for help when they realize that the person in front of them is now an unstable mass-murderer. Yet she actually moves in to comfort him claiming that Anakin being angry is what makes him human. Oh I'm sorry. It never occurred to me that mass-murder is what makes me human. What were you thinking when you wrote this, George?
- Ordeaux26: Yeah, I completely agree with that. I also really don't like the two together in general. They had no romantic chemistry whatsoever, and all it took for them to get together was spend at most a day or two on Naboo after being apart for years. There was no development for it at all it just something that happened because the franchise needed it. I don't know exactly why, but I found a lot of the scenes they had together pretty cringe-inducing as well, like in a way that it is pretty painful to watch the scenes together. Whenever I rewatch the film (which isn't very often) I always skip over all the scenes involving the romance side plot and focus only on the somewhat acceptable moments involving Obi-Wan investigating the separatists and the fights.
Revenge of the Sith
- Kevjro 7: This film is very guilty of the writing sin of character power levels fluctuating depending on what the plot requires, and this is best shown during the battle between Palpatine and four Jedi Masters, including Mace Windu. Since they are all Jedi Masters, they should all be skilled at lightsaber combat, but the first two just stand there...doing nothing...as if they had never held a lightsaber before in their lives...while Palpatine slowly stabs them, and the third Jedi clumsily waved his lightsaber around before getting stabbed as well. If that scene had been written logically, Palpatine would have been killed in seconds. But this writing isn’t bad just because the Jedi died like wimps; it’s bad because it retroactively makes Palpatine’s defeat in VI implausible in hindsight. In VI, Palpatine was dangerous because of his intelligence and Force powers, but he was also a physically frail old man, leaving him vulnerable to the bare minimum of physical force, which is why he instantly lost the moment Vader picked him up. But as we can see during the fight with Mace, Palpatine can use the Force to grant him the speed and strength necessary to perform flips beyond what should be possible for a 60-year-old man, and since the prequels have shown us that Yoda was able to perform Force-enhanced acrobatics when he was over 870-years-old, we know that Force-enhanced physical ability has no expiration date. Because of this, every time I rewatch VI, I’m going to be scratching my head wondering why Palpatine doesn’t perform Force-enhanced kicks to make Vader lose his grip, or why he doesn’t try to squirm and wiggle free, which wouldn’t have been too hard since Vader only had one hand at the time. I could survive Jar Jar, the bad dialogue, midi-chlorians, the wooden performances the cast gave, the boring political scenes on Coruscant, the very stupid design flaw of the Trade Federation battle droids shutting down because of an external source being destroyed, the completely unnecessary story-telling limitations The Chosen One prophecy created,note the complete waste of characters that could have been really good villains in Darth Maul and a Sith played by Christopher Lee, and even the absolutely abysmal romance between Padme and Anakin that had too much screen-time, but this? This was the moment where I realized that George Lucas just did not care about logical story-telling anymore.
- D Corp 123: The third act of this film might be one of the worst in the franchise, as it juggles between two awful fight scenes. The fight scene between Anakin and Obi-Wan was a massive disappointment, especially since it started out so well. The first few minutes was a pretty standard lightsaber fight with solid choreography, amazing music, and a good amount of emotional heft. But then suddenly, the sequence turns into a platformer, as Anakin and Obi-Wan climb a tower, swing on vines, and ride on robots across a lava fall, all while still fighting. At this point, all of the emotion and urgency has been lost and replaced with shoddy CGI and a gimmicky location. Why can't Anakin and Obi-Wan just focus on getting to safe ground and fight there? The second half of this fight is just too goofy, and even the dialogue is at its absolute cheesiest. Meanwhile, the fight between Yoda and Palpatine looks so awkward, since Yoda moves so fast, and Palpatine moves so slow. The fight ends with one of Yoda's worst moments, where Palpatine knocks him off a platform, so he gives up and goes into exile. Whatever happened to the Great Master Yoda? He ends up losing both of the fights we see him in during this trilogy. The action and poor writing made what should've been one of the greatest Star Wars moments feel like a complete waste of potential due to its poor execution.
