Rise of Skywalker
Another year, another Star Wars film that has divided fans and critics so intensely that it’s created an internet flame war that threatens to burn us all alive.
Ironically, it’s the opposite of the last battle we had two years ago. Back then, critics loved Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi while many fans absolutely loathed it. Critics were calling it one of the best Star Wars entries ever while other fans were declaring it the worst.
Now, it’s flipped. Rise of Skywalker now has some critics calling JJ Abrams’ finale effort one of the worst in the series, oftentimes even more so than the dreaded prequels. In contrast, a good chunk of fans seem to enjoy the finale and think it’s a fitting end to the series, and “fixes” much of what went wrong from with The Last Jedi.
You can actually see this play out in the numbers. I went through and measured the critic score versus the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for every Star Wars film. And here’s what I found:
Rise of Skywalker – 55% critics V. 86% audience (+31% gap)
Return of the Jedi – 82% critics V. 94% audience (+12% gap)
The Phantom Menace – 53% critics V. 59% audience (+6% gap)
Rogue One – 83% critics V. 86% audience (+3% gap)
The Empire Strikes Back – 93% critics V. 96% audience (+3% gap)
A New Hope – 93% critics V. 96% audience (+3% gap)
The Force Awakens – 93% critics V. 86% audience (-7% gap)
Solo – 70% critics V. 63% audience (-7% gap)
Attack of the Clones – 65% critics V. 56% audience (-9% gap)
Revenge of the Sith – 80% critics V. 66% audience (-14% gap)
The Last Jedi – 91% critics V. 43% audience (-48% gap)
As you can see, the biggest gap in favor of fan approval, by a huge margin, is Rise of Skywalker, with fans rating it a full 31% better than the critical average. And then it’s no surprise to see The Last Jedi on the other end of the spectrum, with critics rating it 48% higher than fans. In general, if we add up all the changes, fans are actually a little harsher than critics in most cases, especially when it comes to the prequels (including Solo), and they were a more skeptical of JJ Abrams’ initial effort with The Force Awakens as well.
The Mandalorian
Want to know what the least controversial Star Wars property is on the list? Well, it’s not even on the list. That would be The Mandalorian, with only a 1% difference between critic reviews (94%) and audience reviews (93%).
But what’s going on here, really?
To me, the impression I’m getting is that critics have overreacted to Rise of Skywalker’s flaws just like fans overreacted to the problems with The Last Jedi. Neither of these films are even close to the worst Star Wars film in the grand list. Critics are insane to say that Rise of Skywalker is worse than movies like Attack of the Clones or Phantom Menace, so much so that it almost seems spiteful to try and make that case. And the same goes for The Last Jedi haters who would rate it as the worst Star Wars move in history by a 13% margin under the worst prequel, Attack of the Clones. Just…absolutely no way.
To sum up what happened, fans were mad that The Last Jedi took traditional Star Wars arcs and shattered them, ignoring questions like the mystery of Snoke and Rey’s origins, and that the film turned Luke from shining hero to grumpy sacrificial lamb. And that’s exactly what critics liked about the film, that it broke away from tropes and tried something new.
That’s why those same critics are so mad now, because JJ Abrams did everything possible to undo so much of what Johnson did in The Last Jedi, providing specific answers to those questions that Johnson said weren’t important. Abrams sidelines lambasted characters like Rose, he mocks Last Jedi moments like the Holdo maneuver or Luke throwing away his lightsaber. It’s such a complete rewrite of The Last Jedi it actually feels vengeful.
The Last Jedi
But fans like it A) because they got those Last Jedi “fixes” they were looking for and B) it was specifically…made for fans. The film is rife with fan service, which is often viewed as a negative by critics, but you know who likes fan service? Fans. And that’s what’s happened here. Rise of Skywalker doesn’t care about erasing tropes, it embraces them, and gives us an ending that is pretty much an exact replica of Return of the Jedi. And it’s an admittedly satisfying end to the saga, albeit not a terribly original one. But it’s enough to satisfy most fans who felt burned by The Last Jedi, so here we are, with these wildly different takes on two movies that I would say, are both pretty great in their own ways, despite each of them having flaws.
We do not know what comes next for Star Wars. It seems that Disney has learned a few lessons here, namely that one person should be in charge of an entire film series, and it shouldn’t be split by director. And that maybe we don’t always need a trilogy, and stories should be as long as they need to be (technically JJ Abrams’ Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker could have just been a two-film set, given how much of The Last Jedi was flat-out erased).
My guess is that we will see more Mandalorian-type content that pleases everyone and less hyper controversies like this, now that we’re moving on from the Skywalkers, Solos, Vaders and Palpatines. It’s time to write new stories, or at the very least, adapt different old ones.
Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Pre-order my new sci-fi novel Herokiller, and read my first series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiemh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZvcmJlcy5jb20vc2l0ZXMvcGF1bHRhc3NpLzIwMjAvMTIvMjkvd2h5LWhhcy1zdGFyLXdhcnMtcmlzZS1vZi1za3l3YWxrZXItZGl2aWRlZC1jcml0aWNzLWFuZC1mYW5zLXNvLXNoYXJwbHkv0gF-aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZm9yYmVzLmNvbS9zaXRlcy9wYXVsdGFzc2kvMjAyMC8xMi8yOS93aHktaGFzLXN0YXItd2Fycy1yaXNlLW9mLXNreXdhbGtlci1kaXZpZGVkLWNyaXRpY3MtYW5kLWZhbnMtc28tc2hhcnBseS9hbXAv?oc=5
2019-12-29 15:49:00Z
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