The Sequel Trilogy 2015-2019

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Episode VII The Force Awakens (2015)

Female characters of note: Rey, Maz Kanata, General Leia Organa, Kaydel Ko Connix, Captain Phasma, Commander D'Acy

Episode VIII The Last Jedi (2017)

Female characters of note: Rey, General Leia Organa, Admiral Amilyn Holdo, Rose Tico, Paige Tico, Kaydel Ko Connix, Maz Kanata, Captain Phasma, Commander D'Acy, Tallie Lintra

Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Female characters of note: Rey, Kaydel Ko Connix, General Leia Organa, Rose Tico, Jannah, Zorri Bliss, Commander D'Acy, Wrobie Tyce

Of the three trilogies in the Skywalker Saga, the sequel trilogy of episodes VII, VIII, and IX (The Force Awakens (2015), The Last Jedi (2017), and The Rise of Skywalker (2019)) have been discussed in conversation with feminism and feminist theory in both academic and public material from film studies and gender studies journals to The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and many more public news outlets, YouTube channels, social media accounts, and fan blogs. Featuring Daisy Ridley’s Rey as the protagonist and Force-user of the trilogy, the film also gives several women of color (Veronica Ngo’s Paige Tico, Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico, Lupita Nyong’o’s Maz Kanata, and Naomi Ackie’s Jannah) major speaking roles in the larger narrative arc of the trilogy. With the risks taken by directors J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson, the fan response to trailers and the films themselves has been explosive, with calls to rewrite and refilm The Last Jedi for its slights to the character of Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker, its centering of a Black stormtrooper (John Boyega’s Finn, formerly FN-2187), a Latino pilot in Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron, and the aforementioned women and women of color (as well as older women in Carrie Fisher’s General Leia Organa and Laura Dern’s Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo) over the narrative of the while male Sith Kylo Ren (formerly Ben Solo and played by Adam Driver). On paper, this trilogy is the most diverse of the three for both male and female characters as well as the many available narrative and occupational roles that characters fill in the trilogy.

However, the film has received major criticism from a subgroup of fans online (see the Social Media page for more). Criticized for being too tame (The Force Awakens neatly rehashes the major plot points, characters, and locations of A New Hope) and then too radical (for the gender and racial diversity of the cast and The Last Jedi’s lack of romantic relationships, threat of a LGBTQ+ relationship between Poe and Finn, presentation of Luke Skywalker as no longer the idealistic Jedi and now a bitter hermit, and so on), the films have received mixed reviews from fans (as have standalone films Rogue One (2016) and Solo (2018) for their expansion of canon and the continued cast diversity) in part due to review-bombing on sites like Rotten Tomatoes, streaming platforms, social media platforms, and other review sites; review-bombing involves a mass influx of negative reviews and feedback on a movie or TV by either a large audience or a few individuals with multiple accounts with the goal of negatively impacting the film or show’s commercial profits, future studio decisions in regard to sequels/prequels/spinoffs or separate projects, or other aspects of the entertainment industry. Review-bombing is a short-term Internet phenomenon with long-term effects and can also involve the harassment of people involved with the project including actors, actresses, directors, and producers. As part of the review-bombing of The Last Jedi, several stars (including Tran, Ridley, and Boyega) deleted their social media accounts because of the harassment they received following their character’s narrative arc, and intense criticism of Kathleen Kennedy, a producer and the head of Lucasfilm, has also increased fan skepticism about projects approved by her within the Star Wars universe. This trend has continued within the franchise, particularly with Leslye Headland’s The Acolyte (2024), but review-bombing (beyond addressing and defining it here) will not be featured elsewhere in the analysis of the sequel trilogy. Academic analysis is the prerogative here.