- Silverblade 2: Anakin's Face–Heel Turn being absurdly abrupt. In a few minutes, he goes from opposing Mace Windu for wanting to kill Palpatine (instead of just arresting him) to butchering kids and strangling his own wife. I mean the whole trilogy was meant to lead to the Foregone Conclusion of his Start of Darkness and there was plenty of time to have a proper and gradual descent into villainy instead of this out of nowhere switch.
- Riley Gronlund Super Mario: Well, it may have taken place over several weeks, and Face Heel Turns through torture usually take a week or so at minimum. My actual pick for the DMoS was at the end of Anakin's duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi. You'd expect that Anakin would create some fireballs from the lava with his force powers and throw them... or just realise what had happened and rejoin the good guys. Instead, we see him jump towards his former master... when Obi-Wan still has his lightsaber ablaze! This gives Obi-Wan the chance to deliver the finishing blow...
The next scene's Tear Jerker segments were not so bad, as Obi-Wan did clearly and genuinely voice his disappointment at what happened and how he expected that Anakin would live up to his title as The Chosen One and bring balance to the force. But the moment after Obi-Wan voices his disappointment is where the another DMoS comes in! Instead of taking Obi-Wan's words to heart, Anakin mutilates his ties with his former master and shouts back with "I HATE YOU!!", with his face twisted into a nightmarish expression, which is what killed my interest in this episode. I did not hate it as much when I was a kid, because I must have missed (and I mean not caught) him cursing his master, but at older ages, it hit me. And THAT was an idiot move, too! What he did was call his master the worst person ever (which I COMPLETELY disagree with) for his defeat, and in my opinion, that killed any chance of Obi-Wan saving Anakin's life! Note to mention the Body Horror that comes in the form of Anakin's body being set ablaze that should've given this episode the equivalent of the video games' M rating when Anakin touches the lava with his legs, realistic or not! While Anakin may have been one of my favourite characters,... oh never mind! I don't want to drop an F-bomb, even about his evil persona Vader!
- Riley Gronlund Super Mario: Well, it may have taken place over several weeks, and Face Heel Turns through torture usually take a week or so at minimum. My actual pick for the
- Retloclive: The moment Aayla Secura was killed off by the clones during Order 66 has got to be one of the most poorly acted death moments I've ever seen put to film. You could almost swear that she was attempting to feign death based on how little effort the actress put into trying to make her fall to the ground look legit.
- immortalfrieza: Darth Vader's Big "NO!" scene is already widely mocked. However, what makes it a DMOS is how easy it would've been to avoid the Narm involved. A simple anguished scream would've done the job much better. Hell, just how he got off the table was kind of awkward and silly looking. Have him rip the thing apart with The Force or something! This was the return of THE Darth Vader! Vader should have been badass in this scene.
Solo
- Kevjro 7: How Han got his last name. Seriously? He gets it just because he was alone while talking to an imperial recruitment officer? Surnames are not things that require explanations, especially explanations as silly as that. What next, are we going to get an origin movie about Anakin's ancestor changing his last name to Skywalker because he walked on air? Everyone was fine with Han having a last name that coincidentally described his personality. And Lawrence Kasdan thought that the Solo surname was something that needed an explanation, but he didn't feel the need to explain how Rey could use the Force with no training? Get your priorities straight man. Oh, and some people
in real life have Solo as a last name, so having Solo as a last name isn't as strange as you think. At least this scene let me know what type of movie I was in for: Crossing off a checklist of things we know about Han's life before the original trilogy.- Tropers/Kinola: What makes this moment more awkward is that in Legends, Solo is a genuine family name with royal connections. Almost makes the "Rey Skywalker" moment pale in comparison, doesn't it?
