10 Movies Ruined By Listening To The Fans

J.J. Abrams strikes again, this time with what might well be the most blatant example of a filmmaker bending over backwards to please the most unimaginative and sentimental members of a fanbase.

After Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens received criticism for being too much a rehash of A New Hope, Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi radically usurped the existing formula, subverting expectations in a fashion that sharply divided fans despite strong critical acclaim.

The backlash was violent enough that Abrams basically decided to walk back or downplay many of Johnson's creative decisions in The Rise of Skywalker, enough that the film basically feels like one long apology.

It is nauseating fan service galore: Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is inexplicably resurrected, Rey (Daisy Ridley) gets unconvincingly revealed to be his granddaughter, Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) is relegated to being a glorified extra, and Rey ends up adopting the Skywalker moniker in a highly unearned, flat payoff to a trilogy's worth of movies.

Even many of those who loathed The Last Jedi felt short-changed by the utter lack of creativity on offer here. It's as though Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio were locked in a hotel room for a weekend and tasked with unpicking the most controversial aspects of the last film as efficiently as possible.

No film should ever pander this aggressively to pissed off fans who don't represent as much of the general audience as Lucasfilm clearly thought.