Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker almost single-handedly sunk Star Wars. The movie should have been the bombastic conclusion to the sequel trilogy, though a production nightmare combined with Disney and Lucasfilm running scared from the negative reception to The Last Jedi resulted in a confusing, poorly thought-out, and laughably ill-conceived story. We won’t go into details, but let’s just say “somehow Palpatine returned” and leave it at that.
Anyway, now fans are picking over one of the key moments in the film that’s been raising eyebrows ever since 2019. In the finale, Kylo Ren finally makes a turn towards the light by sacrificing himself for Rey, bringing her back for a kiss just before he dies and returns to the Force. With the benefit of hindsight, is there anything to like in this scene?
The answer, according to r/StarWars is “nah”:
Let’s face it, this is a very weird romance considering their past and everything Kylo Ren has done:
We suppose toxic relationships are very Star Wars:
Was this just fan service for the Reylos out there?
And we’d have loved to see a redeemed Ben Solo trying to atone for the mistakes of his past:
There may be some small chance of redemption for The Rise of Skywalker on the horizon. Lost and Watchmen‘s Damon Lindelof is currently working on a movie set after Episode IX, featuring sequel trilogy characters. We can’t deny there was a hell of a lot of bad decisions throughout this project, but there was the potential for greatness. Let’s just hope that Disney and Lucasfilm have learned from these mistakes.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is available to stream on Disney Plus.
