Warning: This post contains SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has created a Poe Dameron plot hole – and while it may not be substantial enough to undermine the film’s entire narrative structure, it is a particularly noticeable error. This is mostly thanks to the fact that, of all the new characters that have been introduced in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Poe has easily been the one that has gotten the most “screen time” in the franchise’s massive multimedia canon – he was the star of his own monthly comic book series for nearly three years, had a prominent role in at least the first season of the Star Wars: Resistance television show, and has featured in a score of additional novels, comics, and short stories.
As such, audiences have followed the young Dameron from his earliest days in the New Republic Navy, including his very first run-in with the Resistance; how General Leia Organa personally recruited him into her freedom movement; how he recovered intel regarding Lor San Tekka and his knowledge of Luke Skywalker’s current whereabouts; how he created Black Squadron to track down the famed explorer – and subsequently gave him the resources to create the map to help find the Jedi master; and how he earns back the respect of both Leia and the rest of the Resistance following his disastrous decisions in The Last Jedi. We even get glimpses of a young, two-year-old Poe as he and his just-retired Rebellion parents make a permanent home on Yavin IV following the events of the original trilogy.
To say that Star Wars fans have a pretty good hold on the fighter pilot’s character is an understatement – which is what makes Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s revelation that he used to smuggle spice (what passes for drugs in that galaxy far, far away) before joining the military such a huge shocker. Never, anywhere on the page or on the screen is it even intimated that Poe had anything close to a checkered past, let alone one that involves such illicit – and immoral – activities. In fact, the power of his backstory was its simplicity and elegance: he was born into a Rebel family, grew up with a Force-sensitive tree in his backyard that was gifted to his mother by none other than Luke Skywalker, and was so distressed that his parents’ lives and many sacrifices would be for naught once the First Order rose up that he decided to leave the ineffectual Republic behind to join General Organa’s next iteration of the Rebellion.
Then there are the character problems such a twist also creates. Even though Poe was essentially made to be the Han Solo of the sequel trilogy’s trio of protagonists – the older pilot with the self-assured smile and the penchant for wise-cracking – he was always the sure-footed hero who might bite off more than he can chew but who never erred in his understanding of what is right and wrong. Poe’s flaws were meant to reside in his present, not his past – that was the whole point of his character arc in The Last Jedi, after all – and this, in turn, was meant to be a huge contrast with the rest of the Star Wars sequels’ cast. Think of him, then, as more Leia than Han.
Just why director and co-writer J.J. Abrams wanted to take the character down this road is unknown, particularly since it’s not meant to be a revelation that makes the audience fundamentally reassess the nature of Dameron or, at the least, its understanding of him (just the opposite of the Rey-is-secretly-a-Palpatine twist). Given the fact that it isn’t at all touched upon in the rest of the movie, one can’t help but conclude that it was simply meant to create some kind of instant relationship with brand-new character Zorri Bliss when the Resistance members land on the frigid planet of Kijimi – a relationship that doesn’t particularly amount to much, in the grand scheme of things, and one that could just as easily have been heightened through other means, more in keeping with the established backstory and characters.