- immortalfrieza: The scene where L3-37 tries to get some droids in a cage match to break free... except that the movie treats this as a silly moment and L3 as bizarre for even thinking the way she does. Fans familiar with droids in the Star Wars universe know that they are in fact slaves, less than that even because can't even conceive of the idea of freedom and repeatedly given Laser-Guided Amnesia as a matter of course so they never can. In short, the DMOS for this movie is that the writers treat a very serious subject matter like it's a joke.
Return of the Jedi
- Kevjro 7: The entire conversation between Luke and Obi-Wan on Dagobah is awful on so many levels. Luke asks Obi-Wan why he lied about who his father actually is, and Obi-Wan says that he told the truth "from a certain point of view." Luke's response to that sithspit is so genuine that I'm certain Mark Hamill improvised it. Ignoring how this line makes it pretty obvious that the Vader twist was a Retcon and that George made up the story as he went along, this message—which is in a movie that George claims was aimed at a young demographic—says that lying is perfectly okay as long as you personally view it as true. Imagine if a person killed someone else with a gun, denied the murder, and said "The gun in my hand killed that person, not me, so I am innocent of murder, from a certain point of view." That's how stupid this line is. And since George still wanted Obi-Wan to come off as a good guy, here are some better explanations that could have been used instead while making his deception understandable: saying that he was afraid of Luke joining his evil father instead of doing the right thing, saying Luke wouldn't be willing to go through with the necessary killing his father if he knew, or that Luke would be unwilling to become a Jedi out of fear that he'd end up as evil as his dad. George also could've just had Obi-Wan's ghost vanish once he was asked the question, leaving his reasons ambiguous and allowing the audience to come up with their own. Instead, Obi-Wan looks like an asshole now. There are many reasons why Return of the Jedi is the worst film in the original trilogy, and the poor handling of moral messages (which aren't limited to just this, by the way) is a big reason why. Now for the part of the conversation that reveals that Luke and Leia are apparently twins. I get that Yoda's mention of "another" should have gone somewhere, but The Empire Strikes Back never specified that the other person had to be related to Luke.note The Reveal also raised a ton of questions that ruined my immersion in the story, and it was the laziest possible way to resolve the Love Triangle. This also made the Writing by the Seat of Your Pants nature of these movies even more obvious than the "certain point of view" line.
The Force Awakens
- cricri3007: The Force Awakens was a very nice movie, but the crowning moment of wasted potential is the battle of Takodona where Finn, an ex-Stormtrooper, has to fight the First Order. Does he hesitate killing them, knowing that he could having been talking to them not a week ago? Knowing that they are brainwashed from a young age into believing the First Order's right? Does he have anything resembling a fragment of his brainwashing coming back up to haunt him? No! He kills them without any ounce of remorse or hesitation.
- Miracle @ St. Olaf: What makes it so bad is that they went to the trouble of establishing Stormtroopers as being kidnapped and brainwashed from childhood, and thus also tragic victims of the First Order's machinations. From there, though, the film proceeds to ignore that setup for everyone except Finn, along with all the interesting possibilities for conflict that it introduces, and simply depicts them all as bog-standard mooks for our heroes to kill by the cartload. It's not a bad idea to try introducing some shades of grey into a universe that otherwise uses Black-and-White Morality, but for the love of God, don't half-ass it; giving Stormtroopers a sympathetic background as forced conscripts and leaving it at that just makes watching them get slaughtered a lot more uncomfortable than it used to be, back when they were just implied to be an all-volunteer evil army.
- Teleport Ted: The very Opening Scroll, which does basically a "Dr. Sam Becket never returned home" to Return of the Jedi's ending... Sure - Legends was no stranger to post-RotJ Surprisingly Realistic Outcomes, either. But they were gradual and understandable, while this is just one big Diabolus ex Machina... Give me The Phantom Menace over this any day; at-least the former didn't build its Trilogy on a middle-finger foundation.
