In the several years since Disney acquired Lucasfilm and took over creative control of the Star Wars franchise, the fan base has been irreparably divided. This is clearer than ever in the wake of The Rise of Skywalker’s release, as sequel trilogy sympathizers and Disney-bashing cynics alike have taken to the online battleground for their own final showdown.
Every Star Wars fan has very strong (and probably mixed) opinions about the Disney era, but there are a select handful of things that most of us can agree on. So, here are 5 Disney-Era Star Wars Characters That Have Already Become Icons (And 5 That Missed The Mark).
10 Icon: The Child
Disney+’s The Mandalorian has quickly become one of the Mouse House’s most popular additions to Star Wars lore. The Child, the as-yet-unnamed infant of Yoda’s species that the Internet has dubbed “Baby Yoda,” is the show’s clear breakout character. Demand for merchandise based on this character is through the roof, while there seems to be a new trending “Baby Yoda” meme every day.
Going beyond the character’s adorable appearance, he’s curiously mysterious. He’s shown his mischievous side, like when he stole a shifter knob from Mando’s ship to play with, but he’s also shown a dark side, and he’s immensely strong with the Force.
9 Missed The Mark: Snoke
Supreme Leader Snoke was nothing more than a rip-off of Emperor Palpatine. Even J.J. Abrams agrees because he literally made that canon in The Rise of Skywalker. Where Palpatine was gradually established as the puppet-master behind an ultimately misunderstood Darth Vader throughout the original trilogy, Snoke was revealed as the puppet-master behind the supposedly-misunderstood Kylo Ren in hammy on-the-nose exposition pretty early on.
There was no mystery in the true dramatic sense; just questions that the movies weren’t interested in answering. The only upside of Snoke’s tenure as a Star Wars villain is that the fans’ rejection of him led to that admittedly awesome shot of Snoke bodies in a vat of goo in Palpatine’s lair in The Rise of Skywalker.
8 Icon: Poe Dameron
The Force Awakens established Poe Dameron as the Resistance’s best pilot and the nicest guy ever. Then, The Last Jedi developed him as the Resistance’s most troublesome renegade, as he staged a mutiny against his bureaucratic overlords. When his recklessness cost lives, he humbly realized that maybe he should listen to orders sometimes.
The Rise of Skywalker revealed his backstory as a spice runner who left his friends behind to join the Resistance’s fight. Frankly, Poe is one of the only characters in the sequel trilogy with a clear, interesting arc. The effortless charm of the always-brilliant Oscar Isaac went a long way towards endearing fans to Poe, too.
7 Missed The Mark: General Hux
General Hux has been one of the Star Wars sequel trilogy’s leading villains since the beginning, and in The Rise of Skywalker, he was gunned down in a scene that failed to get any kind of reaction from the audience. Fans just didn’t care about Hux.
He was too goofy and weak to be taken seriously and he took himself too seriously to be funny. He was the butt of a “your mother” joke in the opening scene of The Last Jedi. Domhnall Gleeson’s a good actor, but there was no way Hux was ever going to be a memorable Star Wars villain.
6 Icon: Captain Phasma
Captain Phasma is the Boba Fett of the sequel trilogy, in that she’s an ice-cold badass who had a really underwhelming death scene. Gwendoline Christie was already endeared to fans of sci-fi and fantasy stories from her acclaimed portrayal of Brienne of Tarth – another badass, but with a slightly warmer personality – in HBO’s Game of Thrones, and her turn in The Force Awakens didn’t disappoint.
She made for an intimidating villain, and between Kylo Ren, General Hux, and Snoke, they were pretty hard to find in this trilogy. Despite Finn’s cheesy “chrome-dome” line that marked the end of her life, Phasma will live on in the hearts of Star Wars fans.
5 Missed The Mark: DJ
Finn and Rose shouldn’t have been surprised when DJ betrayed them in The Last Jedi, because the audience certainly wasn’t. Benicio del Toro’s mysterious, unnamed “slicer” spent his initial scenes prattling about how he doesn’t take sides in wars and instead just profits from them in any way he can.
Then, when Finn and Rose take him to hack the First Order’s hyperdrive tracker, he switches sides. The First Order offers him a better deal and he takes it. This would be a surprising twist if it wasn’t telegraphed from the moment this character turned up during the unnecessary plot detour to Canto Bight.
4 Icon: The Mandalorian
The Mandalorian, or Dyn Jarren, or “Mando,” is a classic spaghetti western hero. Following The Mandalorian’s adventure-of-the-week episodic format, most installments see Mando finding a community in danger, reluctantly helping them out, and then drifting off to his next exploit, just like Clint Eastwood would do in an old Sergio Leone spaghetti western.
Disney first attempted to place a Star Wars story in the “space western” genre with Han Solo’s origin prequel, but The Mandalorian is a much more effective example. George Lucas had silver-screen cowboys in mind when he conceived Han Solo, so it’s fitting that Jon Favreau and his team are returning to this influence.
3 Missed The Mark: Vice Admiral Holdo
At this point, all Star Wars fans have identified the gap in the logic of Vice Admiral Holdo’s plan from The Last Jedi, which is: why didn’t she just tell everyone her plan? Instead of just telling them, she let everyone think they were going to die. She even kept schtum about her plan when one of the pilots instigated a mutiny!
Laura Dern is a massively talented performer, both in intimate dramas like the recent Marriage Story and in fellow VFX-filled blockbusters like Jurassic Park, but she was underserved with the role of Holdo. She gave us the Holdo maneuver, which was pretty cool (and it was made canon in a line by Dominic Monaghan in The Rise of Skywalker that stuck out like a sore thumb), but that wasn’t enough to make her memorable.
2 Icon: Rey
Although she was initially criticized as a “Mary Sue,” Rey gradually grew into a compelling protagonist throughout the sequel trilogy. Daisy Ridley has always done a terrific job of playing Rey’s flirtations with the dark side of the Force and her struggles to convince herself to stay on a wayward path.
RELATED: Rise of Skywalker: What Finn Was Going to Tell Rey (& Never Did)
And The Rise of Skywalker’s clearly-unplanned reveal that Rey is Emperor Palpatine’s granddaughter explains both her immense power and her temptation to become evil. Ultimately, Rey became the hero that the Jedi needed to finally create lasting peace in the galaxy, spurred on by the encouraging voices of past Jedi.
1 Missed The Mark: Kylo Ren
Kylo Ren is what happens when a committee is told by Disney to come up with a Star Wars villain who is just as iconic and merchandisable as Darth Vader, but somehow different. Adam Driver is clearly an impeccable actor who would’ve played a fantastic villain with the right material.
There’s promise in the idea of a mopey villain with a woe-is-me attitude being inspired by Vader, but it’s hardly the groundwork for a character who feels like any kind of threat. And Kylo Ren’s arc was perhaps the most muddled and aimless of the sequel trilogy. Ben Solo was redeemed at the end of The Rise of Skywalker, but it didn’t feel earned.
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