Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – Five ways to win back the haters
By Monita Mohan
4. Eschew Romances
Unless it’s FinnPoe, that is, because then Star Wars would finally enter the real world and have a canonically gay romantic couple on screen. That probably won’t happen, because Disney lives in the dark ages with its most popular properties.
The trouble with the “romances” that we’ve seen in the new trilogy so far is that they came out of nowhere. John Boyega’s Finn and Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico went off on a tangential mission to Canto Bight and ended the film with a chemistry-less kiss, which seemed to take Finn by complete surprise. The kiss appeared to be an attempt at homosocialism, considering how Rian Johnson was afraid to let Finn and Poe share any extended screen time together.
The worst, however, was the suggestion that Rey and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) were romantically interested in each other. This was downright problematic, as Kylo has been nothing but abusive in his interactions with Rey. Kylo’s character required more of the Knights of Ren – who are set to appear in the final instalment – not a dalliance with Rey.
Plus, Rey’s character arc suddenly revolved completely around the extended Skywalker family – bringing Luke back into the fold as the last Jedi and redeeming Kylo. Rey certainly deserves better than being a love interest. And there’s no question that the old cinematic cliché of the bad boy actually needing a good girl to become a hero doesn’t fit with Star Wars. Rey is the much-needed female protagonist of the series – write her that way.