- Sor Pepita: Seconded. That's where the Sequel Trilogy's problems started; it was simply the wrong premise to start with. Not only is it cheap and full of Fridge Logic, but it also just seems mean-spirited. Someone said that Star Wars: Legacy is better in that it features a similar situation without having resorted to invalidating the Original Trilogy's ending and yeah, that sounds about right.
- Dr Zulu 2010: I feel that Rey might be a very frustrating character overall; on one hand, she's a fine character on her own but for one reason or another, her fight against Kylo Ren at the end shows the writing flaw regarding her skills. Now, I'm not gonna go and say she's a Mary Sue like all the angry Star Wars fanboys before because she's a well developed, flawed character; it's just that, despite not holding a light saber and seeing her friend Finn nearly dying even though he has more combat experience, being a former Stormtrooper and all, she is able to stand toe to toe to Kylo Ren even though, if The Last Jedi is to be believed, the latter has spend many years learning the ways of the Jedi. Now, the second movie reveals that she's extremely sensitive to the Force and that must be why she is strong with a Light Saber. But so is Luke Skywalker and his father Anakin and they spent many years to become the Jedi Masters they are, yet a girl who is not yet on Padawan level took down a veteran whose only weakness is his lack of control over his emotions? This is similar to how the Pokémon anime has a rookie trainer and his freshly gained Snivy being able to defeat Ash and his Pikachu even though, a few episodes earlier, this Pikachu was able to defeat a trained Latios (which is not recommended in game logic because of the Dragon-type's resistance to Lightning-type Pokémon). Yes, there is an excuse for this too but still. Not only that, but Part 8 still has the problems I got with her and her being able to accomplish things even an identically weak Luke can't do. Let's hope for episode 9.
- Kevjro 7: Rey being able to use The Force without any training. No, no, no. All other Star Wars media established that training was required before you could begin using Force powers, and when the rules of a franchise's internal magic system are broken, you're telling the audience that you don't give a damn about logic, and you tell the audience that you don't respect the series you're working on. This made me realize that no one working on the Disney Trilogy cared about quality writing, and it set the path for The Force to just become nothing more than a source of whatever powers that the plot required that plagued every future film after this one. Say what you will about Geroge's many flaws as a writer, but at least he understood that the rules of a magic system should never be broken.
- emilethetemplar: Rey finding Anakin's old Lightsaber. You can't just expect me to believe that this thing was in Maz basement when it was lost decades ago in a place that might be on the other side of the galaxy for all we know. The only explanation? "A good question for another time". Well, now this trilogy is over and the "good" moment never came. Therefore, I am forced to conclude that J. J. Abrams really wanted the lightsaber to come back but couldn't find a way to make it happen, so he had to abandon all logic and common sense and hoped the dumb audience wouldn't notice. It may sound like I'm overracting to a small detail, but I firmly believe this is the kind of oversight that lead us to crap like Palpatine resurrecting out of nowhere two movies later.
The Last Jedi
- Dr Zulu 2010: For me it has to be what the fight between Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker was. Did I say fight? I meant Humiliation Conga where Ren flails his lightsaber to Luke while Luke gives him a "Reason You Suck" Speech while being in astral projection. This was after he killed Snoke cementing himself as the Big Bad, which I enjoyed since that means that the climax of Episode 9 won't be a rehash of Return of the Jedi and gave Kylo some needed credibility as a villain, so you'd expect they would make him into a credible villain but nope. At least his grandfather Anakin became a dangerous badass when he became Darth Vader near the end of Revenge of the Sith, and he was my most hated character in all of Star Wars (even more than Jar Jar). Kylo already has a bad time to become credible after being on the receiving side of a Curb-Stomp Battle by Rey, who never wielded a lightsaber by this point, so how did J. J. Abrams expect that this loser can be seen as a credible threat with such a sad track record? Pathetic villains work if they are secondary villains or henchmen or if the movie is comical or lighthearted in nature, but not in a god damned serious drama because that would make the heroes incompetent by proxy if they can't handle a bunch of losers.
