12 Reasons The Star Wars Sequels Aren't As Bad As You Think

Or How to stop worrying and love The Rise of Skywalker.

Star Wars Sequels
Lucasfilm

The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy has now concluded and, just like George Lucas' controversial Prequel Trilogy, it's been very divisive among the Star Wars fandom.

In fact, whenever you wander through the digital landscape of the internet it's becoming harder and harder to find anyone with anything particularly nice to say about these movies. That is not only unfortunate, but actually rather surprising.

The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy is not perfect. It wasn't planned out properly, it's full of plot holes, the original characters were hit-or-miss and The Rise of Skywalker was a noticeable step down from the preceding two films, but no trilogy is flawless.

For the most part, this is arguably a very good blockbuster trilogy. Obviously, it's not as good as the Original Trilogy but it's got brilliant film-making, wonderful acting and an excellent, interesting narrative (mostly). So, why have these films got so much hate?

Also, some are now arguing that the Prequels are better than the Sequels. Now, the Prequels are perfectly OK but better than the Sequels? Really?

Let the dust settle and then give these movies another go. The chances are you'll be pleasantly surprised and here's why...

12. The Action Scenes Are Strong

Star Wars Sequels
Disney

The Sequel Trilogy certainly delivered on the action front, much like both the Original Trilogy and the Prequel Trilogy (which, for all of its faults, had many great set-pieces), and there were some truly awesome action scenes throughout.

In terms of picking highlights, the escape from Jakku, Battle of Crait and Battle of Exegol certainly linger in the memory. A valid criticism of this trilogy is the lack of truly stand-out lightsaber duels (and both Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker should've ended with one between Kylo and Luke, and Rey and Palpatine respectively), but the lightsaber duel in each film was still very good.

What really made the action scenes in this trilogy work was that you truly cared about what was happening and there was a hell of a lot of suspense as a result.

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Film Studies graduate, aspiring screenwriter and all-around nerd who, despite being a pretentious cinephile who loves art-house movies, also loves modern blockbusters and would rather watch superhero movies than classic Hollywood films. Once met Tommy Wiseau.