Star Wars stands huge in popular culture, and while opinions always differ, the 2010s
have given fans moments that made them cheer, cry, and everything in between.
Here's our breakdown of the best Star Wars moments of this last decade.
Upon first watching 2015's The Force Awakens, most fans were asking themselves the same
question most of the characters struggled with throughout the film: "Where's Luke?"
"We simply do not have enough information to locate Master Luke."
The Jedi hero was nowhere to be seen for most of the movie, and it was enough to make you
wonder if he was going to show up at all.
Luke's eventual portrayal in The Last Jedi would not be met with universal praise.
But the moment at the end of The Force Awakens in which Rey finally meets the Jedi master
is wonderfully done.
After finding all the pieces of Luke's map and landing on the remote island where Skywalker
is hiding out, Rey climbs a crest to find him a hooded, cloaked figure.
As she holds out the lightsaber to him, Luke throws back his hood and says nothing.
It's a perfect ending that leaves you wanting more.
You want to know why he's on the island, why he left the map fragments to be found, and
whether or not he has any idea what's been happening in his absence.
Heck, you kind of just want to know what his voice sounds like these days.
The Force Awakens brought with it the heartbreaking death of one of the original trilogy's favorite
heroes, the original scruffy-lookin' nerf-herder himself, Han Solo.
But before Han proves he hasn't learned the important lesson of staying off catwalks over
bottomless shafts, the smuggler returns to the movie screen exactly as he should.
With Rey and Finn having stolen the Millennium Falcon while escaping Jakku, they're snatched
out of space by a pursuer whom they initially think is affiliated with the First Order.
Instead, it's a fan-favorite duo from the original trilogy, hauling carnivorous beasts.
Before our younger heroes can do anything to stop them, Han and Chewie pull the Falcon
into the hangar of their larger ship with a tractor beam.
After an ominous series of clangs and bangs, the two storm onboard the legendary ship with
guns drawn.
Once they don't see anyone, Han relaxes a little, smiles, and says "Chewie, we're home."
It's an awesome moment, particularly for fans of the original films.
It doesn't come as much of a surprise, as Han's line was heavily used in the promotional
lead up to The Force Awakens.
But it's still tough not to cheer at least a little when he delivers it.
We would be a whole pack of scruffy-lookin' nerfherders if we didn't mention perhaps the
most awww-inspiring and merchandise-promising Star Wars moment of the decade - the big reveal
of Baby Yoda.
Everything about the series feels like a bleak Western classic or a bloody samurai epic,
with its hero being a gun-for-hire who takes work from remnants of the Empire.
Even the character who proves to be one of Mando's closest allies, the diminutive Kuiil,
helps the bounty hunter in large part to stop people like Mando from coming to his home.
Once Mando and the killer droid IG-11 fight their way past the target's guards, it's a
genuinely jaw-dropping surprise to learn their target is an infant in a floating egg - a
member of the late Yoda's mysterious species.
The reveal was an absolute master stroke, and the shot of Baby Yoda's little hand reaching
for Mando's gloved finger is sure to be burned into Star Wars' fans memories for years to
come.
With the exception of the digital Princess Leia cameo, the closest we got to a Jedi hero
in 2016's Rogue One is the warrior-monk Chirrut Îmwe.
Chirrut is not a Jedi himself, but as a member of a religious order charged with protecting
the Temple of Kyber, Chirrut understands the Force better than any of the heroes of Rogue
One.
Shortly after we first meet him, in spite of his blindness, Chirrut beats the tar out
of a squad of Stormtroopers harassing Jyn and Cassian.
Throughout the film, he repeats the phrase: "The Force is with me, and I am with the Force,"
often to the irritation of his friend, Baze.
It's precisely this phrase that Chirrut repeats over and over in the climactic scene of the
film, when he makes it possible for the heroes to contact the Rebel fleet fighting in orbit.
In spite of the console being on the other side of a no man's land filled with laser
fire, Chirrut picks up his staff and repeats his credo while walking into a storm of gun
blasts.
Miraculously, he survives the long walk to the console and hits the right switches, allowing
Bodhi to contact the Rebel fleet and let them know to take down the Scariff planetary shield
in order to receive the Death Star plans.
Unfortunately, Chirrut dies moments later when the console is destroyed, but his sacrifice
remains one of the most touching and iconic moments of the film.
One of the best things about Solo: A Star Wars Story is that it gives us a lot of the
Millennium Falcon.
Still, for anyone who's seen the original trilogy, they're just waiting to find out
when young Han is going to win the thing from Lando already.
If you've watched The Empire Strikes Back, then you know Han won the Falcon fair and
square in a card game from Lando Calrissian.
"What have you done to my ship?"
"Your ship?
'Ey.
Remember, you lost her to me fair and square."
Once we find the younger versions of both scoundrels looking at each other from across
a card table, we think we're finally about to see Han's famous win... but we're wrong.
At least, at first.
Han's luck runs out at his first game of sabacc with Lando, but he joins Beckett's crew anyway.
Lando later leaves Han and his friends high and dry when it looks like the Marauders are
about to take them out, but Han doesn't forget the ship he fell in love with.
In the final moments of the film, Han tracks Lando down, snatches the card from the sleeve
gadget Lando thinks no one can see, and truly beats the rival smuggler fair and square.
It was the perfect note to end Solo on, and it felt exactly how the card showdown between
these two reluctant heroes should've played out.
