Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has received an unexpected critical beating this week. With 290 reviews in, the verdict from the Tomatometer is Rotten, with critics calling it nonsensical, poorly plotted and lacking emotional resonance. But, as is typical these days, there appears to be a divide between the critics’ opinion and the general audience’s.
Right now, The Rise of Skywalker is sitting at 58% on the Tomatometer, but with an audience score of 86% after 5,719 ratings (at the time of writing). Here are just couple of quotes from users:
“Great end to the saga! Critics are insane – the fans are loving it.” – Chris B
“So much fun! A tough job to wrap things up well done” – Justin A
“The absolute perfect ending to a nine—movie saga.” – Zachariah P
“I liked it. Good conclusion to the skywalker saga. Tho I did like the last jedi better” – Stephen B
“Amazing. Haters gonna hate” – Neo L
They continue in this vein for quite some time, too. However, it should be remembered that anyone who’s reviewing the film now will have either attended an advance preview or gone to a midnight screening. And if it’s the latter, it’s safe to bet they’re a diehard Star Wars fan and their opinion on the film may not be totally objective. As such, we’ll know for certain what general audiences think of the movie after the opening weekend, when the consensus will truly form as to its quality.
On top of that, the Rotten Tomatoes audience score has become a notorious battleground for people with ulterior motives for a film’s success. Unpicking this is getting increasingly complex, but given that The Rise of Skywalker retcons many of the controversial elements from The Last Jedi, a section of the fan community may want to bump up its Audience Score as an indirect way of criticizing the previous movie.
It’s also worth checking out Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker‘s IMDb user rating, which sits at 6.9/10 after 35,860 ratings. However the audience consensus eventually turns out though, it seems that the final installment in the Sequel Trilogy is destined to generate just as much controversy as its predecessor did.