Rise Of Skywalker Ignored Last Jedi's Most Important Star Wars Lessons
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ignored or went back on a lot of the story and setup from Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and that includes its most powerful messages. Both The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker suffered backlashes, albeit for rather different reasons. The bold decisions made in the former went against not only fan expectations, but also what many considered Star Wars and its characters to be. The Rise of Skywalker, on the other hand, then reversed or retconned much of its predecessor, seemingly to appease those who didn't like it, and ended up only furthering the divide in the fandom.
Be it showing Snoke to be a creation of and puppet controlled by the Emperor, the reduced role for Rose Tico, or revealing Rey to be the granddaughter of Palpatine, The Rise of Skywalker tended to go back on The Last Jedi in several ways. Whether some of this is simply because The Last Jedi ostensibly did it to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and returning director J.J. Abrams was going back to his own plan, is up for some debate, though it's clear a lack of forward thinking hurt Disney's sequel trilogy overall. Either way, though, it wasn't just plot elements where The Rise of Skywalker retconned The Last Jedi, but also in its themes and messaging.
One of the most important scenes in The Last Jedi is when Yoda's Force Ghost appears to Luke Skywalker on Ahch-To, talking to him about how failure is the greatest teacher, and that Masters are what their students grow beyond. It's a beautiful, emotional sequence that gets to the core of not only everything The Last Jedi (a film that is all about failure) but to the heart of Star Wars itself. It's the pivotal moment in Luke's arc, and ties into the themes of the whole saga, while also setting the groundwork for Rey to learn from her own failures. And yet, in The Rise of Skywalker, when Rey is confronted with her perceived failures, there's little learning to be done. Luke hands her a lightsaber and sends her off to kill Palpatine, which itself is simply a repeat of something the Jedi tried to do before. There's no final lesson taught to Rey and so, while the end of the movie promises a character who can take the Skywalker name in a different direction, the actions beforehand largely fit with what's been done before.
This also slots in with another key message The Rise of Skywalker goes against, which is Rose's somewhat controversial idea of saving what you love. Not only does the film completely sideline the character who says it, but again, the crux of the story hinges on Rey fighting against that which she effectively hates in Emperor Palpatine, willed on by Luke to do so. While some characters do save what they love - both Leia Organa and Ben Solo sacrifice their lives - the fact that they die doing so undercuts some of the messaging, which itself was stopping Finn from doing just that. Sacrifice has long been another key part of Star Wars, of course, but The Last Jedi suggested that it didn't always have to be the answer; The Rise of Skywalker seemingly says it does.
Beyond saving what you love, the sidelining of Rose and the reveal of Rey as a Palpatine had another impact on The Last Jedi. One of the most powerful ideas underpinning the movie is that anyone can be a hero: it's why Rose, a maintenance worker, and her sister Paige can be great heroes of the Resistance; it's why Rey, a nobody, is the galaxy's new hope; it's why the movie ends on Broom Boy, looking up at the sky and dreaming of something bigger, just like Luke did in the original Star Wars. It made a bigger, more inclusive galaxy, but making Rey a Palpatine and then a Skywalker once again reduces the Force and heroism to a select few, lessening the film's power.
Then there's The Last Jedi's most quoted (and misunderstood) line: "Let the past die." Used by both the movie's fans and detractors, the line spoken by Kylo Ren is not The Last Jedi's message, but it does form part of it. Tellingly, it comes from the villain, which is the big clue that audiences aren't supposed to buy into the notion. Instead, it goes hand-in-hand with Yoda's lesson to Luke: that the past is something to learn from and build upon, but that you need to take that forward, keeping what works and getting rid of what does not. The Rise of Skywalker, in contrast, is largely just a celebration of the past; it's a nostalgia-fest that repeats what has gone before, fully embraces the old without truly striving towards the new. It is, ironically, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker that cannot let the past die.