Star Wars: My Definitive Ranking of Every Film

Well, The Rise of Skywalker is finally out, and with it comes some modicum of finality. The Star Wars saga has come to an end (for the third time), giving us four decades’ worth of lightsaber clashes, speeder chases, groundbreaking special effects, and bad feelings about this. We’ve had three eras (the originals, the prequels, and the sequels, with a few standalone films thrown in there). So it’s time to rank them, starting from the worst.

(Note that this list does not include the Ewok made-for-TV movies or the dreaded Holiday Special, just the feature films released in theaters. Other than The Mandalorian, which is here in sort of an honorary capacity because it’s as good as most of the films, the list does not include TV shows. That’s why you’ll see The Clone Wars movie on here, but not the actual show the movie was meant to introduce.)

All of these, plus the stand-alone films. All poster images here are owned by Lucasfilm.

This shouldn’t have to be said, but this list is totally subjective, and even my list changes over time. Even if you disagree with my reasoning, I hope you can respect the consideration that went into it. Feel free to comment with your own ranking; there’s no wrong order.

Let’s start from the bottom and work up to the top…

12. ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002)

Every Star Wars film has its weaknesses. For AOTC, those weaknesses are more numerous than the faceless CGI clone troopers that fight faceless CGI battle droids in the film’s final act. Or maybe it’s just a few major weaknesses that overwhelm the film. The major problem with AOTC is that the entire film—and by extension, Anakin Skywalker’s entire arc—hangs on the strength of his love story with Padmé Amidala. And nothing in Star Wars, not even Jar Jar Binks, has ever been more groan-inducing that Anakin Skywalker’s clumsy attempts to woo Padmé (except maybe her inexplicable attraction to the psychotic murderer who won’t stop telling her how much he hates sand).

Like the rest of the prequels, AOTC was written by George Lucas rather than a dedicated screenwriter, and you can tell. The dialogue throughout feels like it emerged from a freshman screenwriting class. The plot is convoluted: some random Jedi named Sifo-Dyas (who goes unexplained until an episode of The Clone Wars much later) had something to do with hiring a secret clone army; meanwhile, the Sith Lord Tyrannus (Count Dooku), hired a bounty hunter named Jango Fett as a genetic template, and C-3PO gets his head swapped with a battle droid. No Star Wars movie is high cinema (with one possible and controversial exception), but after AOTC, anything is an improvement.

11. THE CLONE WARS (2008)

You probably forgot about this one, didn’t you? It should never have been a movie. This film actually began life as several distinct episodes of the then-upcoming The Clone Wars TV show that were stitched together into a movie. So while the actual TV show that followed actually turned out to be pretty good (and remains well-beloved these days by the fans), the movie itself suffers from a serious identity crisis. Is it a movie? Is it a long pilot for TV show? Is it something in between? Nobody quite knows.

10. THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999)

TPM suffers from many of the same problems as AOTC, though its lack of a terrible romantic subplot elevates it above its immediate sequel. I won’t say anything about Jar Jar Binks that hasn’t already been said, except I can appreciate what George Lucas was trying to do in trying to inject some childlike levity into the film, and I apologize on behalf of all the fans for the toxic response to the character. (I was just as bad as anyone.)

The film has a few redeeming qualities: the Podrace, despite its overly-CGI’d cartoon characters, is a really fun sequence; Liam Neeson gives a standout performance as Qui-Gon Jinn (one of the many prequel actors who do their very best with the stilted lines given to them); and we got to meet Darth Maul and hear “Duel of the Fates” (still one of John Williams’s greatest tracks). Unfortunately, the film is still too much of a mixed bag to rank higher on this list.

9. REVENGE OF THE SITH (2005)

This is the best of the prequels, though that’s not saying much. John Williams’s score is some of his best and most haunting, and the action rarely lets up. The Order 66 montage, where the clone troopers turn on their Jedi commanders across the galaxy, is one of the franchise’s most arresting scenes. The final battle on the lava planet Mustafar is thrilling, though it frequently feels over the top. A few key performances carry the film, most notably Ian McDiarmid’s Palpatine. And yet Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the dark side (the process on which the entire plot hangs) feels a bit too sudden and the dialogue is still too stilted for me to truly love this film.

8. THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (2019)

I can’t figure out where to put this movie. There are parts that I really like, and parts that didn’t sit right with me. (I imagine that’s how the non-toxic The Last Jedi critics sometimes feel about that movie, which is totally fair.) I can’t figure out if it goes above or below The Force Awakens. For now TFA is one rank higher because it, for all its lack of originality, is a much cleaner, less rushed film. Maybe this one will rise, like its titular bloodline, over time. But the thing that bothered me the most was simply how TROS played it too safe, working too hard to string together a plot from a checklist of fan service pulled from the Internet’s loudest The Last Jedi haters. It’s like JJ Abrams let Reddit write the screenplay for him. (See my original review here.)

TLJ showed us the importance of leaving tired Star Wars clichés behind: we were never going to have another family lineage reveal as powerful as the “I am your father” from The Empire Strikes Back, so why continually try to imitate it? Even Abrams knew that no reveal will ever be as shocking as that one, but he tried anyway, resulting in a reveal that feels as inevitable as it is narratively weak. TROS decided that tired clichés are the way to appease the haters, making Rey the heir to yet another dynastic bloodline rather than letting her be special in her own right. Why couldn’t the Force just choose her because of her individual character rather than her lineage? I did enjoy a lot of the film, though its unwillingness to take narrative risks—and its desperation to pander to the masses—ultimately left a bad taste in my mouth. We’ll see how well it ages for me. Maybe in a year or so it’ll be higher.

7. THE FORCE AWAKENS (2015)

This is a good film. It’s slick, thrilling, visually striking, and full of fun characters. Rey’s introduction, several minutes without a word of dialogue, is excellent. Her accompanying musical theme is one of the franchise’s best. The chemistry between Poe and Finn is instant and engaging. In a universe where A New Hope had never come out, TFA even would be a great film. But in the universe we live in, it doesn’t contribute enough of its own to the Star Wars mythos to rank any higher on my list.

6. A NEW HOPE (1977)

What can I say about the original Star Wars film that hasn’t been said? This is the film that captured a generation and never let go. Later movies, starting with the superior-in-every-way The Empire Strikes Back, improved upon its formula, but perhaps in some sense, you can never beat the original. You can certainly never beat certain scenes. We will never be able to top the moment Luke Skywalker stares off into the sunset or replicate the climactic trench run.

5. SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY (2018)

Solo’s biggest weakness is its need to explain how every detail of the Han Solo legend came to be, apparently over the course of one crazy weekend. So it never adds anything essential to the overall saga. Taken on its own, however, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a space Western with a killer soundtrack, great action scenes, fun characters, and a lot of great little moments, like Lando dictating his memoirs. The Kessel Run sequence remains of my favorites; it’s one of those great scenes that draws enough nostalgia to “feel” like Star Wars while blazing new territory.

4. ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY (2016)

This movie starts out a bit rocky and takes a while to find a cohesive narrative. Jyn Erso is never a particularly well-drawn character, and her sudden shift from apathetic criminal to true believer is never quite earned. Luckily, she’s surrounded by a cast of characters who are far more interesting than she is. If the movie had spent the first act building up those characters a bit more rather than taking us through a convoluted tour through Rebel and Imperial politics, it might be a perfect movie. But when the movie does find its footing, it’s some of the best that Star Wars has to offer. What I loved about this movie—aside from the third act, which is the best battle scene in any Star Wars film—is the film’s willingness to kill off all of its main characters. Sometimes narrative risks pay off. (TROS could learn a thing or two from Rogue One on that.)

3. THE LAST JEDI (2017)

Bear with me for a minute, please. The most polarizing Star Wars film is also the one that requires the most critical thought to enjoy—and holds the most reward for those willing to check thirty years’ worth of “here’s how I think a Star Wars movie should go” at the door. (No wonder the critics almost universally loved it; they’re not encumbered by loyalty to obscure lore—or the need for Luke Skywalker to continue to serve as a vehicle for wish fulfillment.) Some parts of the Internet like dismiss TLJ as “garbage” and “trash,” but those who deride it in such terms would do well to give it a more thoughtful watch—or at least explore a wider vocabulary. Sure, it’s not perfect. Even I don’t love the Canto Bight storyline, though if you pay attention it becomes clear that the arc is all about making Finn, previously lukewarm about his commitment to the Resistance, finally choose a side.

