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The Phantom Menace
- In the first chapter of the Origin Story of one of the most iconic villains in movie history, we learn that he was born into slavery on a backwater desert world, and had to win his freedom from his owners. While this could have been an interesting way to explore Vader's Start of Darkness—and a convincing explanation for his anger and hatred—his actual experiences as a slave are quickly glossed over, and they're not shown to be particularly harsh. When Anakin's anger does begin to show itself in Attack of the Clones it's only directed towards the Tusken Raiders who killed his mother; he doesn't seem to bear any ill will towards the people who bought and sold him as property.
- The overt villains of the story, the Trade Federation, have all the makings of a very intimidating antagonist: they're an N.G.O. Superpower with their own private army of battle droids and Corrupt Bureaucrats in their pocket at the highest levels of the Republic's government. The trouble is, their leaders are shown to be cowardly and foolish (in contrast to the much more intimidating real villains of the story, the Sith) and their battle droids are so easily cut down that they can't be taken seriously as a threat at all. It doesn't help that although there's plenty of dialogue about how the Naboo are suffering and dying under the invasion forces, all of it happens offscreen.
Attack of the Clones
- Anakin's massacre of the Sand People, the first step he takes into the Dark Side. How will the other Jedi react to this atrocity? How will Obi-Wan? Could he be cast out, shunned, pushed further down the path to Vader? Well, no, because nobody ever finds out about it even in the following film, and there aren't any direct consequences for it. It doesn't even affect his relationship with Padmé after he confesses it to her, and she seems oddly nonplussed about her boyfriend admitting to slaughtering an entire village of sentient humanoid creatures; later, she even refuses to believe that Anakin could be capable of murder, despite knowing full well that he is. It doesn't exactly help that most of the massacre happens offscreen, making it ring rather hollow for many viewers.
- Count Dooku is a former Jedi Knight, but the other Jedi initially consider it unthinkable that he might have turned to the Dark Side. This implies that Jedi can (and do) leave the Jedi Order without turning to the Dark Side, and that there are at least some benevolent Force-users in the galaxy who simply choose not to follow the Jedi way of life. Despite being a pretty juicy idea that could have added some moral nuance to the Star Wars universe, this idea pretty quickly falls by the wayside once it turns out that (of course) Dooku really did turn to the Dark Side.
Revenge of the Sith
- As mentioned in the wasted characters page, the film doesn't show a whole lot of what the other Jedi were up to during the Clone Wars. And perhaps most egregiously, it shows next to nothing of Anakin fighting the other Jedi in the Temple, instead showing only a couple of brief scenes of clone troopers fighting Jedi and one notoriously saddening scene where Anakin prepares to murder a group of younglings. There were plans to show more of him killing adult Jedi as A New Hope describes, but these were also cut.
The Force Awakens
- Instead of being a trooper that had a Heel–Face Turn, Finn doesn't do anything evil before deserting the First Order, instead being made out to be a Token Good Teammate even before we see him without his helmet on. He defects after failing to kill those that had surrendered in his first mission, despite having apparently never shown issues when he was being trained. Additionally, some fans were disappointed by Finn's overall lack of internal conflict regarding his having to fight and kill other Stormtroopers. His fellow Stormtroopers would have been the closest thing to a family he had, yet he shows no qualms about killing them, many of whom were likely the same as him prior to defecting. Many have cited that, for as much as they like and feel Finn was not used to his fullest potential, his views and feelings towards his former allies is one of the biggest missed plot points in the sequel era, since there are moments in each film that do seem to suggest something, but never actually commit.
- The conflict between the New Republic and the First Order. When the film opens, the former Rebel Alliance has apparently become a galaxy-wide superpower, while the remnants of the Galactic Empire have apparently become a small band of rebel militants hiding out in a secret base—essentially reversing their roles in the original trilogy. Despite potentially being pretty interesting, this angle is never really explored; we never get to see the New Republic in action before the First Order destroys their capital, and we only get to see the First Order battling the Resistance—another, even smaller band of guerrilla militants. It's especially frustrating when you consider that the Republic's struggle to eliminate the First Order has some rather timely parallels with The War on Terror, which could have gone a long way toward bringing Star Wars into the 21st century and giving the sequels their own identity.
