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J.J. Abrams becomes a meme after ‘Rise of Skywalker’ release

‘Johnson: Maybe anyone can be a hero :) … J.J. Abrams: NO. NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT.’

Photo of Stacey Ritzen

Stacey Ritzen

Rey from Star Wars and JJ Abrams

This post includes major spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker.

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Few films are anticipated as highly as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker—the third and final installment of the franchise’s sequel trilogy—which means that the bar is also set incredibly high. Sadly, while a minority of fiercely loyal and outspoken fans loved the conclusion, the general consensus with J.J. Abrams’ vision seemed to be, well, a big ol’ fart noise?

Where do we even begin? Emperor Palpatine is back, for inexplicable reasons. And Rey is his granddaughter? Poe was given an unfortunate backstory as basically a drug runner, and Disney allegedly squashed the possibility of a same-sex romance. And the exposition. So … much … exposition.

A large part of the problem was due to the game of directorial hot potato that went into the trilogy. Abrams directed the first installment, The Force Awakens, in 2015, then it was handed over to director Rian Johnson, who directed 2017’s The Last Jedi. Then, Abrams took back the wheel for Rise of Skywalker and seemingly ignored everything that Johnson had put into it and did his own thing. The result was a clunky landing with mixed themes and messaging.

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And that fact was not lost on people! Over the opening weekend, people began airing their grievances on Twitter—particularly when it came to Abrams’ second crack at the trilogy. User @goodjobliz perhaps put it best in the following tweet by comparing Johnson’s plucky underdog story to, oh no, she’s just Palpatine’s heir.

“Johnson: Maybe anyone can be a hero :),” she wrote. “JJ Abrams: NO. NO. ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT.”

https://twitter.com/goodjobliz/status/1208731074408390657

Others had similar gripes about the Abrams-Johnson disconnect and joked and meme’d about it accordingly.

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https://twitter.com/nomstrositi/status/1208531184583495680

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https://twitter.com/dicksgraysn/status/1208420318202793985

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What better use of the “Pee is Stored in the Balls” meme?

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And of course, the I Think You Should Leave focus group guy:

https://twitter.com/aherman2006/status/1208802628177547264

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But perhaps the harshest criticism award goes to the Pixelated Boat account:

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Maybe J.J. Abrams would have better luck taking over the Transformers franchise?

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The Daily Dot