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‘The Rise of Skywalker’ Team Shades ‘The Last Jedi,’ Ignites Twitter Feud

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When I walked out of Star Wars: The Last Jedi in December of 2017, I was pleasantly surprised. While the story did stick close to the general plot beats of The Empire Strikes Back, much in the same way The Force Awakens mirrored A New Hope, I felt as if its sobering message against ragtag, all-or-nothing suicide missions helped set the sequel trilogy apart from the original, finally giving it a unique identity of its own and justifying its existence as more than a rehash. Similarly, Rey’s identity as an everyday person who just happened to be gifted with the force struck me as more genuinely in-line with the idea of a people-lead rebellion than the iffy bloodline politics of the original trilogy. Something has never sat right with me about the Rebel Alliance being run by not only a space princess, but a space princess who is the daughter of the big bad. While I love the original trilogy, something about the fate of the galaxy, good or ill, being decided by one family felt at odds with the “alliance” part of “Rebel Alliance.”

Also…the Luke vs Kylo Ren “fight” at the end of the movie was, to use a technical term, sick AF.

Positive reviews seemed to bolster my opinion in the early hours following release, and I had expected to see that praise grow with time. Even J.J. Abrams, director of The Force Awakens, had told his close friend, actor Greg Grunberg, in 2015 that he thought the script for The Last Jedi was “so good” that he wished he had written it.

Which is I was so surprised to see the amount of vitriol the film would eventually come to attract. While The Last Jedi has a critic score of 85 on Metacritic, its user score is currently at 4.4, well below The Force Awakens’ current user score of 6.8. Similarly, a change.org petition to strike The Last Jedi from Star Wars canon has currently received 116,893 signatures, and a website dedicated to remaking The Last Jedi claims to have had over $417,000 pledged to its budget. Meanwhile, an aggressive fan community self-identified as the #fandommenace has taken to social media to, erm, “interact” directly with actors, critics, and The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson.

Now, the Last Jedi backlash has blown up enough to receive coverage across mainstream sites. Even J.J. Abrams, who is now directing The Rise of Skywalker, has recognized the response, calling for a return to “nuance and acceptance.” Now, as the press tour for the Rise of Skywalker begins to wrap up, he seems to be opening up more.

Speaking to The New York Times on December 11, J.J. Abrams seemed to turn on his previous Last Jedi jealousy. While he congratulated The Last Jedi for being “full of surprises and subversion and all sorts of bold choices,” he also pushing back against these themes, arguing that they were perhaps antithetical to the series. “On the other hand, it’s a bit of a meta approach to the story. I don’t think that people go to ‘Star Wars’ to be told, ‘This doesn’t matter.’”

He also hinted that the Rise of Skywalker will be drastically different from The Last Jedi, saying that its “a story that I think needed a pendulum swing in one direction in order to swing in the other.”

Abrams wasn’t the only one to throw shade at The Last Jedi, with Rey actress Daisy Ridley saying she cried in relief when she learned Abrams would be coming back to direct the series finale. Meanwhile, Finn actor John Boyega explained that he was excited to wrap up the plot threads introduced in The Force Awakens, explaining that “Even as a normal person in the audience, I wanted to see where that story was going,” and referring to Episode 9 by saying “We’re in legit, legit ‘Star Wars’ now.”

However, just as The Last Jedi earned backlash, these comments from the Rise of Skywalker team did as well. Both Rian Johnson and The Last Jedi hit trending status on Twitter yesterday, with The Last Jedi’s fans calling out the cast and crew’s attempt to “course correct.” A divisive movie, after all, is not a universally hated movie, nor is it a forgettable movie. That 85 critic score doesn’t come from nowhere.

The backlash to the backlash began with a simple screenshot of Abrams’ quote, with the caption “Poor The Last Jedi.” While some replies and RTs to this tweet expressed agreement with Abrams, others called the statements unprofessional to Rian Johnson:

Meanwhile, the thread’s original poster made their own response calling out Abrams’ pendulum comment:

Other high profile tweets claimed Abrams misinterpreted Johnson’s goals with The Last Jedi:

And yet others seemed to suggest what Rian Johnson should do next:

Though one user claims Rian might be too professional to do so:

The stats for The Last Jedi’s defense aren’t negligible, though Rian Johnson isn’t the only one who’s come under fire, nor the only Star Wars creator who’s been mentioned with negative implications recently by a collaborator.

While I personally appreciate The Last Jedi, I have plenty of real-life friends who disagree with me. I don’t mind arguing about the film with them, where we never take the criticism to a personal level. However, some The Last Jedi haters have taken to harassment to express their dislike. Particularly, many of them have focused their abuse on Rose actress Kelly Marie Tran, who last year left social media, partially in response. Speaking to The New York Times shortly later that year, she explained, “It wasn’t their words, it’s that I started to believe them.” She elaborated about how the hate campaign played into existing social biases to attack her anxiety. “Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories.”

Speaking to Variety yesterday, John Boyega offered sympathies to Tran, while also seeming to play into those anxieties. When Variety asked Boyega about how some of the fandom has treated Tran, he said:

“Being in this position, you just understand the masses, how the masses think, you know. Through social media, we get to engage, we get to have fun. But at the same time, for those who are not mentally strong, you are weak to believe in every single thing that you read.”

Boyega came under fire for these comments, both for not standing with Tran and for implying that targets of harassment campaigns are weak.

However, he has since taken to Twitter to apologize and clarify his statement.

While the Twitter discourse rages on, some users have also, like Rian Johnson, taken a meta perspective on the discussion itself, with one imagining the PR team’s reaction:

While Lindsey Romain at Nerdist questions whether the move for the Rise of Skywalker team to speak out against The Last Jedi is a marketing stunt to attract those who disliked the film to see Rise of Skywalker, and if it is, whether it’s a wise one.

As someone who likes The Last Jedi, my sympathies are clear. I agree with Romain that the actors and Abrams aren’t obligated to also like the movie, but that ignoring or retconning The Last Jedi will make the sequel trilogy as a whole feel weaker, regardless of their feelings. However, I am also hesitant to take what is said at a press junket without multiple grains of salt, which does raise the question of why the Rise of Skywalker crew would drop the more reserved tone on The Last Jedi that they’ve held for most of the film’s production for this more candid one just a week before release.

I suppose I will have to wait until next weekend to see just how far the pendulum is swinging back.



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