Innovation, imagination, humor – three things you’re not going to find much of in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
At least, that’s according to the many reviews that have swept Rotten Tomatoes (you can find our own thoughts here), all of which have resulted in a disappointing Tomatometer Score of just 57 percent as of this writing. For comparison’s sake, only The Phantom Menace has scored below 60 percent when it comes to the mainline Star Wars films. Even the underwhelming Solo hit 70 percent on the site.
And now, it seems as if those poor critical reactions have impacted The Rise of Skywalker‘s box office business. Though it didn’t exactly fizzle out or bomb, the movie only pulled in a domestic haul of $175.5 million (while it did $198 million overseas). For almost any other film, that would be spectacular, but for this one? Well, not really.
The Force Awakens shattered records with $247.9 million on its opening weekend on home turf, while even The Last Jedi raked in $220 million. So, when you stack Rise of Skywalker‘s $175.5 million total up beside those two, it certainly pales in comparison. Sure, a worldwide haul of $373.5 million is nothing to scoff at, but that domestic figure is particularly disappointing and only strengthens the feeling that maybe it’s time to retire Star Wars from the big screen for a bit.
Of course, that doesn’t mean fans would be starved for content, as Lucasfilm has already ordered up a second season of The Mandalorian, while Jedi: Fallen Order has shown us all that Star Wars video games are still alive and well. Not to mention that Ewan McGregor is getting ready to make his return to the role of Obi-Wan, too.
But when it comes to cinemas, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has unfortunately sent the Sequel Trilogy off on a bit of a weak note and it’ll be interesting to see where Disney takes things from here.
