Star Wars Actor Weighs In on The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker Debates

Since last night, both Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker have been trending topics on Twitter. While most of the TLJ posts have been in support of the movie, there are certainly criticisms of both Star Wars sequel films floating around. While TROS was not nearly as well-received as its predecessor, those who didn’t like it are much less passionate about their hate than the folks who dislike The Last Jedi. As debates rage on, one Star Wars star has chimed in to share his two cents: Joonas Suotamo AKA Chewbacca.

“I woke up to see that #TheLastJedi and #TheRiseOfSkywalker are both trending. Debating movies is a healthy and natural part of filmmaking, but I loved working on both of these films and collaborating with everyone involved. I might be biased though. Rawrrgh,” Suotamo wrote. You can check out his post, which features photos of him in costume with both Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams, below:

Suotamo, a former basketball player, first doubled as Chewbacca in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and went on to play the role full time in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Solo: A Star Wars Story, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The actor clearly loves being a part of the franchise, often writing about Star Wars on social media with posts ranging from kind words about his Peter Mayhew to supportive posts about his castmates

Despite some loud haters, Star Wars: The Last Jedi has a high-rating of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is on the site with the worst critics’ score for any live-action Star Wars movie, earning a surprising 51%. ComicBook.com’s own Patrick Cavanaugh called the movie “a mixed bag of delights and frustrations that largely succeeds” and gave it a 4 out of 5 rating.

Despite the mixed reviews, The Rise of Skywalker still managed to walk away with three Academy Award nominations this year. The movie was up for Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Sound Editing (Matthew Wood and David Acord), and Best Visual Effects (Roger Guyett, Neal Scanlan, Patrick Tubach, and Dominic Tuohy).

Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker are both available to stream on Disney+.