10 Movies That Totally Misunderstood Their Audience

There are certainly those who feel passionately that Star Wars: The Last Jedi misunderstood its audience, but Rian Johnson's bold attempt to do something new with the series at least brimmed with creativity and intelligence, which can't really be said for follow-up The Rise of Skywalker.

Writer-director J.J. Abrams took the completely wrong lessons away from The Last Jedi's divisive fan response, and rather than simply adjust the ongoing narrative trajectory to be a tad more crowd-pleasing, straight-up walked back much of what The Last Jedi did.

Watching the end product, it's blatantly obvious that Lucasfilm panicked at the polarising reaction to The Last Jedi, and so rather than lean into its boundary-pushing storytelling, simply undid some of the more "offensive" beats while delivering a narrative that pandered to the most sentimental, regressive quarters of the fanbase.

Did anyone really want Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) to come back, or Rey (Daisy Ridley) to be his granddaughter?

So much of what transpired in the film felt cynical and unearned, and so outside of the dew-eyed Star Wars fans who will swallow down anything Lucasfilm produces, it was met with utter befuddlement.