Love it or hate it, it sure feels like Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker set out to erase
some things about Episode VIII and not everyone is happy about it.
From backstory twists to forgotten characters, here are all the ways The Rise of Skywalker
ignores The Last Jedi.
Introduced in The Force Awakens, Snoke was one of the most mysterious characters of the
sequel trilogy.
That's why fans were so surprised when he met an end during The Last Jedi.
As Rey is brought to face the Supreme Leader of the First Order, Kylo Ren suddenly kills
his boss before decimating a room full of underlings with Rey's assistance.
The scene is one of the standout sequences of The Last Jedi as a whole, thanks to some
stunning cinematography and set design.
Still, some fans were dismayed to see Snoke go up in smoke so soon without ever learning
his history.
J.J. Abrams and company, unwilling to let sleeping Snokes lie, resolved that mystery
at the start of The Rise of Skywalker.
As Kylo Ren visits Emperor Palpatine in his secret lair, the camera pans over a tank full
of floating, sleeping Snokes, and that's when Palpatine breaks the news.
He created and engineered Snoke.
The Supreme Leader was nothing more than a puppet, putting to rest Snoke's previous claim
that he created the connection between Rey and Ren.
In the grand tradition of his grandfather, Darth Vader, Kylo Ren sported a sleek, black
and silver helmet meant to evoke one of the most famous bad guys of all time.
However, during The Last Jedi, when Supreme Leader Snoke basically tells him that his
headgear looks stupid, Kylo destroys the helmet.
In a pretty shameless move, Abrams reverses course on the helmet entirely, going so far
as to get Kylo and his crew to basically glue the helmet back together.
Though Kylo later abandons the helmet once he changes course to become Ben Solo once
again, it's still restored as a motif after being an important factor in the first film.
Obviously, Abrams didn't agree with some of the choices that Rian Johnson made during
The Last Jedi, and the helmet was just one of the smaller course corrections Abrams made
to a scene from The Last Jedi that didn’t sit well with fans.
Introduced in The Last Jedi, Vice Admiral Holdo is chosen to aid and later replace General
Leia Organa.
Holdo's plan is to evacuate as many Resistance allies and fighters as possible using smaller
transports, and though Poe thinks her plan is way too timid to work, she has one last
trick up her sleeve.
At the last minute, Holdo remains on the Resistance's main ship alone, using it as a decoy and sacrificing
herself to save an entire cause.
One might think that Holdo's incredible act might warrant some sort of fanfare, but The
Rise of Skywalker does away with this notion pretty quickly.
When discussing the best tactics for attacking the still-enormous First Order, it's suggested
that the Resistance could use a "Holdo maneuver," an idea which is shut down almost immediately
because it couldn't possibly work.
It was one of the most controversial scenes in The Last Jedi and Abrams obviously came
down on the side of those criticizing the maneuver - in a sense justifying those that
hated it.
One of the biggest - and probably least expected - corrections in The Rise of Skywalker is
the afterthought that is Rose Tico.
A scrappy mechanic driven by revenge, Rose proves to be an invaluable ally to Finn as
they try to escape the clutches of the First Order.
During The Last Jedi’s final battle, she's right there on the front lines with Poe and
Finn.
After saving Finn from a suicide mission in his speeder, the two even share a kiss, which
the film built to throughout their brief relationship.
After The Last Jedi was released, actress Kelly Marie Tran endured some of the cruelest
and worst abuse at the hands of Star Wars fans.
Unfortunately, Abrams seems to have validated those opinions in The Rise of Skywalker.
Rose is relegated to the background for the entire film, staying away from important missions
for no reason at all and basically serving as a glorified extra.
Considering what Tran went through over her role, quite the shock that The Rise of Skywalker
simply saw fit to cut her character out of the action all together.
The Rise of Skywalker co-writer Chris Terrio claims that most of Tran’s scenes were shared
with the late Carrie Fisher, and due to technical issues re-inserting Leia back into the movie,
those scenes were cut.
Fans were amazed when, during the climax of The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren reveals to Rey that
her parents were just a couple of drunks who sold her off for petty cash.
In perhaps the boldest move in the entire sequel trilogy, Johnson tried to present a
Star Wars universe in which you don't have to come from a famous family to be skilled
in the Force.
"They're buried in a pauper's desert in Jakku.
You have no place in this story.
You come from nothing.
You're nothing."
Despite Johnson's best efforts, Abrams majorly walked back this decision in The Rise of Skywalker.
In another confession, Kylo tells Rey that her parents were simply pretending to be nobody.
In fact, her father was the son of Palpatine, and her parents sacrificed themselves to save
her in a very Harry Potter-esque twist.
Johnson swung huge with his decision to make Rey independent of any notable Star Wars lineage.
In all the retcons in The Rise Of Skywalker, this is perhaps the biggest, because it completely
undoes the entire theme of The Last Jedi - if you loved The Last Jedi, this is the one that
probably gets you the most.
After Kylo Ren and Rey decimate Snoke's remaining forces in The Last Jedi, he offers her his
hand, saying they can rule the galaxy forever.
Rey refuses, and the two engage in a brutal Force tug-of-war that ends up destroying Luke
Skywalker's legendary lightsaber, seemingly for good.
While it's implied that Leia fixed the lightsaber between films, nobody ever addresses its destruction
in The Rise of Skywalker, and it simply reappears in the narrative.
The more obvious Last Jedi snub, however, comes when Rey returns to Ahch-To to run away
from her Jedi powers just like Luke did.
As she prepares to throw her saber into the flames, Luke's Force ghost appears and admonishes
her, saying she should treat the weapon with more respect.
That serves as a very obvious reference to the moment in The Last Jedi where Luke tosses
his own saber over his shoulder dismissively.
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