But so much of it is brilliant that I give the weaker parts a pass. For example, Luke’s arc, derided by haters as inconsistent with his original trilogy portrayal, is one of the most interesting arcs in the series. Those haters make the mistake of oversimplifying the hero’s journey, assuming that Luke’s growth as a young man leaves nowhere to go but up. That sounds pretty boring to me. Instead, TLJ reduces a hero to a flawed but relatable human being, giving him a redemption arc worthy of a Jedi Master—dying to hold off the entire First Order while upholding the time-honored Jedi ideal that, in the oft-ignored words of Ben Kenobi, “there are alternatives to fighting.” (Read more about my thoughts on TLJ here, here, and here.)

2.5: THE MANDALORIAN (2019)

This isn’t a movie, so according to the rules of this list it doesn’t get a number of its own. But if it were, it would be #3 here on my ranking. How great was that finale? I love that show. Music, action, visuals, characters—it captures what drew people to Star Wars in the first place. And Baby Yoda.

2. RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983)

My complicated feelings toward Ewoks notwithstanding, ROTJ is a great film. The first act starts out as a slow burn, but the Sarlacc battle is one of my favorite action scenes from the original trilogy. The second act explores the dynamics between the main characters, and the third act is nearly perfect (if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief regarding the possibility of a bunch of teddy bears taking down a superior military force). After one of the series’s most emotionally charged lightsaber battles, Luke Skywalker resists the call of the dark side and realizes what his father couldn’t: that fighting isn’t the Jedi way—followed by Darth Vader’s sacrifice for his son. (Of course, once you resist temptation once, that doesn’t mean the temptation goes away for the rest of your life, making TLJ a necessary sequel to Luke’s ROTJ arc.)

1. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)

This will always be the best Star Wars. The music is superb, debuting one of the most iconic leitmotifs in film score history: the Imperial March. Luke, previously little more than a whiny farm boy/audience surrogate/vessel for adolescent wish fulfillment, has to face failure for the first time. The action is better, the story is darker, the characters more compelling. The scene where Yoda lifts the X-wing out of the swamp is about far more than a frog-person using telekinesis on a spaceship; it’s about faith. The Han/Leia romance will always be the best romance in the series. The “I am your father” reveal will never be outdone. This is the film that takes A New Hope’s winning formula and runs with it, twists it, and delivers an end product that improves upon the original in a film that will probably never be topped in Star Wars canon.

'The Rise of Skywalker': The Only Review You Need to Read

SPOILER-FREE SECTION

Two years ago came The Last Jedi, an iconoclastic wedge of a movie that split the fandom violently in half. Some, like me, praised it for the way it upended tired Star Wars tropes—like the its suggestion that you don’t have to be from some famous space wizard family to be special, to name just one example. Anyone, from a desert scavenger to a humble broom boy, can have a spark of greatness in them.

Others didn’t like it as much. They felt cheated that it didn’t immediately answer questions raised by The Force Awakens. They had lots of other issues as well—some legitimate and some… less so. I’ve written at length about how I consider much of TLJ’s criticism to be unfounded, but you can read about that here and here, if you really want. (It should be noted that the majority of critics, people paid to think critically about movies without being beholden to obscure lore or personal head-canon, agree with me.) However, I won’t discuss that here, except where it pertains to the new movie.

And that brings us to The Rise of Skywalker. It’s How The Last Jedi Should Have Ended: The Movie, created in a clear attempt to win back the fans who felt alienated by TLJ—for better and for worse. If the franchise were a cheating spouse, TROS would be the extravagant gift with a note begging for you to forgive them. (They’ll even sleep on the couch.)

First, let me make it clear that I did enjoy TROS. I can appreciate a good movie and still be conscious of its faults. There was a lot to like, even a few parts I loved. John Williams is at the top of his game (and even gets a well-deserved cameo!). Finn, Rey, and Poe finally get to be together, and their group dynamic is a lot of fun. The movie moves along at a breakneck pace, so you’re never bored. (Or at least, I wasn’t.) Both Rey and Kylo Ren’s arcs are well done and conclude in logical places (though Rey’s arc does diminish her TLJ arc, where she learned to “let the past die” and look forward). There are a few scenes that were perfectly executed—but those include heavy spoilers, so I’ll discuss them below. The action was great, and the visuals, particularly in the finale locales, were haunting.

