Star Wars Sequel Trilogy: 12 Missed Opportunities We'll NEVER Get Over

8. No Unique Visual Identity

Think about the "visual ephemera" of each Star Wars trilogy.

The originals are dusty, grimy. Stormtrooper armour is occasionally scuffed, and our heroes are covered in tattered robes, wielding rusted blasters and driving clattering ships that barely get the job done. Cloud City was a notable example of high society, versus the luscious greens and sweltering jungles of Endor.

The prequels are something altogether more futuristic and clean. A populace with a lot to lose. Opulent sky-scraping feats of engineering and art decor, the array of aesthetics from the underwater Gungan City to Kamino, Theed to Mustafar are all outstanding from a sheer visual perspective.

Star Wars video games would have a field day mining this stuff across the 2000s, and Battlefront 2 adding a ton of Prequel content only reinforced how Lucasfilm's art department was a shining star across that period in the saga.

The Sequel Trilogy, then.

Jakku is another Tatooine-style desert planet, which gets repeated AGAIN by Pasaana in RoS. Takodana is another jungle planet, with literal seconds seen of what the rest of civilisation is up to while our heroes are doing their thing.

Ironically, Last Jedi's Canto Bight is one of the only extended looks into the wider Star Wars world during all three films, and even that is a tucked-away snapshot of the upper class, versus anything trilogy-defining.

The newer movies simply do not have a defined visual identity that meaningfully differentiates from what went before.