While George Lucas shepherded both the original and prequel The Rise of Skywalker.
As a result, the narrative development was very disted and plot threads came and went at the drop of a dime. For all the storylines that got paid off, for better or for worse, there were plenty that never got resolved.
Maz Kanata’s Possession Of Luke’s Lightsaber
When Luke’s lightsaber (formerly Anakin’s lightsaber and currently known in the canon, very controversially, as Rey’s lightsaber) called to Rey from Maz Kanata’s basement, Han asked how she got a hold of it and Maz said that it was “a good story, for another time.”
But that other time never came. J.J. Abrams set up a mystery for another director to resolve, and then when he was that other director, he just ignored it. Viewers never found out how that lightsaber made its way from the catacombs of Cloud City to Maz’s basement.
Irredeemable Ben Solo
After The Force Awakens telegraphed a painfully predictable redemption arc for Ben Solo and The Last Jedi made it clear that he was beyond redemption, The Rise of Skywalker went and redeemed him anyway.
He went from being a bad guy to a good guy at the drop of a hat, prompted by a vision of his father, whom he murdered and who wasn’t Force-sensitive, so he basically made up an apparition of his dad to forgive himself.
Finn Wanted To Tell Rey Something
All throughout The Rise of Skywalker, Finn is constantly yelling Rey’s name. On a few occasions, he tells her there’s something he needs to tell her, but he never actually says it. According to J.J. Abrams, he wanted to tell Rey that he was Force-sensitive. But that’s something that should’ve happened in the actual movie.
Audiences shouldn’t have to be told this kind of information by the director; if it’s not in the movie, then the movie failed to tell its story. As it stands, Finn’s character arc has no ending and the talents of John Boyega were wasted by a meandering, half-baked screenplay.
Palpatine’s Resurrection
We got some soundbites about Palpatine’s resurrection in The Rise of Skywalker, like the line “I’ve died before,” but these hints are mostly plot holes. Dominic Monaghan mentions cloning, but calls it a “secret only the Sith knew,” as if there wasn’t a three-year galaxy-wide conflict called the Clone Wars and an entire species known for cloning.
It was a lot of fun to see Ian McDiarmid back in the role of the Emperor — and this far into the sequel trilogy, fun was practically a miracle — but the movie didn’t make any attempt to have his resurrection make sense, simply banking on fans not caring.
Stormtroopers Are Brainwashed Orphans
Finn was introduced to us as a Stormtrooper who was brainwashed from a young age to believe in an unjust cause. This established that the First Order’s Stormtroopers aren’t just expendable clones, but rather displaced orphans. This was even followed up in The Rise of Skywalker with the all-too-brief introduction of Jannah.
But the sequel trilogy’s Stormtroopers were still treated like expendable clones because of J.J. Abrams’ incessant focus on nostalgia. The Stormtroopers were cannon fodder in the original trilogy, so they were cannon fodder in Abrams’ movies.
The Knights Of Ren
After The Force Awakens teased the Knights of Ren as Kylo Ren’s Gestapo, his top band of ruthless enforcers, The Last Jedi didn’t even mention them. They finally appeared in The Rise of Skywalker, but they mostly just stood there.
In the film’s final act, Ben Solo has to fight his way through them to get to Rey and Palpatine, but they were pretty easy to defeat. That movie didn’t teach us anything about the Knights of Ren besides what they look like. We didn’t even learn their names! Who are these people?
Luke Knew Rey Was A Palpatine
According to The Rise of Skywalker, Luke knew Rey was a Palpatine all along. But prior to the events of The Force Awakens, he tried to kill his nephew Ben Solo in his sleep because he saw an inkling of the dark side in him.
And when Rey came to be trained by Luke in The Last Jedi, he was still a miserable hermit sworn off his dearly-held Jedi tenets. So then why, if he knew the stranger who arrived at his home was a Palpatine, would he train her in the ways of the Force?
Pretty Much Everything About Snoke
Fans hated Snoke from the beginning. As a scarred puppet-master who manipulated a wayward Jedi padawan into ing the dark side and then sat atop a throne while his apprentice ruthlessly built an evil empire, he was a pretty blatant rip-off of Palpatine. When Palpatine himself came back into the fold, Snoke was shrugged off as one of Palpatine’s creations in a throwaway line as we saw a couple of Snokes floating in a vat.
But The Last Jedi revealed that Snoke bridged Rey and Kylo Ren’s minds. How many of Snoke’s actions can be attributed to Palpatine? Did Snoke do anything for himself? What was the deal with this guy?
Palpatine’s Kids
After J.J. Abrams unnecessarily set up Rey’s parentage as an important question in The Force Awakens and Rian Johnson tried to lessen its importance in The Last Jedi, Abrams finally answered the question in The Rise of Skywalker. She’s Palpatine’s granddaughter.
But if that’s the case, then Palpatine had at least one kid and that kid had a kid. Who are all those people? Who did he procreate with? Or are his kids clones? Non-movie materials have made limp attempts to fill in some of the blanks, but the movie itself failed to answer any of these questions.
Broom Boy
At the end of The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson gave Star Wars fans a glimmer of hope in the form of the young slave boy who’s been dubbed “Broom Boy.” He revels in the myths of Luke Skywalker before using the Force to pick up a broom and optimistically looking up at the stars.
This kid could’ve been the first in a new class of Jedi younglings to be trained by Rey and Luke’s Force ghost to take on the First Order. But alas, J.J. Abrams ignored Broom Boy entirely.