- Hux's speech upon Starkiller Base offers a tantalizing hint of a deeper ideology driving the First Order. (For comparison, Galactic Empire was not depicted as ideologically driven in the original trilogy; the viewer knew it was a tyrannical military power willing to commit horrific atrocities and that was enough to carry the story.) This would have been an opportunity to depict how the remnants of the Empire had to redefine their purpose and world-view after both the Emperor and the Empire's military might were destroyed. It could also have allowed for comparisons to neo-Nazis (especially as the First Order was conceived of as "Nazis in Argentina"), much as the original trilogy drew with the original Nazis. Alas, none of that appeared in the following episodes.
The Last Jedi
- Leia and Kylo Ren's relationship. Aside from the bridge scene where Kylo and Leia sense the presence of each other, the relationship between the two doesn't have a proper resolution, as they never come face to face in the film. The only thing resembling closure is that Leia tells Luke she's finally given up on him and Luke tries to encourage her otherwise. With this film being Carrie Fisher's final appearance, it's unlikely that their relationship will be explored more in Episode IX. It's possible this is another tragic case of Real Life Writes the Plot and their relationship was supposed to get more focus in Episode IX, before Fisher's untimely death.
- Leia's Parental Substitute relationship with Poe gets some development as she tries to mold him into a better leader. However, the fact that he was captured, tortured and mind-probed by Leia's actual son at the beginning of The Force Awakens is never referenced, even though it might have provided the perfect psychological backdrop for Poe's defiance of Leia's leadership.
- Finn infiltrating the Supremacy and the brief exploration of child slaves on Canto Bight, are both seen by some fans as dramatically fascinating set-ups the film completely ignores. Finn's own history as a kidnapped child soldier should make his reactions toward the latter a major character moment, but there's no sign that ever entered the writing process. The former, in contrast, had some scenes filmed to exploit the drama of Finn back in First Order territory, but both were cut before the theatrical release.
- Holdo's antagonism towards Poe is meant to serve as character development for Poe by having him learn that he needs to be more strategic, and not be as hot-headed and quick to jump into action, yet this idea is never used to any effect due to Leia waking up and knocking him out, meaning the rest of the film has Poe doing nothing leader like, and the following film has him not really doing much either in that role. Had the film wanted him to step up as a leader, it easily could have had Poe take charge after Holdo's sacrifice, but instead it comes across as An Aesop being used as "character development".
- Luke and Rey's master-apprentice relationship. It would've been interesting to see how Luke is as a teacher rather than an apprentice, as he was in the Original Trilogy. But in the film itself, Luke barely teaches Rey anything outside of explaining what the Force is; he promised her three lessons but we never see the third lesson onscreen (the corresponding scene was deleted). Given how similar the pair are, they would also have the potential to be good friends and possibly even develop a father-daughter dynamic, but the vast majority of their conversations consist of Luke being dismissive and cynical, and Rey stubbornly insisting he's wrong.
- Kylo's speech to Rey after killing Snoke sets up an interesting plot idea about the nature of the Star Wars setting, where in a good aligned order rises, gets overthrown and replaced by an evil one, and then a good one rises up to stop it. With his speech about "killing the past", it sets up an interesting motive for Kylo as someone wanting to change the future by essentially letting the First Order and the Resistance end in order to build something knew. Despite this being a great motivation for Kylo, and an interesting plot point that has not been discussed in most of the series, as soon as Rey rejects him, he decides to just stick to the First Order's goals without any change in motives as its leader.
- Rey's first dive into true Force meditation has her veering directly toward a local nexus of Dark Side energy while Luke frantically tries to break her out of the trance. Kylo spends most of the previous film experiencing self-doubt and anguish over the fact that he has never been able to commit himself fully to the Dark Side. Between these two perspectives and the characters coming to know and sympathize with each other over the course of the film, you would think something would happen, but nothing comes of it in the film; Kylo remains on the side of the First Order and (again) seemingly kills any redemption attempts, while Rey's learning to the Dark Side is never referenced in the film again.
- The fact that Luke has exiled himself specifically to Ahch-To, the site of the first Jedi temple ever to exist. The previous film had indicated that it would be significant – perhaps with Luke seeking some ancient wisdom about why his attempt at re-founding the Jedi Order failed so badly. Instead, Luke tells Rey, "I came to this island to die", and the fact Ahch-To is the sight of the first Jedi temple is barely even discussed or utilized. The closest explanation is the text's referenced, but they instead are used for a punchline.
- At the end of The Force Awakens, Snoke recalls Kylo Ren to his side and remarks that he is going to "complete his training". At the beginning of this film, Snoke has Kylo Ren brought into the throne room and yells at him for a bit. Whatever training or lessons seemingly were hinted at with the prior film are never explained, and it is never mentioned again.