- Tropers/cricri3007: Leia surviving being in a room that got shot to piece, being in space, and using the Force to fly to the ship so she can be rescued when 1) nowhere is it stated that she got training in using it, 2) everyone else in the room died, 3) the way it's filmed is incredibly hard to take seriously. Having her died thusly would have also been a great sendoff to Carrie Fisher.
- Retloclive: Admiral Ackbar getting unceremoniously killed off in this exact scene was a horrible send off for a character that has become a huge Star Wars cultural icon. If he was going to die in this movie, they could have at the very least given him a much better sendoff. Like, I didn't care one bit for the Vice Admiral Holdo character. How much cooler would that scene have been had it been Ackbar that got to pull the Heroic Sacrifice rather than a brand new character that was all of a sudden introduced to the viewers?
- Edgar 81539: For me, it's the complete character assassination of Luke. Let's go through most of the stuff he went through in the Original Trilogy: he had his parents and mentor killed, most of his friends died in battle with the Empire, he discovered that the guy that killed his mentor and the second hand of the Emperor (with all the atrocities it entailed) was his father, faced certain death multiple times and was the pet project of Palpatine. And yet, even under his influence and having a known genocidist at his mercy, Luke didn't budge. He knew his father's goodness was still alive in the inside and was almost tortured to death for that faith. Now, let's compare that with his actions here. Leia and Han felt that Ben was being pulled by the Dark Side, and fearing another Darth Vader, sent him to train with his uncle. Luke senses that Ben is being influenced by Snoke. Someone would expect that Luke, knowing first hand how terrible being influenced by such powerful forces is, along with his blood ties to the boy, helps him. Instead, he chooses to kill him on his sleep. He backs down on the last moment, but not before Ben realizes what he was trying to do and, scared, starts his life as Kylo Ren. Luke is reduced to nothing more than a plot device and regresses on his development so much you wouldn't even realize it's the same character. Luke deserved nothing but respect yet was treated like trash throughout the entire movie, culminating with his lame duel with Kylo Ren and becoming one with the Force in the end. We get it, a story needs to be told about the new generation. But not at the expense of one of the most iconic characters in cinema history.
- BossKey: Seconded. There’s a lot of things I could say about TLJ and how it left me with a sour taste in my mouth, but the way they did Luke dirty is a huge slap in the face for people who grew up with and loved the plucky farmboy-turned-Jedi Knight in the original trilogy. Luke Skywalker has always been more than just a name; he’s depicted as a wellspring of hope for his friends and the galaxy as a whole, and a hero who stared into the face of evil itself and held fast to his principles, which is why he’s become so iconic in the popular consciousness. To claim that the man who confronted and redeemed one of the evilest people in the galaxy on the basis of them being family and the knowledge that he was once a noble Jedi like Luke himself could be anywhere near the bitter old man who tried to murder his own nephew for being mildly swayed by the Dark Side and then gave up on the galaxy for decades after that backfired is a great disservice to Luke Skywalker as a character and cultural icon, as it portrays him as the very antithesis of what he stood for, and is a very damning analogy of how the sequel trilogy treats the original trilogy’s cast and their accomplishments as a whole. This, among other things, convinced me that the sequel trilogy would’ve been wholly better off as a reboot trilogy; sure, Luke in such a state would still have been tough to watch, but at least it’s not directly spitting in the face of what the original Luke Skywalker represented as a character.
