The decades-long competition between Star Wars and Star Trek saw quite the reversal in fortune this year: as noted by outlets like The Hollywood Reporter, fans and critics praised the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard as a massive improvement on its predecessors, while the long-awaited third season of The Mandalorian was deemed wanting. However, there’s a greater comparison to be made between Picard, and a far larger part of the Star Wars saga, that also brought a canonical end to the adventures of many heroes viewers grew up with: the sequel trilogy.
Like The Mandalorian, the sequel trilogy’s first two outings, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, were largely well received, while The Rise of Skywalker became the least popular film in the series since the prequel era. Having sat out the middle chapter, and expected Colin Trevorrow to helm the third, Force and Skywalker director J.J. Abrams had to contort his finale endlessly to compromise between his storytelling instincts and those of The Last Jedi‘s Rian Johnson: the end result was a film that did not feel like a natural continuation, satisfying mostly no one.
Picard similarly changed showrunners for each season: the first was overseen by Michael Chabon, while the second had Terry Matalas, and then Akiva Goldsman, who took over when Matalas left to prioritize the third (Matalas saw the show to its completion.) Although Picard season one and three’s different vibes may’ve been a natural result of them being the start and end of a story, there’s no doubt Chabon and Matalas’s approaches were worlds apart: Chabon was happy to kill returning characters like Hugh, Icheb, and Bruce Maddox, whereas Matalas was far more reticent, even admitting he planned to undo Ro Laren’s death in the final season (although he added he might’ve been more open to Picard going out in a blaze of glory if he hadn’t physically died in the first one.)
At the same time, Matalas always respected what Chabon established, even as he wrote out most of the characters he’d created: he might’ve resurrected Data after Chabon spent a great deal of his season bringing closure to his death in Star Trek Nemesis, but it felt earned, as the android’s return wasn’t an easy experience, and he ultimately expressed respect for his predecessor’s decision to die before moving on. Likewise, while Troi and Riker made fun of the overly rustic setting we found the characters at in season one, the tragic death of their son Thaddeus, during the gap between Nemesis and Picard, continued to weigh heavily on them, and even proved to be integral to the rescue of Riker, Worf, Picard and Jack Crusher in the series’ climax.
One striking respect Picard outclassed The Rise of Skywalker in was the reveal of the true final boss: it made absolute sense for the Borg Queen to have masterminded the events of the last season for several reasons, but particularly because she was always really an A.I. who could transfer her hive-mind to a new mouthpiece. In contrast, Skywalker‘s opening twist that the Emperor survived his demise in Return of the Jedi will always feel false, no matter how much patching we receive from Lucasfilm’s Expanded Universe, as it’s never explained or foreshadowed onscreen, completely depleting our suspension of disbelief – you half-expect Abrams to interrupt Rey, Ben Solo, and Sidious during the climax, apologizing for the rushed script, and promising they’ll be back after a year of reshoots.
Picard‘s finale also beat Star Wars at its own nostalgic game: the show’s end sees Picard saving his son from his assimilation, while the rest of the main crew maneuver the Enterprise-D into detonating the Borg cube, and the Titan holds out against the assimilated Starfleet above Earth. Sound familiar? It’s essentially Return of the Jedi, but with Luke and Darth Vader’s roles reversed. Abrams, having played the “Death Star 30 years later” card in The Force Awakens, wound up staging a much duller final battle within a foggy cave, and atop some Star Destroyers in cloudy skies, complete with the generic sight of Sidious’s lightning becoming a sky beam.
Continued belowTo be clear, Rise of Skywalker‘s issues wouldn’t have been resolved if Luke, Han, Leia, Lando, Chewie, Artoo and Threepio had somehow reunited on the Falcon to save the day (for a start, that wouldn’t have worked, as the sequel trilogy doesn’t share a protagonist with the original films the way Picard and The Next Generation do.) That said, a lot of the movie’s issues do stem from the attempts to make it feel like the grand finale of nine films, from the contrived return of Palpatine, to the decision to work around Carrie Fisher’s death, the hollow attempt at a euphoric gathering with the arrival of the civilian fleet, and Rey’s inexplicable decision to bury two good lightsabers somewhere Leia didn’t grow up. This is despite how The Last Jedi largely closed the book on much of the Skywalker saga, with the perfect final moments for Luke and (sadly) Leia, meaning Abrams could’ve concentrated on ending the new characters’ stories.
Alas, he didn’t: almost everyone was sidelined (especially poor Rose Tico), while time was wasted on fake outs with Chewbacca’s death and C-3PO’s memory, and Rey and Kylo Ren’s arcs were warped by the inability to suspend our disbelief over Palpatine’s presence. When Rey proclaimed she was all the Jedi while deflecting her grandfather’s lightning, and Ben Solo gave his life to revive her, it was emotionally empty, because the film had been so choppy and nonsensical that I simply wanted to move onto the books and TV shows that would make it feel canonical.
Granted, Picard season three had a lot more time as a TV show to make its nostalgia fest more natural, but it worked hand-in-hand with the plotting to create the sweetest ending. It was beautiful having Data return from the dead, to see him finally become the best possible version of himself; it made complete sense that Geordi would repair the Enterprise-D, and that she was the best ship left; and it was incredibly powerful that Picard chose to relive the trauma of assimilation to save the son he had only just met. Matalas’s nostalgic tendencies can be problematic — the second season was a rehash of The Voyage Home and First Contact — but only the most joyless critic would argue against the crew meeting up again for poker night.
With all that said, we should remember neither Picard or Skywalker were truly the end, with Matalas spending much of his show’s finale setting up a spin-off, potentially making up for any cast members given short shrift, as well as allowing for further appearances from the Next Generation cast (including Picard himself.) Perhaps Abrams also knew on some level that Episode X (or its closest equivalent) would happen sooner rather than later, and that’s why he was comfortable leaving so many characters’ destinies unfulfilled. Perhaps one day, we’ll receive a Star Wars finale that’s as satisfying as Picard‘s ending, and Skywalker will simply be looked back upon as the Nemesis of the franchise.
To paraphrase Q, the trials and tribulations of these two sagas, their fans and creatives, will never end.