By placing Rey (Daisy Ridley) in opposition to Snoke (Andy Serkis), Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) throughout the trilogy, the films present a commentary on toxic masculinity and male rage against the female-led Jedi and Resistance as represented by Rey and Leia (Carrie Fisher). Their duels throughout the trilogy can be read as the triumph of the Jedi, the Resistance, good, and the light side of the Force over the Sith, the First Order, evil, and the dark side, but it can also be read as the fall of the white heterosexual patriarchy and the rise of an egalitarian and diverse new society where power is not consolidated in the hands of a few and where many share the benefits of freedom and liberty. This same conflict between female authority and male ideology even occurs within the Resistance, as Poe (Oscar Isaac) mutinies against Vice-Admiral Holdo’s (Laura Dern) leadership when she does not conform to his ideas of female or military leadership. As the film reveals, he was in the wrong since she did have a plan to ensure the survival of as many Resistance fighters as possible, and this plan was backed by Leia, whose authority Poe Dameron respects. Finn (John Boyega) occasionally falls into the mansplaining trap with both Rey and Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran); both women end up rescuing him from the First Order and from himself because they understand the importance of community-building and of collective action; Poe and Finn together come up with a risky plan of breaking into the First Order’s command ship which results in DJ’s (Benicio del Toro) betrayal of them and a more complex battle with the First Order in Crait’s airspace and on the planet below. In The Rise of Skywalker, many of the major female characters from the previous movie are sidelined for several reasons (Holdo’s death in The Last Jedi, almost writing out Rose, Carrie Fisher’s death, and the introduction of more new characters and incomplete storylines), but Rey helps form an alliance with renegade stormtroopers on Kef Bir led by Jannah (Naomi Ackie) who plays a role in the defeat of the First Order fleet above Exegol in the final battle. Leia, too, continues to play a role in the defeat of evil in the galaxy; she founds and leads the Resistance to preserve the values of the Rebel Alliance and New Republic, and she also has Jedi training which helps her survive the destruction of the Raddus in The Last Jedi and distract Ren during his duel with Rey on Kef Bir. Moreso than the other Star Wars trilogies, gender and the oppositions between them play a clearly significant role in the final narrative arc over the film trilogy.

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Rey Skywalker (Daisy Ridley) in The Rise of Skywalker

Rey Palpatine, Rey Skywalker, or Just Rey?

Rey (Daisy Ridley, played by Cailey Fleming in flashbacks in The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker) is the first female character to lead a Star Wars production and the first major female Jedi character to appear in live action. Rey undergoes a massive character arc and transformation over the course of the trilogy from orphaned scavenger to Jedi, and she is mentored by all of the original trilogy characters (Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) in The Force Awakens, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in The Last Jedi and briefly in The Rise of Skywalker, and Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) in The Rise of Skywalker). First appearing as an orphaned scavenger on the desert planet Jakku, Rey is dragged into the larger galactic conflict when she rescues BB-8 and runs into Finn (John Boyega) on Jakku.

Lucasfilm has confirmed that by 50 ABY, 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker, Rey has begun to rebuild the Jedi but faces opposition; a New Jedi Order movie starring Ridley as Rey is in the early stages of production. This is perhaps the reason why there are very few Rey-centric novels or shorts set beyond the timeline of the sequel trilogy. Most of Rey’s non-film appearances are in the official novelizations for the sequel trilogy (junior novelizations, expanded novelizations, and the standard novelizations), in canon Star Wars comics set between the sequel trilogy films (such as Star Wars: Allegiance or the Poe Dameron comic series), or in animated shorts like Forces of Destiny. Rey and the rest of the female protagonists from the sequel trilogy have yet to receive further canon development in other media the way that Leia, Ahsoka, and other women from the original and prequel trilogy eras have, but there is a chance for them to receive further expansion in future projects.

