When The Force Awakens first hit theaters, most Star Wars fans were ecstatic that a new era of their favorite franchise had been ushered in, and the action was more exciting and spectacular than ever before. Beloved icons like Leia Organa and Han Solo were back on the big screen, while some promising new characters made their debuts.
However, as the sequel trilogy went on and fans suspected that J.J. Abrams had no real plan for where the plot points of The Force Awakens were going, public opinion of the movie soured. Now, it’s remembered as the beginning of the end.
Yet Another Death Star
The Death Star worked spectacularly as a plot point in the original 1977 Star Wars movie, but the franchise has since been unable to let go of the concept of a planet-destroying superweapon. In Return of the Jedi, the Empire tried to reconstruct its space station, so the plot repeated itself.
That was pretty egregious, but it was nothing compared to J.J. Abrams making The Force Awakens as yet another tale of a struggling rebellion working to destroy an evil empire’s Death Star-style superweapon.
Rathtars Attack!
When Rey and Finn first come across Han Solo and Chewbacca, they’ve abandoned the New Republic and returned to lives of piracy, because nostalgia. They’re harboring a bunch of tentacled monsters called Rathtars for a band of gangsters.
The Rathtars escape when the gangsters board the ship. This scene adds nothing to the plot and only serves to pad it out, while the Rathtars themselves look like something out of Men in Black or Guardians of the Galaxy, not Star Wars.
Kylo Ren Worships Darth Vader
Kylo Ren is introduced as yet another masked villain in charge of yet another evil empire that has taken over the galaxy using TIE fighters and Star Destroyers. He worships Darth Vader’s charred mask, pledging to finish what his grandfather started.
But this completely ignores Anakin’s redemption in Return of the Jedi. At some point during Kylo Ren’s life, Anakin’s Force ghost surely would’ve appeared to him and said, “Dude, I turned my back on the dark side, remember? You should, too!”
“A Good Story, For Another Time...”
One of the many immensely talented actors wasted by the paper-thin characterization of the Star Wars sequel trilogy was Lupita Nyong’o as Maz Kanata. She’s introduced as a fascinating, funny new character, but she’s quickly reduced to yet another exposition mouthpiece.
In the basement of her castle, when she gives Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber to Rey, Rey asks exactly how she ended up with the lightsaber that Luke dropped into a giant industrial cavern 30-odd years earlier. Maz simply says, “A good story, for another time.” That time never came. Even Abrams himself seemed to decide it was such a huge leap in logic that simply ignoring it was the best way to handle it.
Rey’s Vision
After Maz takes Rey down to her basement and gives her Luke’s lightsaber, the movie launches into a Force vision that’s essentially a collection of random images that mean nothing, setting up scenes that never happened.
With shots of the Knights of Ren, Luke placing his prosthetic hand on R2-D2, and a young Rey getting abandoned, Abrams empties his mystery box all over the screen.
Starkiller Base Blows Up A Bunch Of Planets
One of the many things J.J. Abrams copied from the original Star Wars movie, in addition to an evil empire and a space station that blows up planets, was the evil empire’s first use of their space station that blows up planets. Not only does Abrams copy the scene; he misses the point of it. Whereas the Empire blew up Alderaan in front of Leia, the First Order blew up a bunch of planets we’d never seen before in front of no one.
The destruction of Alderaan works not because of how many millions die on its surface, but because a powerless Leia is forced to watch her entire homeworld get blown to smithereens with her own two eyes. When Starkiller Base blows up some generic CGI planets, the audience has no reason to care.
C-3PO’s Red Arm
R2-D2 and C-3PO were the true stars of the first two Star Wars trilogies, so it was heartbreaking to see them reduced to background characters and/or MacGuffins in every single sequel movie. In the original Star Wars, those two plucky droids are the only main characters until around the 25-minute mark. They continue to play a pivotal role in the plot, like saving the heroes’ lives at the last second in the trash compactor scene.
In the opening chapter of a new trilogy, Artoo and Threepio could’ve been used as a terrific lens through which to introduce audiences to the fall of the New Republic or the threat of the First Order, but instead, Artoo sleeps through most of the movie and Threepio’s only role in the plot is having a red arm. The backstory of his red arm was explained in a comic book spin-off, but the gaps seemed to have been filled in long after J.J. Abrams pulled “red arm” out of his proverbial mystery box.
Kylo Ren’s Temper Tantrum
From the very beginning, Kylo Ren was introduced as being nowhere near as intimidating as Darth Vader. That was partly the point, but the story needed at least one menacing antagonist, and between the smarmy General Hux and the useless Snoke, it didn’t have one.
Kylo Ren’s first temper tantrum in The Force Awakens that revealed the Stormtroopers are more awkward around him than scared established that he would not be a frightening villain at all.
Wait, Finn Is Actually Just A Janitor
When Finn arrives on Starkiller Base with Han and Chewie, he reveals he wasn’t actually a Stormtrooper who was brainwashed from his childhood to kill innocent people; he was just a custodian working in the sanitation department.
Finn’s arc had a promising setup as an anonymous Stormtrooper who has to redeem himself after doing terrible things under the mind control of the First Order. But after that was entirely negated for the purposes of a pretty weak joke, in the next two movies, Finn was reduced to bouncing from love interest to love interest and eventually just yelling Rey’s name until the credits rolled.
Luke Skywalker Doesn’t Show Up Until The Very End
J.J. Abrams held off on introducing Luke until the very end of The Force Awakens so he could give the movie a cool cliffhanger, but this meant that Luke never got to have a final moment with Han, which is pretty infuriating.
It also meant that The Last Jedi suffered in the long run, because Rian Johnson had to convince himself that Luke would give up his optimistic heroism.