Decades of galactic duels, daddy issues, and a $4 billion corporate buyout all came to
a climax in 2019's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
The ninth and most likely final movie in the Skywalker Saga closed out Disney and Lucasfilm's
sequel trilogy in ways that fans and critics alike continue to lock lightsabers over. This
being Star Wars we're talking about, the arguments amongst fans may well go on forever.
However petty the squabbles might get, some of the things pointed out by the most obsessive
Star Wars enthusiasts really are worth doing a double take over. One such fan went viral
on the Star Wars subreddit in August 2020 for pointing out what they deemed, quote,
"one of, if not the dumbest moments in all of [Star Wars]."
That user, who goes by the name of DaTruestEva, was referring to a pivotal scene from none
other than The Rise of Skywalker, and no matter how you feel about the movie, you might just
find yourself agreeing with their point.
Early in the film, Rey, Finn, and Poe travel to the desert planet Pasaana, searching for
an important relic called a Sith wayfinder. While the journey proves fruitless in that
regard, all hope is not lost, for our heroes stumble across a dead Jedi hunter's dagger
that may lead them to the wayfinder if they can translate the Sith inscription on it.
They of course turn to C-3PO, "fluent in over six million forms of communication," for help.
As the droid explains, however, the Imperial Senate restricted droids from speaking the
Sith language many years earlier. He fails to provide the translation, and it doesn't
take long for the First Order to come and steal the dagger, and Chewbacca. After some
dramatic sequences of planet-hopping antics, backup plans, and a rescue mission, they manage
to both retrieve the dagger and hack the translation out of C-3PO's memory banks.
It all leads to the reveal that the wayfinder they seek lies in the ruins of the second
Death Star, on one of Endor's moons.
Oh, and they also learn that the blade was used to kill Rey's parents. This thing's got
more uses than a Swiss army knife.
Once the team reaches the moon where the second Death Star fell, Rey pulls out the dagger
to see if it holds any additional clues. Indeed it does: wielding the dagger before her after
discovering a tape measure-like extension in the crossguard, she aligns its ridges with
the broken form of the second Death Star, which points directly to the Imperial Vault,
where the Sith wayfinder should be.
The whole scene is a little too perfect, giving Reddit full leeway to rip right into it with
a mix of humor and genuine disappointment in this perceived insult to the audience's
intelligence. How would any of this actually work?
Aside from the dagger existing as a plot convenience, the scenario raises a slew of questions: Should
the contours of the dagger lining up with the devastated Death Star ruins in a scarily
accurate fashion be explained away as "the will of the Force?" How about the fact that
Rey landed the Millennium Falcon not an inch away from where she needed to be in order
to perform this incredible feat of movie magic? Was it just a coincidence that she approached
the wreckage from the perfect angle?
"How does that even make sense?"
Of course, this is hardly the first questionable moment to find its way into a Star Wars movie.
Over its 40-plus-year history, the saga has had its fair share of glaring plot holes,
confusing MacGuffins, and weird decisions galore.
In Return of the Jedi, Luke and Leia have an emotional conversation before Luke leaves
to confront Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, a beautiful, character-building scene, save
one plot hole. Aware that they're siblings, Luke asks if Leia remembers her real mother
at all, and she does, recalling that she was beautiful, kind, but sad.
As audiences would learn more than 20 years later, however, her mother Padmé died during
childbirth, meaning neither Luke nor Leia would remember her. Call it hindsight bias,
but it stands out when watching the film today.
The plot of The Force Awakens, meanwhile, hinges on a map detailing Luke's whereabouts
that's been hidden inside BB-8 by Poe Dameron, who in turn received it from the mysterious
Lor San Tekka.
It's eventually revealed that this map is just an incomplete fragment, and the rest
of the information is actually stored in R2-D2, who has been completely deactivated since
his old master disappeared. We can overlook our questions about the unlikely journey of
this map, but it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense why R2 suddenly awakens at the
end of the movie, seemingly unprompted, just in time for the big reveal.
As for other weird and controversial decisions...take your pick: Jar Jar Binks' entire existence,
Vader screaming "NO!" as he saves Luke from Palpatine in George Lucas' revised version
of Return of the Jedi, midichlorians determining Force abilities, and so on. The list spans
the galaxy, but so does our love for this wonderfully flawed space opera.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite
movies and TV shows are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so
you don't miss a single one.