By the end of The Force Awakens, we've watched Kylo Ren not only torture and kill innocents,
but we've been forced to witness one of the most heart-wrenching moments in Star Wars
- the death of Han Solo at the hands of his son.
But after killing Han and almost doing the same to Finn, Kylo Ren gets his just desserts
on the snowy surface of Starkiller Base, when Rey teaches him exactly what a Jedi is.
Better still, she does it with the Skywalker lightsaber, a weapon that Kylo claims belongs
to him.
The moment Rey is able to reach deep within herself and achieve the calm and confidence
she needs to defeat Han Solo's killer is one of the most powerful scenes of the new trilogy.
Plus, it's a truly beautiful shot.
It's that much more powerful when you remember that no one in the audience knew exactly who
the Jedi in this movie was going to be.
There was a lot of smart misdirection going on into the promotional lead up to The Force
Awakens.
Most of the trailers and TV spots showed Finn, not Rey, wielding the blue lightsaber, even
going so far to feature shots of the short duel between Finn and Kylo.
Having died toward the end of The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker's Force ghost returns in The
Rise of Skywalker and his entrance is perfect.
Believing she's lost any chance of finding the hidden Sith planet of Exegol and fearing
her potential for turning to the dark side, Rey swipes Kylo Ren's TIE fighter and flies
to Ahch-To, the planet where she finally discovered the disillusioned Luke Skywalker in the closing
moments of The Force Awakens.
After she intentionally crashes the craft, the TIE fighter is being destroyed in a raging
fire when Rey takes out Luke's old lightsaber.
She hurls it at the fire, only to see Luke's hand reach out and grab the weapon.
It's a powerful call back to the early scene in The Last Jedi when, after being offered
his old lightsaber by Rey, Luke flings it behind him like garbage.
Now, in the afterlife, Luke's clearly got a different perspective.
If we still don't get the reference, Luke's Force ghost drives the point home by telling
Rey that, quote, "a Jedi's weapon deserves more respect."
And in case the scene doesn't already have fans applauding, Luke uses the Force to lift
his submerged X-wing out of the water so Rey can use it get to Exegol.
We're immediately reminded of a similar act that he fails at in The Empire Strikes Back,
earning him a hard lesson from Yoda.
At the end of The Rise of Skywalker, Rey finds herself physically alone in her confrontation
with Emperor Palpatine, but in every other way, she's got plenty of company.
Just like we found her chanting in the beginning of the film, Rey repeats the phrase "be with
me," and finally, she gets an answer that reaches back to every corner of the Skywalker
saga.
The filmmakers gather an army of Jedi voices from the live-action films and the fan-favorite
animated series, all assuring Rey they're with her.
You might not be able to distinguish them all from one another, but the credits confirm
that from the live-action trilogies we hear Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu, Frank Oz
as Yoda, Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker, and
Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn.
From the animated series The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, the chorus includes Angelique
Perrin as Adi Gallia, Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano, Freddie Prinze Jr. as Kanan Jarrus,
Jennifer Hale as Aayla Secura, and Olivia D'Abo as Luminara Unduli .
If anything was ever meant to be a love letter to Star Wars fans, this is it.
Bringing together so many voices for a single scene is something no one expected.
And the chorus of Jedi ends with Rey using Luke and Leia's crossed lightsabers - as well
as the power of all the Jedi who came before her - to bring a satisfyingly final destruction
to Emperor Palpatine.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story isn't a movie with a lot of lightsaber duels.
There are no colorful Sith/Jedi clashes and no conflicting politics within the Jedi Council.
Regardless, Darth Vader makes two cool appearances, perhaps most memorably in a hallway slaughter
scene where he boards the Rebel command ship and relentlessly cuts down the troops who've
just successfully uploaded the Death Star plans.
The plans survive the hallway attack, but none of the Rebels in the hallway do.
Most of the Rebels in the following hallway don't live, either.
One finally races through the airlock of the Tantive IV, which just barely has time to
detach with Princess Leia on board.
Ironically, while Vader doesn't feature much in Rogue One, this scene is arguably the single
most brutal Vader scene in the history of Star Wars.
And, if you can believe it, there's an even more violent version of the scene that you
can find on the Blu-ray.
In a way, this was a scene Darth Vader very much needed.
After the three prequels, which were filled with masterfully choreographed lightsaber
duels, the comparatively stiff, lumbering Darth Vader can sometimes make you wonder
how he was ever a threat.
The Rogue One hallway scene reminds you of exactly what this monster is capable of.
Carrie Fisher tragically died one year before the release of The Last Jedi - a fact that
can't help but lend heartbreaking power to certain scenes.
Fans and critics may always be divided over the quality of the film, but regardless of
feelings about the movie, you've got to have some heartstrings pulled when Luke tells Leia,
"No one's ever really gone" before he kisses her tenderly on her forehead.
The moment is a bit of serendipity.
It wasn't planned.
At least least the kiss wasn't.
Mark Hamill told Entertainment Tonight that he spontaneously decided to do it in the middle
of the take.
"It just happened.
I was standing up and they weren't ready for it, and they said, 'No do that again,' and
we did it for a second take."
Hamill said the scene was, quote, "really momentous" for him, because it represented
Luke saying goodbye to his sister forever.
Unfortunately, Hamill lost his friend Fisher before the scene was shown in theaters.
The actor said that because of the loss, he still can't watch the scene.
"She'll be forever missed.
And she's irreplaceable."
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