- L Dragon 2: Finn having his Heroic Sacrifice being prevented by Rose was one of the few times I felt like yelling in frustration at the theater screen. This was Finn's time to shine, and also would have been a great send-off and conclusion to his character; he, a former Stormtrooper ends his story by selflessly giving up his life to save the Resistance, which also could inspire and renew hope and faith in them. Instead, just before he goes manages to hit the drill, in comes Rose, ramming her ship into his, stopping him from carrying out this act, and when pointed out, replies by saying that "we will win by saving those we love." Bull. Crap. Not only did she negate Finn's potential moment of awesome, she also effectively made the whole initial push to stop the drill worthless, and now the Resistance is on the verge of being completely destroyed, which also technically made Luke have to project himself onto the planet and die as a result. All because of Rose. What a wasted potential.
- Happy Man: Do you know what's the worst part of that infamous statement? That's exactly what Finn was doing. Finn wasn't going to kill anybody (well, maybe some Imperials would die as collateral damage, but that's irrelevant), the point of his actions was to save what was left of the Resistance. But the movie was unable to justify such an idiotic act on Rose's part.
- Cynical Bastardo: Vice Admiral Holdo's plan. Yeah, let's just sit around and wait for almost the entire fleet to get wiped out before taking any kind of action. Yeah, her Heroic Sacrifice was a Dying Moment of Awesome and all, but sitting around, waiting for Leia to wake up simply makes her look like she didn't know what she was doing. It didn't help that she refused to communicate her plan to almost anyone or provide proper supervision for Poe when his own tactics result in heavy losses.
- Loekman 3: Apparently we are supposed to see Hornydog's Heroic Sacrifice as an awesome moment but given the fact that the only reason why she has to do it is because of her own idiotic actions in the first place, it just does nothing but make the moment fall flat and completely fails to redeem her, instead making me hate her even more for letting hundreds of rebels get killed because of her.
- Ibrahim77X: Not only that, earlier she chastises Poe for betting the Resistance "on bad odds" when his plan boiled down to sending three dudes to destroy a Starkiller base. In the next film we learn that her master plan had a one in a million chance of working. Meaning there was a 99.999999% chance that all that would've happened is she would have escaped into hyperspace...making her a coward AND a hypocrite.
- immortalfrieza: I am someone who can easily defend nearly any criticism of The Last Jedi. From the Bombers, to Luke's characterization, to Snoke's death, but the one thing I cannot defend is Holdo. Had she simply told everyone "hey, I know things look bleak, but we have a plan to get out of this if everybody would just pull together" but not said anything about what the plan was, everything would've made sense. The fact that Holdo apparently tells absolutely NO ONE what the plan is including people who need to know leads to the deaths of nearly every other Resistance member who dies in the movie. The plan fails because Poe goes behind Holdo's back and tries his own plan, when for all he knew Holdo was just waiting to die. Holdo's plan would've worked just fine if only she managed morale like any leader remotely competent at the job would do. What hurts most is that this blatant stupidity on the part of Holdo (who is the worst leader ever) shot Poe's intended arc in the foot. Poe's arc is supposed to be about learning to stop being such a hotshot and grow into a leader, but Holdo gives him an absolutely terrible example. Poe causing the plan to derail because of his recklessness would have been a good teaching moment for his arc in the movie... except Holdo gave him absolutely no reason to do otherwise. What's more, Poe later admits that if he had known what the plan was he would've agreed to it.
- Allronix: Decisions, decisions. Because there are so many. But let's just go with the whole Rey and Kylo plot. The whole setup is a blatant and shoddy knockoff of the whole Male Revan and Bastila Shan (particularly a Dark Side Male Revan) arc from Knights of the Old Republic, mixed with the Mind Rape Deconstruction of the whole Force Bond idea from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (Frankly, you could make a drinking game with how much Johnson was ripping off from the games. He owes BioWare and Obsidian a chunk of writing credit and royalties). It really does not help that Driver and Ridley look like they're cosplaying Revan and Bastila; not their fault, they're doing what they can with the shoddy crap they're given. "You're nothing, but not to me?" Dude, was that supposed to be a shippy line? If so, it makes Kylo Ren look like even more of an emotionally stunted child.