The Rise of Skywalker
- The film begins with a crawl revealing that Palpatine is alive and back, completely throwing away any attempts at build up and mystery. There is no time for the galaxy to learn and react, no time for the heroes to debate what to do now, and there is no chance to explore the reaction of the First Order members, who might have been completely startled that the Emperor is back.
- The Last Jedi featured Kylo Ren ascending to be Supreme Leader of the First Order after he killed Snoke, clearly setting him up to be the Big Bad of the trilogy's third film. Rather than continuing with this trajectory and exploring how his rule has affected both the First Order internally and the galaxy-at-large, this film instantly drops him back into the role of The Dragon, this time to Palpatine.
- In The Last Jedi, Luke uses his last words to threaten to haunt Kylo from beyond the grave. In the next movie, he isn't seen making good on his threat.
- Finn apparently had something important he wanted to tell Rey right before he thought they were going to die. Despite some teasing from other characters, whatever Finn was wanting to tell Rey is never explained, and after the initial humor of it is done, it never gets referenced again in the film. According to J. J. Abrams, this was supposed to be that he was Force Sensitive and had the Force, but even if this is true (since this isn't in the film), it feels like a major waste of an idea that fans had been hoping for since the first film.
- C-3PO's memory is wiped for the sake of the mission, as it is the only way to allow the dagger’s inscription to be translated. While this comes across as a clever tearjerker to lose a beloved character without actually killing him, they later have R2-D2 restore his memory from a backup. While this was foreshadowed at the time of erasure, it still makes one wonder why they bothered including the erasure at all if they were just going to undo it thirty minutes later. Messing with 3PO's memories also brings up the possibility of restoring the memories that were wiped at the end of Revenge of the Sith, which would be a nice way to end the saga as it would put 3PO into his originally intended role of being the one character who could recall and comment on the entire Star Wars saga, but this potential development was also ignored.
- Hux's role as the mole for the Resistance is revealed in a tense moment, then he’s shot by Pryde soon after and it's never brought up again. No attempt is made to explain this choice beyond Hux telling Poe and Finn he hates Kylo, and Kylo himself gets no chance to react to it despite the small rivalry they had going.
- Lando Calrissian's close personal history with Kylo Ren is never touched upon and only depicted in novels (he and Ben considered each other uncle and nephew when Ben was growing up). Sadly, this mirrors a criticism of The Force Awakens that Chewbacca's relationship with Ben was never explored despite a similar relationship to the Solo family. To build on this, we never find out how Lando and Chewie react to Ben's redemption and death (or if/when Rey told them at all), even though they both knew him all his life and cared about him.
- Chewbacca's apparent death could be a very dramatic and significant moment, but later it's revealed that he had survived, reducing Rey's angst. Likewise, Kylo Ren — who was raised as Ben Solo and would have been around Chewie for most of his pre-Face–Heel Turn life — does not have his angst investigated whatsoever.
- Rey and Ben as presented as a "dyad", or literal two halves of a whole. This was something Reylo fans had been predicting since The Force Awakens, and had also predicted would lead to them balancing the Force together. Instead it's just used to explain their Force Bond; the whole symbolism of them being equal opposites is forgotten, and there aren't even any consequences explored when half of the pair dies.
- Previous films had touched on Rey having pent-up anger and grief over being abandoned. Some feel that the revelation of her heritage makes it so that, instead of these feelings being what lures her to the dark side, it's just "genetics". Even worse, those feelings evaporate as soon as it's revealed her parents did it to "protect her".
- Some First Order higher-ups clearly have reservations about Palpatine and the Force in general (and this animosity has been present in the previous films too). Despite the film showing signs of this, nothing comes of it at all, and the film never references the idea again.
- The Final Order fleet is composed of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Star Destroyers armed with planet-cracking cannons (and at least one Resurgence-class flagship). The assembled Resistance fleet, itself filling the screen with countless allied ships, from bombers to freighters to military capital ships, arrives on Exegol to battle it. But other than a literal handful of "hero shots" of very specific characters, in which they perform a cameo and shoot down a Destroyer, the entire space battle is left to the audience's imagination. Even including the (equally brief) preliminaries of Poe's squadron fighting a hopeless fight against the Sith Destroyers, this is the Star Wars title with the least amount of on-screen space combat in the film franchise.
