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Reflecting back on the biggest head-scratchers of the final trilogy in the famed Skywalker Saga.
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00:00With the final installment of the Skywalker Saga now well in our rearview mirror,
00:03fans have had time to digest the Star Wars sequel trilogy and explore the positives and negatives.
00:08One thing that all three of these latest jaunts to a galaxy far far away, at least in the Skywalker
00:13Saga sense, have in common is that there are several undeniable plot holes strewn throughout
00:17them. And while some of these plot holes may have been elaborated on and explained in recent comic
00:21books and novels, not everybody who watches the sequel trilogy will be privy to said comics and
00:26books. With that in mind then, I'm Sean Ferrick for WhatCultureStarWars and here are 10 major
00:31plot holes in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Number 10. The Reconstruction of Luke's Lightsaber
00:37Before the Rise of Skywalker, the last time we saw Luke Skywalker's trusty lightsaber was it
00:41being pulled to pieces by Rey and Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi. But magically, by Episode 9 of
00:46the Skywalker Saga, Luke's weapon was in perfect working order. If you remember, The Last Jedi
00:50saw a forced tug-of-war of sorts that saw Luke's lightsaber pulled into a million tiny pieces,
00:55without even the mildest of explanations, this was all forgotten about by the time we see Rey with
00:59this exact weapon in The Rise of Skywalker. One could maybe attempt to make the argument that
01:04Rey repaired the lightsaber herself at some point between the events of The Last Jedi and The Rise
01:07of Skywalker, but that argument can be immediately countered by how the closing moments of The Rise
01:12of Skywalker imply that Rey has yet to ever build, or in this case reconstruct, a lightsaber.
01:18So, just how did Luke's lightsaber get repaired? Who repaired it? How were they able to repair it?
01:22And how is it flawlessly back in one perfectly working piece?
01:269. The Millennium Falcon's Fuel
01:29Seeing the Millennium Falcon fire up an escape from Jakku in The Force Awakens is one of the most
01:33breathtaking set pieces in the most recent Star Wars trilogy. Still, there's one huge plot hole in
01:38amongst all of this. The audience is led to believe that the Falcon has been left to rot in the
01:41desert
01:42land of Jakku, with the old girl now merely a big ol' hunk of junk that's long since past its
01:46best days,
01:47which makes it all the more head scratching that Rey, Finn and BB-8 power up this most legendary of
01:52vessels and use it to outrun the nefarious First Order. If, as we've first been told,
01:56the Falcon has indeed spent years or even decades in the dusty and coarse landscape of Jakku,
02:01surely it would take just a little while longer to get her back up and running, even if it was
02:05possible to get her working whatsoever. Added to that, just how is their fuel still in the Millennium
02:10Falcon when we're reintroduced to the ship in The Force Awakens? Even if the Falcon happened to be
02:14dumped with a full tank of fuel, that fuel would have dried up and evaporated way before Rey,
02:19Finn and BB-8 stumbled across this burge that once did the castle run in less than 12 parsecs.
02:24Number 8. Those Force Voices
02:25One of the most impressive, fan-pleasing moments of The Rise of Skywalker saw Rey visited by the voices
02:31of a whole host of fallen Jedi as she's being pummeled by Emperor Palpatine. From what we know,
02:36said fallen Jedi include Yoda, Luke Skywalker, Mace Windu, Qui-Kon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker,
02:42Ahsoka Tano, Kanan Jarrus, Adi Gallia, Luminara Undul and Aayla Secura. The element of all of this
02:48that doesn't make sense, however, is tied to Qui-Gon. Back in The Phantom Menace, Liam Neeson's
02:53Qui-Gon explained how he was the first Jedi in centuries who would be able to communicate through
02:57the Force following his death. This means that Qui-Gon gets a pass on being able to speak to Rey,
03:02but the rest of those Jedi? Not so much. Jinn was killed off before he was able to pass his
03:07knowledge
03:07on to any of his fellow Jedi Knights, which would seem to suggest that it would be impossible for
03:12any Jedi other than Qui-Gon to be able to speak from beyond the grave. You could possibly say that
03:16somebody as wise as Yoda could likely teach themselves this particular trick, but it still
03:20feels questionable to have had so many Jedi have this ability that such a big deal was made out of
03:25Qui-Gon Jinn being the first Jedi for generations to be able to pull this trick off. Now it must
03:29be said
03:29that his cameo in the Obi-Wan series goes a little bit toward explaining this, but even that took place
03:37after the deaths of many of these Jedi Knights. 7. The Idiocy of Palpatine
03:43Considering that he's lived for hundreds of years and is a supreme being with a vast intellect,
03:47the Emperor ended the sequel trilogy looking like a complete and utter idiot. The famed saying about
03:52the definition of stupidity being repeating your actions but expecting different results is something
03:56that Palpatine is culpable of in The Rise of Skywalker. Despite his apparent genius, this Sith Lord
04:01is made up to look like a total boob as he again falls back to using his lightning abilities on
04:06Rey.