- Doctor Sleep: For me, The Last Jedi took a nosedive when Finn and Rose were thrown into a jail cell and their cellmate just so happens to know how to pick the lock, but for some reason only decided to escape when it was convenient for the protagonists. It was pretty clear from that point onward that the writers were just making things up as they went along.
- Kevjro 7: The first scene of a movie sets the tone, and by opening VIII with a major villain getting prank called with a “your mama” joke, the filmmakers are telling me that I’m about to witness a cringe comedy, and I did. No one watches Star Wars for the comedy, especially comedy that deflates the tension of a movie. Even worse is that by having one of the antagonists look like a complete fool, I can’t worry for the safety of the heroes because the villains are too stupid to pose a threat to them. The result was a movie that made me feel agitated when I wasn’t feeling bored instead.
The Rise of Skywalker
- Aj Wargo: I’m just gonna come out and say it right now, bringing Palpatine back was the worst decision these writers could have made. Not only does it undermine Vader’s entire storyline, but it also makes no sense from a logical perspective. How could Palpatine have survived being dropped into the Death Star’s core, then survived the Death Star’s destruction, and then survived being adrift in space? The worst part is that no one ever gives a proper explanation to his survival. You want to bring a villain back, that’s fine. But you need to give a proper explanation as to how he survived a situation that should have, by all accounts, killed him; otherwise it feels like poorly-thought out pandering.
- Kevjro 7: The Reveal that Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter. If the goal of Abrams was to explain why Rey can use the force without any training, then not only did he fail, but he just raised more questions than answers. 1: Why did Anakin’s descendents need training to use the Force if being descended from a powerful force user is all you need to master the force? 2: Why didn’t Palpatine make his son his successor instead of his granddaughter? 3: Wouldn’t Palpatine’s son also be an insanely powerful user? 4: If he was, wouldn’t he have been powerful enough to protect Rey without leaving her on Jakku? I could go on, but I think that I’ve made my point as to how badly he screwed up.
- Dr Zulu 2010: I changed my post because I couldn't agree more. This what happened when you go for an Author's Saving Throw and it landed on a Natural One. While this is a mitigated taste, I love the reveal that Rey's parents were nobodies. In hindsight, it goes to one thing that is quite inspiring as "You don't have to be part of a prestigous bloodline to be the best" as one of my favorite story beats. But, because we live in a world where Mary Sue is now a buzzword for "fictional woman that I hate because she dares to be just as, if not slightly more, compentent than the men surrounding her" by the wretched hive of scum and idiocy that is the hardcore Star Wars fanbase, JJ Abrams has to cater on them by saying "Don't worry folks, she's a somebody now" so he unintentionally gives her one of the most Mary Sue-ish traits by being a direct relative to Emperor Palpatine. This is the problem with JJ's writing: he loves to create mysteries but, because he prone to write things by the seat of his pants, he fails at making those mysteries work. Say whatever you want about The Last Jedi, but at least I respect Rian Johnson's risk-taking actions by challenging the minds even though they fall flat more than they succeed; but when they succeed, oh boy does this makes for good stories.
- emilethetemplar: The kiss. No, not the one between Rey and Kylo even though that's awful in it's own right. What I'm talking about is the moment where two random female extras in the background kiss towards the end. Really? That's what Disney call representation? I see so many people complaining about Disney being "woke" but this isn't even the bare minimum in term of representation, this is bad marketing that was put in the movie by some out of touch straight white businessman trying to look progressive.
- SampaCM: To me, the worst moment of this movie (And second worst moment in the entire trilogy) was the reveal that Hux was a spy giving information about the First Order to the rebels. What? Not only it comes out of nowhere, without any explanation, foreshadowing or something, we're supposed to accept that A First Order high rank officer who ordered the destruction of Hosnian Prime, and is responsible for the death of billions, is a spy for the rebels. Sorry, but I seriously doubt any amount of spy work is going to compensate for his past actions. Then he's just shot dead, without any development or the chance of knowing something interesting about him. And even if Hux had made it to the end, he would probably be judged as a criminar war, and executed. Wasted character in all fronts.