I simply felt that the movie’s desperation to walk back the so-called “damage” done by TLJ was a bit transparent, even cowardly—it’s almost like JJ Abrams and company made a list of the loudest TLJ complaints and did everything short of declaring the last movie non-canon to check each box. There’s no need to pander, Disney. When you try to please everyone, you risk making a compromised product.

Well, let’s dive into spoilers, shall we?

SPOILERS AFTER THE IMAGE

So you didn’t like the way Luke carelessly tossed aside his lightsaber in TLJ? Don’t worry, he catches it this time (as a Force ghost, no less) and reminds Rey that a Jedi’s weapon is to be treated with respect. Angry that Kylo Ren smashed his helmet as a symbolic rejection of the past? It’s all right; he has it repaired right off the bat. Still mad that Snoke was killed off without a laboriously explained backstory? Take a deep breath; TROS gives you the Cliff’s Notes version. You hated Rose for interfering with Finn’s fruitless self-sacrifice at the Battle of Crait? Fear not, this time she stands dutifully by and lets him go down with the ship. (She’s also mostly sidelined, just to be safe.) Bugged that Admiral Holdo’s lightspeed-ramming maneuver “broke” the established laws of space combat? Good news—they make a point to explain that it won’t work again.

And of course, were you frustrated that Kylo Ren revealed that Rey’s parents were nobodies?

Well, the glass is half full for you, because actually they chose to be nobodies to protect her, and she was actually the descendant of a famous space wizard family after all. She’s the granddaughter of Palpatine (presumably, Palpatine had a kid before he got all crinkly).

I was irritated by that, I’ll be honest. I really like the idea that you don’t need to be a Skywalker or a Kenobi or a Palpatine or whatever. That’s something that annoyed me about the old Expanded Universe (now Legends), the pre-Disney books and comics where Luke, Leia, and Han always seemed to be the ones who had to save the galaxy again.

However, Rey’s choice at the end to be Skywalker rather than a Palpatine felt like a compromise between those who feel like I do and those who want her to be someone famous. She’s still from a famous space wizard family—but at least she gets to choose which one.

I’m all right with that. If we have to appease the people who really needed her to be related someone (ANYONE!), I’m glad that, to paraphrase a famous non-space wizard, “it is our choices…that show what we truly are, far more than our [heritage].”

STRAY SPOILERY THOUGHTS

• I thought Kylo Ren’s arc was very well handled—especially the scene where his memory of Han Solo appears to him, mimicking the scene where Kylo killed him, except with different results.

• My wife and I laughed when he strode toward Rey, soaking wet like an emo Mr. Darcy, though.

• The part where Luke lifted the X-wing was pure fan service, but it got me. I may have teared up a little. (However, I know for a fact that the door of Luke’s hut in TLJ was made from a wing from said X-wing, but I guess we’re going to ignore that.)

• The scene where all the reinforcements show up when all hope is lost was a lot of fun, but I think I would have liked it more if I hadn’t seen it done a little better in Endgame earlier this year. And perhaps if the trailers hadn’t spoiled that for us already.

• Hux died as he lived: the butt of jokes.

• So Palpatine survived by…mysterious Sith alchemy? And the Death Star survived somewhat intact by… You know what? I’m not going to get caught up in that. It’s space magic.

• Speaking of space magic, I can hear the self-appointed guardians of Star Wars lore getting mad at the “hyperspace skipping” scene, but who says hyperspace technology hasn’t evolved? Same with Force ghosts. Who said that those who have gone beyond haven’t figured out new ways to interact with the physical world (like Luke grabbing his saber and Yoda lighting a tree on fire in the last one)?

• Anybody have a full list of all the Jedi whose voices were heard encouraging Rey? I did like that part.

• The Knights of Ren looked like pretty bad dudes, but Kylo Ren took them out pretty quickly. That part where Rey Force-teleported her saber to Kylo, though? That was cool.

• Leia’s death confused me a little bit. I guess she projected herself across the galaxy in some form to help Kylo, and either the effort of doing it or the shock of Kylo being stabbed killed her? I suppose the filmmakers would have liked to make it more clear, but I respect that they had to work with the footage they had and didn’t want to CGI more Leia again. (Other than the flashback to Leia’s training, which was fine.)

• I also wanted Threepio’s sacrifice to have more impact. Getting his memories back at the end was a bit too easy.

• Chewie got a medal! Finally.

