Star Wars: Can ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ meet expectations?

LOS ANGELES, CA – DECEMBER 09: Actress Daisy Ridley attends the premiere of Disney Pictures and Lucasfilm’s ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ at The Shrine Auditorium on December 9, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

What’s next?

For better or for worse, each of the first two trilogies were overseen by Star Wars writer/director/creator George Lucas. He may have lost his way a little bit with his decisions on Return of the Jedi. And Lucas did not provide the same level of storytelling in the prequel trilogy that he achieved in the original trilogy. But in the final tally, each of those trilogies impart a cohesive story. One for Luke Skywalker (original) and one for Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (prequel).

This one (sequel trilogy) is supposed to be the story of Rey. And I like Rey. And I like the other new characters (Finn, Poe, and Kylo Ren). But The Last Jedi left the audience even more confused on what exactly is happening with these new characters. And of course, it left a bad taste in many people’s mouth when it came to what happened with Luke – and whether or not the Skywalker family is even all that important anymore.

And now we have this new title that calls upon the Skywalker name once again – thus creating more confusion. The Rise of Skywalker absolutely feels like it fits with The Force Awakens, but not so much with The Last Jedi. Episode VIII felt like it was pulling away from the Skywalker’s importance. And now we are right back to Skywalker being important enough to actually be in the title for the first time.

Honestly, if Abrams had overseen the second film, would he have killed off Luke? Would Luke have taken a different approach to helping Rey/The Resistance? We will never know, but those decisions weren’t Abrams to make. And now he is flipping it all back to Skywalker prominence.