04:06Back in Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine was left disfigured after just such an attack on Mace Windu
04:10saw this lightning fired back at him, and that is again the source of his ultimate demise in The Rise
04:14of Skywalker, this time with Rey pulling inspiration from Windu's playbook. Of course, this is even without
04:19taking into account how well his lightning attack on Luke Skywalker went in Return of the Jedi,
04:23Jedi. Back then it was the reprieved Anakin Skywalker who struck Palpatine while he was mid-flow on yet
04:28another blast of lightning. Speaking in a narrative sense, Palpatine's actions at the end of Episode
04:329 make him look like a total bonehead and makes you question why he'd repeat something that has
04:36so clearly failed in previous movies. 6. But can Palpatine just return again?
04:41Upon the first teaser trailer for The Rise of Skywalker culminating with the ever familiar,
04:45eerie, chilling cackles of Palpatine, the collective Star Wars fandom lost its mind, this of course being
04:52the one and the same Palpatine who was last seen, at least in a chronological sense,
04:56thrown to his death by a reformed Anakin Skywalker at the climax of Return of the Jedi. But just how
05:00did the most notorious Sith survive his Episode 6 demise, and just where has he been in the decades
05:05since then? Truth be told, it's never actually fully explained in The Rise of Skywalker just how
05:09the Emperor is alive and well. Dominic Monaghan's Bowman Kinn even hazily questions this resurrection
05:14at one point, suggesting it could be dark science, cloning, or some sort of Sith shenanigans. The point being,
05:19no finite answer is given to just why Palpatine isn't as dead as we were so long led to believe
05:24he was. At one point Kylo Ren's bravado of saying he'll kill Palpatine is outright mocked by the
05:28Sith Lord as he kindly informs Kylo that he's died before. So, if the reason for Palpatine's return
05:34here is never properly explained, then what's to say that his apparent death at the hands of Rey
05:38and thousands of Jedi who she channelled would stop any future Palpatine return?
05:425. Rey's Erratic Force Detection Skills?
05:46Granted, The Force Awakens featured a Rey slowly coming to the realisation of just what potential
05:50powers lie at her literal fingertips, but by the time of The Rise of Skywalker, viewers see a Rey who
05:55has pretty much mastered the Force and is at one with her abilities, well, bar that lack of an
06:00explanation over the reconstruction of Luke's lightsaber. With that in mind then, there are a
06:04couple of glaring head-scratching moments in Episode 9. Firstly, how did Rey not feel that Chewbacca wasn't
06:09actually dead? In amongst all of the presences that we have seen her be able to feel through the Force,
06:14surely Rey would have known all along that Chewie wasn't actually as dead as we were meant to
06:18believe, particularly as later in the movie we see Rey easily detect the Wookiee is in her vicinity.
06:23Elsewhere, this same flaw can be pinpointed when Kylo Ren appears on the Fallen Death story. This
06:28catches Rey off guard when it should be even easier for her to detect Kylo due to him likewise being
06:32tethered to the Force. Considering how many other times we see Rey use the Force to sense the presence of
06:37others, these two examples sort of make a mockery of that.