- immortalfrieza: As someone who adores The Last Jedi and think it is easily the best Star Wars movie since the Original Trilogy bar none, the entirety of Rise of Skywalker is already slap to the face due to it's rather stupid and nonsensical tendency to act like TLJ never happened. However, since I can't say "the whole movie" I'll stick with a moment where I think it really hit me that the writers really didn't care. So Rey flies back to Luke's Hermit planet from TLJ, destroys the TIE she got there in, and then throws Anakin's Lightsaber in the burning wreckage expecting it to be destroyed as well. Now we get to the moment. Ghost Luke appears, catches the lightsaber, and says without a trace of sarcasm: "A Jedi's weapon deserves more respect." This was a very obvious Take That! at the scene in TLJ where Luke throws away the lightsaber. Up until then in the movie I was just rolling with it, but at that point I would've been shouting swears at the screen if I wasn't in a movie theater at the time. This one line made it clear that not only did the writers have no respect for continuity, no respect for writing itself, no respect for the fans, and were simply trying to get the haters who never would have been satisfied anyway on their side, but they were outright mocking TLJ and everybody who ever liked it. I felt personally insulted at that scene, designed to spit on a great and poignant scene Luke doing a similar thing in TLJ.
- Pan2000: There is a certain point in the Battle of Kef Bir that keeps pissing me off. Namely, when Finn came to aid Rey and have a rematch with Kylo that would be incredibly cathartic should Finn give him some comeuppance... Rey physically does what she did metaphorically the whole movie and uses the Force to push him away. Why this is horrible, apart from some meta reasons? First of all, turning your back on your equal to attack someone who wants to help you is suicide. Second, it can easily be interpreted as Rey wanting to make Finn feel useless and herself to be the only one who saves the day. Considering whose scar made on Starkiller Rey heals, she did not make clear she cared about Finn's well-being. Third, it robbed the film of a rematch that, since Finn was the one scarred in the back and he was a great foil to Kylo as well, would be epic. Fourth, Finn could stop Kylo, despite Jannah's insistence to the contrary. After all, Rey lost alone, but one distraction gave her victory. Finn could be that distraction. But no. It had to be Leia dying, as Rey lost the battle because of this move. Meaning that Rey basically helped kill Leia. Fifth, there is no point in bringing Finn there only to negate an awesome moment of him again. But the worst part of all? Rey is never called out for her stupidity. The one who is called out for wanting to help is Finn. That's an incredibly toxic message to give to people.
- Mariofan99: My biggest worry going into The Rise of Skywalker was how they would handle Palpatine's return as the Happy Ending Override was getting worse and worse as the franchise went along and Vader saving Luke from Palpatine was my favorite scene in the franchise. Well, I should thank Abrams and the writers for not waiting to prove my fears correct. Within the first 5 minutes, we are informed that Palpatine is truly alive not just a haunted spirit or final message like I was hoping. And when Kylo Ren asks how Palpatine came back he just says "The Darkside of the Force is a path to many abilities one would consider unnatural" rather than bothering with an answer they just quote a movie that was way better in an effort to distract us with fanservice. Well, that didn't work for me the moment he said that I knew the film would suck. It ended up doing more than that, it seeped my joy out of the franchise. Even when I was rewatching the older films or Mandalorian Season 2 I couldn't help but think "none of this matters, Palpatine will come back to life without explanation. Death no longer exists in this franchise and the series will end with the Galaxy repeating its mistakes forever". While I'm normally against rendering works non-canon I want this film to be an exception. As the Rise of Shitwalker is more than a bad film its canonicity destroys my suspension of disbelief in the franchise and makes it impossible for me to fully enjoy anything from this series be it old or new.
Good... I can feel your anger.