- None of the other heroes find out about Rey's connection to Kylo and she never discusses it with Leia either (though the latter is likely an unfortunate case of plots involving Leia having to be heavily trimmed due to her actress's death). It could've been interesting to explore how Poe and Finn feel about Rey's complicated relationship with an Anti-Villain who they both have a personal history with, as well as how Kylo feels about them now, but none of this ever comes up.
- The Visual Guide mentions that Lando had a daughter who was kidnapped by the First Order when she was two years old; it's insinuated that Jannah, an ex-stormtrooper, could be his daughter. None of this is brought up at any point in the final film, save for a brief interaction between Lando and Jannah (which some people thought was meant to be indicative of romantic attraction).
- The fact that all the First Order stormtroopers are Child Soldiers who were kidnapped and Brainwashed is brought up again as a plot point (and foreshadowed by the much larger collection of voices — and death screams — from troopers as Poe and Finn blow them away), and then never mentioned again, not even as a justification for taking down the bad guys. Having Finn and Jannah liberate other stormtroopers and/or persuade them to turn on the First Order could've made a cool subplot and would've been a great way to round off Finn's story arc, but this opportunity is never explored.
- Ben Solo's death results in 'they wasted perfectly good future plots'. A lot of people were genuinely interested in getting to know Ben more as a character post-Kylo Ren, as well as potentially seeing him dealing with and overcoming his many issues and doing a full redemption arc, in future installments. However, his death at the end of this film nixed all these opportunities (unless they can find a way to bring him back from the dead). Some viewers even think that Ben's Heel–Face Turn could've been started much earlier and stretched out across the film, as up until the third act he still appears firmly antagonistic with few insights into what he's thinking and feeling.
- Rey builds a new lightsaber for herself with a unique, personalized design; it's the first golden-bladed lightsaber seen in a theatrical Star Wars film and its handle is constructed from Rey's trusty staff. However, she never actually uses it onscreen and we only see it for a few seconds in the final scene of the film. She continues using Anakin's repaired lightsaber - and it's never shown or explained how she managed to fix it either - even though its destruction at the end of the previous film sets up a perfect opportunity for Rey to build and use a new saber throughout The Rise of Skywalker. It's possible the reason for this was because they needed to use Anakin's lightsaber to match up with the footage they still had of Carrie Fisher, but seeing Rey building her own saber as part of her Jedi training could've been interesting as well (and used to contrast her with Kylo reforging his helmet); however, we never see this either.
- A highly important plot point brought up in the film is that the Resistance are still clearly outmatched and outnumbered by the First Order, and so they desperately need to persuade the rest of the galaxy to join the cause to achieve victory. This ends up being largely glossed over; it's only really addressed by having Lando recruit a whole bunch of random, mostly unidentified people offscreen in time for the climax and it receives no further elaboration. Some viewers even argue that focusing on recruiting allies would've made a better central plot or at least B-plot, as opposed to the convoluted fetch quest that dominates the film (which is ultimately rendered mostly pointless anyway when Kylo destroys Rey's Wayfinder).
- Palpatine reveals his big evil plan is to have Rey strike him down, at which point he will pull a Grand Theft Me and take her body for himself to continue the Sith. Despite being presented as his primary goal, nothing is done with this idea. Palpatine never tries to take Rey over during the finale, there isn't any explanation for how exactly this is supposed to work, and it ends up being a pointless plot point, because Rey kills him anyway, and this is treated as different from her seemingly striking him down the way he wanted, presumably since it's done by her reflecting his own power back at him in self-defense. It feels less like a plot point, and moreso an attempt to address any Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? arguments the viewer might have.
- Despite being the film's big twist, Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter has no lasting impact on her story, or indeed the story at large, beyond offering an explanation as to why she's so powerful (and potentially to appeal to fans who didn't like the 'Rey Nobody' explanation).
- We never get much complex insight into how Rey feels about her Villainous Lineage now she knows about it; she immediately rejects her grandfather (so there was never any real risk of her joining him) and seems to quickly get over her lifelong abandonment issues. She never attempts to actively find out more about her family; she finds most of the (scarce) information about her parents by accident/coincidence, or from what Kylo tells her (which she quickly accepts in spite of the source). (In Rey's defense, one YouTube analyst
has pointed out that the Abrams' Signature Style of "No Scenes, Just Plot" precludes her from having time to brood over it.) - It doesn't much affect Rey's relationships with other characters; Kylo treats her the same, Leia still trained Rey despite knowing the truth (and it's never explained how and when Leia found this out), Finn possibly knows note but doesn't care about it or mention this to Rey, and Poe never finds out onscreen.
