Star Wars: The Mandalorian Star Weighs in on the Negative Reactions to The Rise of Skywalker

The past year has been pretty interesting for the Star Wars fandom, with live-action movies and TV shows, animated series, video games, comics, and novels telling stories in the galaxy far, far away. Two of the most buzzed-about entries into the franchise were the November premiere of The Mandalorian, the franchise’s first live-action TV series on Disney+, and the December release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The latter debut created an interesting flashpoint within the fandom, as many audience members were divided about how to feel about the film. Even with backlash to the film fluctuating in recent months, it sounds like that didn’t have a prominent impact on one of the franchise’s other stars. Pedro Pascal, who stars as the titular character in The Mandalorian, was asked about the backlash to The Rise of Skywalker, and revealed that he largely saw the positive aspects to being in the Star Wars universe.

“I didn’t feel that at all. The virtue of being neck-deep in work,” Pascal told Yahoo Movies UK. “Once you’re in this world of Lucasfilm, you’re only touching on the positive. You just deposit something. I saw no fence.”

The Rise of Skywalker‘s backlash has been prevalent in the fandom ever since December, with members of the film’s cast and crew responding to it in drastically different ways.

“I’d say that they’re right,” director and co-writer J.J. Abrams said of those who dislike the film in December. “The people who love it more than anything are also right. I was asked… ‘How did you go about pleasing everyone?’ I was like, what? Not to say that should be what anyone tries to do anyway, but how would one even go about it? Especially with Star Wars. I don’t need to tell anyone here, we live in a moment where everything immediately seems to default to outrage. And there’s a kind of M.O. of it’s either exactly as I see it or you’re my enemy.”

“This last film, it was really tricky. January was not that nice,” Daisy Ridley, who starred in the film as Rey, said in a recent interview. ‘It was weird, I felt like all of this love that we’d sort of been shown the first time around, I was like ‘Where’s the love gone?’ I watched the documentary, the making-of, this week, and it’s so filled with love; and I think it’s that tricky thing of when you’re part of something that is so filled with love and then people…You know, everyone’s entitled to not like something, but it feels like it’s changed slightly. I think, in general, that’s because of social media and what have you.”

Season 2 of The Mandalorian premieres exclusively on Disney+ this October.