JJ Abrams has responded to criticism of Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker in the wake of the film’s release.

The last film in the franchise’s current trilogy came out last week (December 19), and became the lowest-ranked Star Wars film since The Phantom Menace on Rotten Tomatoes.

Abrams has now been discussing the mixed reaction to the film and claims that it is impossible to please everyone, with disappointment being an inevitability.


Speaking to Vanity Fair at a Q&A after a screening of the film, Abrams said: “I was asked just seven hours ago in another country, ‘So how do you go about pleasing everyone?’ I was like ‘What…?’ Not to say that that’s what anyone should try to do anyway, but how would one go about it? Especially with Star Wars.”

The director continued: “We knew starting this that any decision we made – a design decision, a musical decision, a narrative decision – would please someone and infuriate someone else. There is an MO of either ‘It’s exactly as I see it, or you’re my enemy’.

“It’s a crazy thing that there’s such a norm that seems to be void of nuance and compassion – and this is not [a phenomenon] about Star Wars, this is about everything.”

Abrams went on to refute claims that he clashed with The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson over the plot of that film. Johnson recently addressed the backlash to that film, saying that fan service in filmmaking is a “mistake”.

“One of the many brilliant things that Rian did in The Last Jedi was give Luke an arc,” Abrams said. “He learned something. He got somewhere.


“So at the end of that film he recommitted to the thing at the very beginning of the film he was rejecting, so the idea that even Luke Skywalker can learn something. I think for a kid to hear Luke Skywalker say I was wrong, I think is a beautiful thing. And I think it’s something we could all probably do with, a little bit.”

NME‘s three-star review of The Rise Of Skywalker said that the film was “a sufficiently satisfying finale that gives fans exactly what they want.”