While there's seemingly no group of people who thrive on constant and vicious discourse more than the Star Wars fandom, apparently one thing that tends to bring a lot of them together is the mutual opinion that The Rise of Skywalker was an underwhelming entry in the series, to put things charitably. Why it turned out the way it did is central to a never-ending debate among fans, but one often cited aspect is the sequel trilogy's less than stellar efforts at planning out an overarching story. For those curious, yes, director J.J. Abrams is well aware of that fact.
It's a well-known fact that the Star Wars sequel trilogy wasn't fully planned out from the beginning. The idea was for each director to build off of what the previous one did, which might sound good on paper but didn't end up working out in practice. "You just never really know," Abrams said in a recent Collider interview discussing the trilogy, "but having a plan I have learned – in some cases the hard way – is the most critical thing, because otherwise you don't know what you're setting up. You don't know what to emphasize. Because if you don't know the inevitable of the story, you're just as good as your last sequence or effect or joke or whatever, but you want to be leading to something inevitable." Perhaps this is part of why The Rise of Skywalker saw some changes on Disney Plus.
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The thing is, while Abrams ultimately believes that there needs to be a plan, he also admitted that some of his projects have been hindered by planning too much. "There are projects that I've worked on where we had some ideas but we hadn't worked through them enough," he said, not specifying any projects in particular, "sometimes we had some ideas but then we weren't allowed to do them the way we wanted to." However, this didn't sway him entirely from the side of planning, as he still believes there needs to be something being worked towards, as proven by the heavily criticized but still cohesive Star Wars prequel trilogy. Apparently, "the journey is more important than the destination" doesn't exactly apply to certain aspects of filmmaking.
While not everyone was a fan of Abrams' first foray into the Star Wars universe with The Force Awakens, fans and casual viewers alike largely enjoyed the experience. Its sequel The Last Jedi, directed by Rian Johnson, was divisive among fans for going in unexpected directions after Abrams seemed to have set up some clear plot threads to follow, but it still gained critical acclaim for its masterful storytelling and drive to finally do something different with the Star Wars series. It even earned Johnson his own upcoming Star Wars trilogy. The unfortunate bit came from how the two directors had clearly different ideas for the overall plot. As a result, when Abrams was brought back on to conclude the trilogy rather than director Colin Trevorrow, he apparently elected to try to fulfill his original vision rather than work off what Johnson had introduced, which was supposed to be the plan with 3 directors.
While the sequel trilogy did end up adding lots of rich lore and interesting characters to the Star Wars universe, it's undeniable that the disjointed nature of its production hurt it more than helped it in the long run. Plot threads were introduced and quickly dropped, pacing issues plague the whole journey, and the unfocused and unfair fan backlash to The Last Jedi ended up turning The Rise of Skywalker into a cautionary tale of giving the fans too much power.
But that doesn't mean the Star Wars series is doomed or anything. Recent productions like The Mandalorian and The Bad Batch have won over fans by respecting them but also still keeping them at arm's length. Plus, they're planned out in advance, which probably helps more than anything else. Hopefully the franchise takes these lessons to heart going forward.
The Star Wars saga is now available on Disney Plus.
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Source: Collider