Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker debuts on Rotten Tomatoes with a score lower than Attack of the Clones. Since Disney relaunched the franchise with The Force Awakens in 2015, the series has enjoyed a largely positive reception. Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and Rogue One are all Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes (despite being divisive amongst fans for various reasons), and even box office bomb Solo received generally good reviews. With Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams back at the helm for The Rise of Skywalker, there were high hopes the blockbuster would be a rousing finale that concluded the saga on a high note.

Unfortunately, that hasn't turned out to be the case. Reactions following the world premiere pointed to a massive and satisfying ending, but there were those who had a more mixed view of the film. That carried over into the full written reviews that went up overnight, and it looks like The Rise of Skywalker is going to go down as one of the worst-reviewed Star Wars installments in the franchise's 42-year history.

Related: Read Screen Rant's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Review

Rotten Tomatoes officially unveiled the Rise of Skywalker Tomatometer score today, when it was at 56% after 117 reviews were counted. As of this writing, the film still stands at 56% with 137 reviews, though that figure has been fluctuating throughout the day as more reviews are posted. This is by far the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score for a Disney Star Wars movie and the worst for the overall series since Attack of the Clones (65%).

It's important to keep in mind this will continue to be a fluid situation over the next couple of days. 137 reviews sounds like a lot, but it's merely a fraction of what the final total will be. For example, The Last Jedi has 455 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, while Solo has 461. Avengers: Endgame has nearly 500, so there are plenty more Rise of Skywalker reviews to come. It seems highly unlikely The Rise of Skywalker will earn the Certified Fresh seal of approval its fellow sequel trilogy installments did, but perhaps it can work its way back into Fresh territory (60% or better). Right now, it's the second Rotten live-action Star Wars movie, alongside The Phantom Menace (which saw its Rotten Tomatoes score drop after the 2012 3D re-release).

Clearly, this isn't the word-of-mouth Disney and Lucasfilm were looking for, as The Rise of Skywalker was already projected to have the lowest opening weekend of the sequel trilogy. The studio was probably hoping an enthusiastic reception would lead to an uptick in the numbers, but "worst Star Wars since Attack of the Clones" is not exactly a ringing endorsement and that could impact the box office performance. To be fair, The Rise of Skywalker is still poised to earn $200+ million domestically and should be a financial success, but its legs may not be as strong as expected if fans agree with the critics' verdict.

More: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Is Fixing Major Sequel Trilogy Mistake

Source: Rotten Tomatoes

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