George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise is a pillar of modern science fiction. What started out as a relatively ambitious space opera project became one of the most lucrative and popular franchises in history. Being present for several decades now, Star Wars has raised multiple generations of fans and it still remains one of the best fictional universes ever created.

But, while the Star Wars universe has been a pillar of modern science fiction, it has not been without its critics, especially since Disney’s takeover of Lucasfilm several years ago. Even if you disregard the political and ideological commentaries, there are objective and well-founded critiques related to the new Star Wars universe.

Among the bigger complaints here is the one that the Star Wars villains are becoming worse, but our colleague Liz Declan from ScreenRant recently published a proper opinion piece in which she expressed her enthusiasm over the universe’s new villains, as it seems that the series is heading in a proper direction.

Declan states that the Sequel Trilogy had a lot of trouble with its villains for two main reasons. First, they felt repetitive, which she explains using Kylo Ren’s example. Kylo Ren was too much like Darth Vader to become a breakout character, and while the fans did like him, he never became a pillar of the franchise like Vader or Palpatine did.

And that brings us to the second problem. Namely, the franchise’s unwillingness to move away from Vader and Palpatine was a major issue in itself, as a lot of Disney-era works focused on them, primarily or more latently, but they were still the big baddies of Star Wars.

But, with Ahsoka‘s Thrawn and The Acolyte‘s original characters, as well as Darth Plagueis, Declan believes that Star Wars has finally solved its villain problem and concludes:

Hopefully, the franchise will keep up this momentum. There are a number of upcoming projects that could introduce truly inventive villains. One such project is Rey’s upcoming Star Wars movie, rumored to be titled New Jedi Order, which takes place 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker. Given its place in the Star Wars timeline, this movie could make several thrilling choices for villains, be it the Yuuzhan Vong or something new. Either way, though, it seems Star Wars may finally be fixing its villain problem, nearly 10 years after the sequel trilogy began.

Source: ScreenRant

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