- Palpatine's feelings towards his family is also never explored in much depth and adds nothing to his characterization (not that this is too surprising as Palpatine was never a very complex character). The closest we get is Palpatine trying to persuade Rey to embrace her 'birthright' as his heir, but it only lasts a few scenes and seems to be merely a manipulation tactic. They could even have explored Palpatine trying to manipulate Rey by appealing to her compassion and their familial relationship, playing up the 'weak old man/doting father figure' act which he's done in the past to great effect, but instead he is very blatant about his evil plans to her.
- J.J Abrams has stated that one of the main reasons he wrote Rey as being Palpatine's grandchild is because he thought the "Villainous Lineage" trope was more compelling than the "Randomly Gifted" Back Story introduced by Rian Johnson. The problem is, as mentioned above, the movie spends no time dwelling on it. It's especially problematic when you consider that Abrams did this by trading a genuine Plot Twist for a Generation Xerox: Johnson wanted to contrast the Original Trilogy by having the protagonist's heritage be of absolute insignificance, unlike Luke's descendance from one of the most storied and memorable villains of all time.
- And finally, while the film's Aesop — "Nurture over Nature, your choices matter more than your bloodline" — is perfectly served by having Rey reject her Villainous Lineage, it's also served by Rey remaining a Randomly Gifted nobody. As a result, this plot point has the rare quality of being both "They Wasted A Perfectly Good" and a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment.
- We never get much complex insight into how Rey feels about her Villainous Lineage now she knows about it; she immediately rejects her grandfather (so there was never any real risk of her joining him) and seems to quickly get over her lifelong abandonment issues. She never attempts to actively find out more about her family; she finds most of the (scarce) information about her parents by accident/coincidence, or from what Kylo tells her (which she quickly accepts in spite of the source). (In Rey's defense, one YouTube analyst
- This film reveals (via a flashback) that Luke did in fact train Leia as a Jedi; she even had her own lightsaber and serves as Rey's Jedi Master. While in this film they couldn't have done much more with it due to Carrie Fisher's death, this does raise the question of why they didn't just have Leia as a Jedi right from the start of the Sequel Trilogy, especially as Return of the Jedi established that Leia had the potential to be just as powerful as Luke and he was tasked with passing on what he'd learned, perfectly setting up Leia to become a Jedi too. The film briefly explains that Leia stopped her training because she had foreseen it would somehow result in Ben's death, but this isn't explored in any depth either and it only really seems to have been added to handwave why Leia having Jedi training wasn't mentioned before. This underutilization was particularly annoying to fans who were familar with the Legends continuity, where Leia's Force potential was a plotline from the start.
- The film never follows up on the story potential from The Last Jedi where Kylo frames Rey for the death of Snoke. No one on either side ever brings it up, even though having some First Order members suspecting that Kylo killed the previous Supreme Leader could be used to create or exacerbate tension between them, as well as giving Rey the reputation of "the girl who singlehandedly killed Snoke" which would affect how others in the galaxy view her. In fact, it's never explored whether anyone in the Resistance, even those closest to Rey, know what actually went down.
- Rey and Kylo's complex relationship has a lot of dramatic potential, such as Rey feeling confused about her compassion (and potential attraction) for him and what it means for her own morality, Kylo feeling more conflicted or hesitant about his path on account of his affection for her, exploring whether Kylo feels remorse for harming her and what it would take for Rey to consider forgiving him. Then there's the fact that Rey has just found out she has an evil relative and a relative that apparently wanted her dead, giving her yet another thing in common with Kylo, while Kylo has found out he's been manipulated his whole life (again); Rey is reluctant to open up to her friends about this while Kylo doesn't have friends, which sets up an opportunity for them to confide in each other about their troubles (due to a lack of any other confidants if nothing else). In the film, however, their interactions are exclusively antagonistic until the third act; Rey heals a wound she dealt him, they attempt to take on Palpatine together after Ben's Heel–Face Turn, and Rey kisses him shortly before dies via a Heroic Sacrifice. They don't have a single conversation following Ben's Heel–Face Turn, or any conversation that doesn't just dissolve into hostility, for that matter. For many viewers, Rey healing and later kissing Ben comes off as out-of-left-field, as they weren't remotely close to being lovers or even friends based on their interactions up to this point.
