When Disney acquired Lucasfilm and promised to release a Star Wars sequel trilogy that would bring back Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa, and Harrison Ford as Han Solo, fans could barely contain their excitement. But then, as each movie hit theaters and the characters were continually shortchanged, that excitement became easier to contain.
By the time The Rise of Skywalker came along, only one member of the original trio was still standing, and their story arc was constructed entirely with unused takes from The Force Awakens. There are many ways that the sequel trilogy squandered the icons that are Luke, Leia, and Han.
Luke And Han Never Got A Final Scene Together
In the original trilogy, Luke and Han were the best of friends. Luke inspired Han to return to help blow up the Death Star and Han ventured out into the ice-cold Hoth wilderness to save Luke’s life by storing him inside a dead tauntaun.
But in the sequel trilogy, they don’t share a single scene, because J.J. Abrams ended The Force Awakens with the Ahch-To cliffhanger — despite seemingly having no idea where it would go — and Harrison Ford wanted to be killed off.
Han And Leia Broke Up Off-Screen
Han and Leia shared one of the most iconic romances in movie history in the original trilogy. Over the course of The Empire Strikes Back, their bickering blossomed into real love. In Return of the Jedi, Han’s transformation into a hero was complete and he and Leia had their happily-ever-after moment.
Then, in The Force Awakens, it’s revealed that they broke up off-screen. Some fans have argued that it’s realistic for a couple to break up after their only son becomes a warlord, but the writers chose for that to happen; it wasn’t a prerequisite.
Leia’s Force Sensitivity Was Completely Bungled
The original trilogy hinted that Leia was Force-sensitive, which would make sense since she’s a Skywalker, but for the purposes of nostalgia, J.J. Abrams didn’t explore it at all in the first sequel movie. Instead, in The Force Awakens, Leia is leading yet another bare-bones rebel force against yet another superweapon created by yet another Skywalker who turned to the dark side.
The subsequent sequels introduced Leia’s Force sensitivity with her weird Mary Poppins space flight in The Last Jedi and a pandering flashback in The Rise of Skywalker, but they completely bungled this promising plot point.
Luke Gave Up The Fight Against Evil
The cliffhanger ending that J.J. Abrams gave The Force Awakens, in which Rey goes out to see where Luke has exiled himself, put Rian Johnson in a difficult spot. He had to convince himself and the Star Wars fanbase that Luke Skywalker, the galaxy’s most optimistic hero, would give up and allow evil to win.
Naturally, he was unable to do so. Luke is a walking, talking beacon of hope. He would’ve taken on the Ben Kenobi-esque role of wise old mentor, not the role of guy who sits on an island and waits for everyone to die.
Han Went Back To Piracy
Just like Leia went back to leading a struggling rebellion, ignoring the fact that she founded the New Republic for nostalgic reasons, Han went back to piracy because passive fans remember him as a pirate.
This meant that Han was completely detached from the world that he helped create, and also led to forced scenes that did nothing for the plot, like the Rathtars’ escape.
Ben Solo Didn’t Share Any Traits With Han Or Leia
Anakin’s conflicted concept of good and evil can be seen in Luke, while Padmé’s fierce political ambitions can be seen in Leia. But Ben Solo doesn’t share any of Han or Leia’s traits.
He’s supposed to be Han and Leia’s son, but he’s just characterized as an edgelord. If Snoke didn’t outright say it, there would be no way of telling that Ben is even related to Han and Leia.
Leia’s Jedi Training Was Reduced To A Flashback
After failing to acknowledge anything of the sort in The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams crammed in some backstory in The Rise of Skywalker that explained why Leia never trained as a Jedi. Luke did briefly train Leia, but she gave up when she realized it would only end with her son’s death.
But whether she trained as a Jedi or not, Ben still turned to the dark side and eventually died at the end, so what was that all about? Leia should’ve been a full-blown Jedi warrior by the beginning of the sequel trilogy.
Han Spent Most Of The Trilogy Symbolized By Dice
The sequel trilogy killed off Han straight away. Harrison Ford had wanted the character to die since Return of the Jedi, so he was happy, but Star Wars fans weren’t. Han’s dice were never a big deal in the original trilogy — they were just a set decoration — but for some reason, the Disney era has made his dice the most important element of his character.
In a lot of the sequel trilogy’s scenes, the dice are used to symbolize Han when he’s not there. He reappeared in The Rise of Skywalker to forgive Ben, but Han wasn’t Force-sensitive, so it wasn’t his actual ghost. Ben just imagined his dead dad showing up and forgiving him for killing him.
Luke Was A Jerk
Some critics have praised Rian Johnson for boldly recharacterizing Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, but those critics probably didn’t grow up looking up to Luke and idolizing him as the epitome of heroism.
In The Last Jedi, when Rey arrives on Ahch-To and wants to be trained as a Jedi, the guy who brought the Jedi Order back is inexplicably a massive jerk to her. Even Mark Hamill hated it.
The Entire Trio Never Shared The Screen
While Luke and Leia spent a couple of minutes together, as did Leia and Han, all three of them were never in the same room together.
The dynamic shared by these three characters is what made the original trilogy so much fun. It’s a crime against Star Wars that an entire trilogy was made to follow Return of the Jedi and not a single scene featured the iconic trio.