With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, JJ Abrams had the monumental task of uniting a divided fanbase. Safe to say, he passed with flying colours. People who love The Last Jedi and hate it, all dislike The Rise of Skywalker. Jokes and hyperboles aside, it really is a terribly uninspiring and highly frustrating film.
To take an excerpt from my own review:
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a frustrating final chapter, one whose skeleton is feeble and made out of nothing but nostalgic candy, whose flesh is see-through, blood is thin and whose heart doesn’t pound like the drums at the back of Dragon boats but whimpers softly.
It looks like the larger critics circle feels the same way too. The Rise of Skywalker currently has a 58% rotten score on the popular aggregator site, Rotten Tomatoes.
Check out the full list below. By order of release:
- A New Hope – 93%
- Empire Strikes Back – 94%
- Return of the Jedi – 82%
- The Phantom Menace – 53%
- Attack of the Clones – 65%
- Revenge of the Sith – 80%
- The Force Awakens – 93%
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – 83%
- The Last Jedi – 91%
- Solo: A Star Wars Story – 70%
- The Rise of Skywalker – 58%
There are a number of interesting takeaways from the scores above. But do keep in mind that we’re just talking about aggregated numbers. It’s not the be-all and end-all. The beauty of cinema is that it’s subjective.
Anyway, as divided as the core fanbase (on the internet) has been with many of these films, The Rise of Skywalker is only the second Star Wars film to receive a Rotten score, the first being 1999’s The Phantom Menace. There are four films that have received a score higher than 90%, including the divisive The Last Jedi and the ‘remix’ of A New Hope, The Force Awakens. The highest score is unsurprisingly attained by Empire Strikes Back, while the most harmless of the lot, Solo: A Star Wars Story gets a decent 70%.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is currently playing in Malaysian cinemas. May the Force be with you, always.
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