8 things that nobody wants to admit about Star Wars

4. Relying on nostalgia entirely too much

Nostalgia is a powerful

drug

tool. It can make us laugh, cry, and just reminisce about the “good old days” when we first saw the Millennium Falcon or cheered at the destruction of the Death Star. However, nostalgia can also ruin things that would have otherwise been refreshing to discover.

The sequel trilogy attempted to tug at our heartstrings and, sometimes, pulled just a little too hard, sacrificing the story for sentimentality. Chewbacca getting a medal at the end of Rise of Skywalker was too close to the ending of A New Hope, where Luke and Han got their medals and Chewie didn’t. Sure, it felt like justice for the Wookiee, but it also screamed a variation of “see what we did there? Remember how you felt years ago?”

It’s not that fan service is inherently evil – it’s quite the opposite. It can be a subtle love letter to the audience that has supported the franchise for years. But when every other scene starts to feel like an emotional Easter egg hunt rather than an organic unfolding of what’s supposed to be a new saga, then we have a problem.

Moments meant to make fans cheer will actually summon the dreaded annoyed eye-roll when they seem to exist solely for nostalgic purposes. What should be a smooth ride becomes a major car crash as we bounce between “Oh wow, they brought that back!” to “Wait, why did that just happen?”

The sequel trilogy suffered terribly from this and though it certainly knew how to push our nostalgia buttons, it could have used a little more focus on pushing the narrative forward instead of this galactic roundabout.