06:40Number 4. What was the point of the Knights of Ren? Not necessarily a plot hole per se,
06:45but it's more of a what even was the point situation here. In the lead to the Force Awakens
06:50release, the Knights of Ren were all over the marketing material for the movie. Looking like
06:54nothing but pure, unadulterated, unstoppable badasses, the mere visual of these six warriors
06:59at Kylo Ren's side had intrigue and anticipation levels amped up to ridiculous levels amongst long-time
07:05franchise fans. Despite all of the hype surrounding the Knights of Ren, they were barely in the Force
07:10Awakens, completely absent from The Last Jedi, and were simply around in The Rise of Skywalker to
07:15serve as fodder for Ben Solo to take down toward the film's climax. So after all of the badass imagery,
07:20and after all of the mystique, after all of the hope for seeing just what these group of warriors
07:24were capable of, the Knights of Ren were a pointless addition to the sequel trilogy. It's almost as if they
07:28were created purposely to sell a bunch of toys and merchandise, or that the sequel films had so many cooks
07:33in the
07:34proverbial kitchen that the creative waters of the trilogy were left muddied and confused.
07:38Number 3 Poe's Survival After a big screen break of just over 10 years,
07:43Star Wars raced back to cinemas across the globe in spectacular fashion with the opening act of The
07:48Force Awakens. Used to set up the four core characters Rey, Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron and Finn of this new
07:54trilogy,
07:54the film hit the ground running in glorious fashion, and key to that was Poe and Finn hijacking a
07:59Tie Fighter as they looked to escape the wrath of the First Order. That escape wouldn't quite go to
08:03plan, and said Tie Fighter was shot down and left in a burning heap. While Finn managed to escape the
08:08crash landing vessel, taking Poe's jacket and the name he gave to the former stormtrooper in the process,
08:13it looked far less promising for Oscar Isaac's character. As The Force Awakens unfolds, we would
08:18eventually see that Poe Dameron actually survived the Tie Fighter crash, although that doesn't really make
08:23any sense. It's never explained how Poe survived, and it's not even realistically feasible for him to have
08:27survived. Going even further down the rabbit hole, the original plan of The Force Awakens explosive
08:31opening was actually to introduce Poe in a major way before killing him off as we arrive in Jakku.
08:37Both Isaac and director JJ Abrams have confirmed this, and rumours suggest that Poe's role may
08:41have been expanded once an onsen injury to Harrison Ford hit plans hard for Han Solo having a larger
08:47part to play. Reading between the lines here, it appears as if nobody could really be bothered to
08:51come up with a reasonable explanation as to how Poe would have survived in this reject script.
08:562. The Further Muddling of the Chosen One For the longest time, it was open to interpretation that
09:02the famed Chosen One of Star Wars lore was either Anakin Skywalker or Luke Skywalker. Some would even
09:07offer up Leia Organa as possibly being the true Chosen One, but now with the sequel Star Wars trilogy
09:12behind us, further questions have been thrown up where this topic is concerned. By all accounts and
09:17purposes, the most likely person to be the Chosen One was Anakin. This almost Biblical figure was said to
09:21bring balance to the force, which we saw Anakin, as Darth Vader do by killing off the Emperor at
09:26the close of Return of the Jedi. Some of the wisest beings in the history of the galaxy worked
09:30solely on the belief that Anakin was indeed the Chosen One, yet that idea was muddied once again
09:35by the events of the sequel trilogy. Outright plot hole? Maybe, maybe not, but the main head scratcher
09:40here is that the story of the sequel trilogy only served to draw up more confusion about the narrative
09:45established in the six Skywalker Saga movies prior to this latest triumvirate.
09:50Number 1. Kylo's Kefbeer Escape
09:53While the rise of Skywalker may not have split opinion quite as much as The Last Jedi,
09:58the final part of the Skywalker Saga still had its fair share of detractors. No matter what your
10:03thoughts on the film though, it cannot be denied that the Kefbeer battle between Kylo Ren and Rey on
10:07the fallen second Death Star is a phenomenal piece of cinema. That said, this ocean fight did have one
10:13ginormous flaw. After Rey had nabbed Kylo's ride, and with all other vehicles suggested to be merely
10:18useless decayed relics, there is seemingly no way whatsoever that Kylo could have possibly got off
10:23that part-submerged Death Star, let alone make it off the planet of Kefbeer. Still, make it off Kefbeer,
10:28Kylo did. After a heart-to-heart meeting with the spirit of his father, the rechristened Ben Solo
10:33managed to make it to Exegol just in the nick of time to join Rey in a showdown with Palpatine.
10:38How Ben got
10:38there, we're never told, and that is something that's since stuck in the craw of many a Star Wars fan.
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