• That same-sex kiss between two background characters at the end isn’t going to make anyone happy. LGBTQ advocates will declare it a half measure, while others… well, the conservative-looking people next to me in the theater actually let out audible cries of disgust. You can’t have it both ways, Disney. You can’t please everyone.

So that’s the end of the Skywalker Saga, then. The Disney era has had its flaws—but so did the originals, no matter how thick the nostalgia-covered lens with which we view them. And at least they’re not the prequels. It’s been a fun ride, bumps and all.

And besides—no matter how we feel about this movie, we still have Baby Yoda. And what a blessing that is.

PS: Totally random, but if regardless of how you feel about Rian Johnson, director of TLJ, you should see his latest movie Knives Out. Some people didn’t like his style—subversion of tropes—for Star Wars, but that style makes for a really entertaining murder mystery. Just putting that out there.

The Last Jedi: Looking Back

I found this old post that I never published because I was tired of beating a dead tauntaun, but here goes. Originally written December 15, 2018.

Well, it’s been a year since The Last Jedi split the fandom more violently than Admiral Holdo crashing through the Supremacy. I still love the movie, and those who didn’t are still just as angry. So I’m going to sit down with a hypothetical dissenter (who will supply many of the arguments I’ve heard parroted over the last year) and I’ll do my best to debunk their arguments with a year’s worth of reflection.

Let’s get one thing clear. There’s a difference in those who hated TLJ. There are lots of reasonable, totally-not-racist-or-sexist fans for whom the movie just didn’t land. And there are the nutjobs. It would be doing the reasonable dissenters a disservice to lump them with the idiots who sent Kathleen Kennedy, Rian Johnson, and Kelly Marie Tran death threats. However, the arguments I’m about to face will come from both contingents of TLJ detractors.

So, let’s get started.

DETRACTOR: You’re an apologist! Or worse, a shill!

I’ve stopped caring if you agree with me, but please realize that art is subjective. It’s difficult for some to wrap their minds around the forbidden notion that an intelligent person can like TLJ, but it can be done.

DETRACTOR: It disrespected the franchise!

Definitively an opinion. If you were hoping for a slavish buffet of fan service or a dutiful bullet-point list of answers to your questions, then sure, maybe.

DETRACTOR: It was so full of plot holes and lazy writing!

Please tell me about plot holes, Mr. Random-Internet-Guy-Who-Thought-Batman-v.-Superman-was-a-“Modern-Masterpiece.” A plot development that wasn’t fully explained is not necessarily a plot hole or lazy writing. And a character action you didn’t agree with isn’t necessarily poor characterization. Keep that in mind when we talk about Luke in a couple paragraphs.

DETRACTOR: Leia flying in space was stupid.

It was a Force pull. No different than Luke Force pulling his lightsaber in the cave on Hoth, except she was pulling on a much larger object—the Raddus—so it makes sense that she would move toward it instead of vice versa.

DETRACTOR: Okay, sure, but it looked stupid.

It could have been filmed in another way, yes. I’ll give you that. But that’s it—there’s precedent for people surviving in space in Star Wars—watch Rebels, for instance.

DETRACTOR: The hyperspace ramming scene didn’t make sense in the context of Star Wars. Why not just ram a few X-Wings into the Death Star next time?

It’s clearly a one-in-a-million maneuver. It’s about timing—jump to hyperspace too soon and you miss your target; jump to hyperspace too late and you crash into your target at sublight speed. Simple enough.

DETRACTOR: TLJ ruined Luke Skywalker. Luke defeated Vader and then spared his life. He’s a great warrior. Why would he refuse to fight?

Well, no. He could have defeated Vader, but he realized how he was straying close to the dark side and stopped. In TLJ’s climax, Luke’s fight—or lack of one—is the truest expression of Jedi ideals. Don’t believe me? To quote Yoda: “To Obi-Wan you listen!”

Remember when Obi-Wan said, “There are alternatives to fighting”? Or when Yoda himself said, “Wars not make one great” and “A Jedi uses the Force for defense, never for attack”? Or Mace Windu: “We’re keepers of the peace, not soldiers.”

When the Jedi gave into the their martial urges and became warriors, leading soldiers in the Clone Wars, they lost sight of who they were, and it led to their destruction.

DETRACTOR: Luke still died for nothing, though.

If by “for nothing” you mean “by holding off the entire First Order so the Resistance could escape—all while maintaining a fiendishly difficult Force trick and upholding the Jedi’s ancient pacifist spirit”—then sure, I guess.

