Effect on audience/creator interest of no new Skywalker hero in the ST?

[godisawesome]

How much, if at all, should the decisions to not have the main hero of the ST be a Skywalker or Solo effect audiences? (Or if you want to think of it this way, how much it led to Ben Solo’s heroic turn and Rey getting a posthumous adoption.)

This is less about whether or not Rey “should have/shouldn’t have” been a Skywalker, as much as it’s trying to gauge how everybody here thinks it effected the ST performance with fans, mainstream audience members, and even creators to not have any Skywalker grandkid as *the* hero of the ST.

“No Effect” means that you think that there was literally no impact on audience/creator interest/investment on the ST - that even the vocal criticism of the idea is statistically ignorable in actuality, and that it weird that people thought the hero would be a Skywalker or that it was an inherently *good* thing because the Skywalkers were “holding the story back.”

“Some embittered but minimal effect” means that you figure it was ultimately a significant but tolerable impact on everyone; that the later attempts to finagle Rey and Ben as twin “Skywalker” heroes were misreads of the situation. This might qualify as the “butthurt” section.

“Significant and persistent Impact” means that you believe that while the decision didn’t *have* to impact things, it still clearly did, and in a negative way - this is the one I’m choosing in part because I believe there’s a straight line between not just TLJ’s divisive reception from the audience, but also even in the film itself; to me, the demotion of Finn from male lead for Kylo/Ben and Rey being written badly are directly related to Rian Johnson and LFL choosing to focus on Ben Solo at their expense because they wanted a Skywalker at central started, whether they knew it or not.

“It made all the difference” means you figure that the films were always going to need a Skywalker or two making the key victory-decision at the end of the day - that a Skywalker grandkid was going to save the day no matter what because it was a sequel to the OT. I’d say that if you like the Duel of the Fates script that Trevorrow wrote… you might still find yourself voting for this one, since Kylo is the functional Villainous Protoagonist determine that film’s outcome.

Again, this is less about what *you* would do, but more how you think the audience and creators reacted as a whole.

And yes, there will be debate.