As the world’s number one movie during a time of year when more people than usual tend to head out with their friends and family to the theater, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is still dominating the cultural conversation. The closing chapter of the saga that began in 1977 is still making huge amounts of money at the box office, but many of the headlines haven’t exactly been positive.
Disney and Lucasfilm were likely hoping that The Rise of Skywalker would end up being much less maligned than Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi, but unfortunately that hasn’t turned out to be the case. Reviews have been tepid at best, and ever since the movie was released there seem to have been people heading online to criticize everything from the marginalization of certain characters to the over-reliance on nostalgia and blatant fan-service in an effort to try and get the diehards back onside.
Even those that are directly involved with the Star Wars franchise in some capacity have gone online to voice their displeasure with The Rise of Skywalker, and the latest to jump on the bandwagon is the guy that used to run the entire Walt Disney Company. Michael Eisner, who was CEO of Disney between 1984 and 2005, recently took to social media to share his thoughts on J.J. Abrams’ adventure in a galaxy far, far away, and it would be fair to say that he didn’t sound too enthused.
As you can see below, Eisner lavished much more praise on Jon Favreau’s work on The Mandalorian than he did for The Rise of Skywalker, and given the reports that Disney and Lucasfilm see The Lion King and Iron Man filmmaker as being the key driving force behind the series going forward, he seems like the ideal candidate.
#RiseofSkywalker is an acceptable film, a lot of story and fan delights but somewhat emotionless, while #TheMandolorian on @disneyplus establishes show creator @Jon_Favreau as the new George Lucas which @RobertIger had the foresight to declare.
— Michael Eisner (@Michael_Eisner) December 31, 2019
However, Eisner wasn’t done there, as he continued to criticize the way Rey’s characterization was handled in the movie, and even took a couple of subtle shots at Daisy Ridley’s performance for good measure, before immediately backtracking.
“Daisy Ridley played Rey throughout the film with one expression: awe/fear until the very end of the film when she reveals her name. That’s what I meant by a film that somewhat lacked emotion. In my previous comment I didn’t mean to suggest that Daisy Ridley acted poorly. On the contrary, she was excellent. The choice of attitude for Rey was intended and seems to fall on the philosophy of the character.”
At this point, it’s easier to name a Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker character that hasn’t come in for criticism from somewhere, that’s how divisive the final installment of the franchise has turned out to be. One thing is for sure though, the movie will continue to dominate the headlines for a while to come, especially now that the more acclaimed Mandalorian has also finished up its first season on Disney Plus.