DETRACTOR: So why would he regress, then? Why would he become a jaded, nephew-murdering creep?

You think that once a weakness is conquered, it stays conquered forever, never rearing its ugly head again? It’s refreshing to see a hero struggling with something real—the resurgence of weaknesses of youth, which he must conquer anew. I’m sorry if Luke Skywalker is no longer a pristine vessel for vicarious wish-fulfillment, but his trajectory in TLJ feels real to me. I’ll take a flawed hero over an overpowered bada** any day.

Character development doesn’t have to always be in an upward direction. Don’t confuse it with leveling up—you can develop a character without just making him more and more powerful.

And let’s not forget that he didn‘t kill Ben—he only thought about it for the briefest of moments. Who among us hasn’t nurtured ill-advised impulses from deep within our darker natures—Luke just had the misfortune of being caught while doing it at the worst moment.

DETRACTOR: So he refused to kill an evil mass murderer like Darth Vader, but he could kill an unarmed child?

First, Ben was an adult in his 20s, not a child. Second, Luke saw in Ben a repeat of all the horrors committed by Darth Vader and the Emperor, destroying all he’d ever built. And for just an instant, he was tempted to stop it before it started. It’s like the old question: would you kill baby Hitler, if you knew what he’d grow up to be?

DETRACTOR: Okay, but you have to admit the alien breastmilk scene was unnecessary.

Maybe. It served the dual role of trying to scare Rey off while showing that Luke had returned to his roots—remember the blue milk from Tatooine?

DETRACTOR: And Rey? She didn’t get any character development. She’s just a Mary Sue.

It was a said day for conscientious discourse the day the Internet discovered the term “Mary Sue”—and a happy day for angry misogynists who could now use it as a catch-all for any female character they didn’t like. As I said earlier, don’t confuse leveling up with character development. Her development is all about learning to let go of the past (her need to return to Jakku, to know who her parents were, to belong) and face the future. I don’t really need to see her Jedi training—we’ve seen that before. So she’s a prodigy who has a lot of innate skills without having to go through some kind of Rocky montage to learn them. So what? It’s not like she blew up the Death Star on her first try, then had like a week tops of training with Yoda, and somehow emerged as a powerful Jedi, right?

DETRACTOR: What about the jokes? Those were stupid.

They didn’t all land, it’s true. Mostly I’m talking about visual gags with BB-8, whom the filmmmakers turned into a ninja. Those were unnecessary.

DETRACTOR: And the Canto Bight storyline?

It had some pacing and tone issues, but overall it was a necessary part of Finn’s arc. Remember, he was never 100% committed to the resistance after The Force Awakens. We assume he should be a Rebel by the end of the movie, because that’s how Han Solo was presented, but when TLJ begins, he’s mostly just interested in finding Rey safe. Then he sets off on this adventure with Rose and DJ as the angel and devil on his shoulder, respectively—one telling him to dedicate himself to a cause, and the other telling him not to join. Sure, their attempt to save the Resistance went awry, but that storyline brought Finn’s arc to a good place.

“You were always scum,” sneers Phasma.

“Rebel scum,” replies Finn. That’s the moment when he finally chooses a side.

DETRACTOR: Okay, but what about the bombs in space/slow-speed space chase? Rian Johnson clearly has no idea how space works.

So, sound in space, explosions in space, starfighters making sharp turns despite having nothing but forward thrusters, spaceship engines being on the whole time despite Newton’s Third Law, and ubiquitous artificial gravity don’t bother you—but you’re drawing the line at bombs in space?

DETRACTOR: If the movie really were good, you wouldn’t have to put so much thought into defending it.

So you’re saying you’d rather have your cinematic experience free of thinking? People like you are the reason they made five Transformers movies, five Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and eleventy billion Fast & Furious movies.

DETRACTOR: ... [mutters incoherently about SJWs ruining Star Wars]

TLJ brought Star Wars where it needed to be: out of the tropes it’s been mired in for years and into the heart of a new generation of fans. I just wish the old generation would calm down about something that was—and always has been—made for the young and young at heart.

DETRACTOR: Fire Kathleen Kennedy! Star Wars is dead! Ruin Johnson destroyed my childhood!

Sigh.

Read my previous posts on the topic here:

“The Last Jedi: The Only Review You Need to Read”

“In Further Defense of the Last Jedi”