One of the largest and loudest criticisms of Rey, particularly after The Force Awakens was released, were the Mary Sue accusations. A Mary Sue is a character archetype that refers to a woman or a female character who is incredibly skilled, competent at everything she does (without on screen training or established credentials), gifted with supernatural powers (such as the Force), liked and respected by every other character, and seems to lack weaknesses as a person and a warrior all while being attractive and conventionally feminine; Wonder Woman (Diana Prince) is a solid example of a Mary Sue. There is technically a male equivalent (Larry Stu), but male characters that appear overpowered (OP) or Larry Stu-ish are much less of an issue with fans and consumers. Viewers saw Rey as a Mary Sue after the release of The Force Awakens because she was a skilled pilot (despite never having left Jakku or having a ship of her own), a good mechanic (even though she had been living on Jakku as a scavenger for most of her life), unconsciously good with the Force and knowing how to do a mind trick and wield a lightsaber (despite not being trained), and having Han, Chewbacca, and Leia all like her. Rey is also conventionally feminine though she wears functional and androgynous clothing in neutral colors (beige, gray, and white), so the Mary Sue complaints appear legitimate on the surface until one realizes that Luke (Mark Hamill) does most of the same things in A New Hope as Rey does in The Force Awakens without being called a Larry Stu. Rey had been living on Jakku and honing her skills as a mechanic and pilot (if only in theory) her entire life, and she also had skill with speeders and ground crafts; as for the Force, if it had always been inside, she had likely been unconsciously using the Force long before the movies. In the later films, Rey clearly struggles in fights and with her emotions, interacts with characters who do not like her, and has to learn the theory and skills behind how to be a Jedi, so the Mary Sue accusations really fall apart after The Force Awakens.

Finding the Force via YouTube

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Rey (Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) duelling on Kef Bir in The Rise of Skywalker (above)

Rey outside her AT-AT on Jakku (below)

Rey on her speeder on Jakku

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As a Jedi, Rey wields the Force in several new ways. Besides using mind tricks, telekinesis, mental shielding, and Force lightning and speaking with Force ghosts, Rey also uses Force healing to heal a vexis snake on Pasaana and Kylo Ren on Kef Bir in The Rise of Skywalker. Rey’s relationship with Ben Solo/Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is a cornerstone of the trilogy despite the incongruencies between Rian Johnson and J.J. Abrams’s visions for the films, and their Force dyad is particularly important to her development as a Jedi. Through their bond they can communicate telepathically, move objects between locations on different sides of the galaxy, and have Force-time (as nicknamed by Rian Johnson) conversations across the galaxy. If Force healing had not reappeared in The Mandalorian, it might seem to be a unique skill limited to Force dyads as both Rey and Ben use the technique but no other Jedi have done so (except for Grogu in The Mandalorian). She also has natural tendencies towards both sides of the Force (the Dark side from her Palpatine ancestry and the Light side by choice), and her raw Force potential frightens Luke (Mark Hamill) on Ahch-To. She senses the dark side and chooses to go into the cave, and she taps into the Dark side on multiple occasions. However, Rey continues to choose the light side and tries to get Ren to come to her and not to join him, the First Order, and the Dark side. Choosing the Skywalker name is part of this; Rey chooses to define herself by her actions, not by her ancestry. By making Rey a Palpatine, Abrams continues the Skywalker-Palpatine feud; by giving Rey the same kind of lineage as Ren, she is his equal and hsa her own separate source of power and is not dependent on him for her skill in the Force and the unlocking of her various abilities.

Over the three films, Rey experiences several emotions and is the most emotionally expressive of the three major female protagonists (Padmé and Leia being the other two). Rey visibly gets angry several times throughout the trilogy and expresses it through yelling and violence (such as stabbing Ren on the Death Star II wreckage and fighting Luke on Ahch-To). She also cries and mourns the deaths of Han, Luke, and Leia, the supposed death of Chewbacca, and the losses of her parents; Ren knows that telling her that her parents sold her and abandoned her will hurt her the most. She also expresses wonder at seeing Takodana’s plant life, seeing space, and flying in The Force Awakens, demonstrating how restricted her life had been until that point. The Rise of Skywalker hints that Finn might have romantic feelings for Rey but keeps being prevented from telling her, but it is not indicated that Rey feels the same way. This seems to imply a love triangle between Rey, Finn, and Kylo Ren, but ultimately the films do not resolve this and instead set Rey up as a single and independent Jedi. For nearly all three movies, it seems that Rey is the object of affection for both characters but she seems to not have feelings of that kind for them, but the kiss between Rey and Ben between their deaths in The Rise of Skywalker seem to indicate otherwise. Rey is also compassionate, healing the vexis on Pasaana, believing that Ren can return to the Light side, sacrificing herself against Palpatine, and rescuing her friends in the Resistance. Rey is unapologetically emotional, and her expressions of rage are particularly powerful given the stigmas around angry women and their limited appearances in Star Wars. She also has to learn to not let her emotions control her, but that is very different from being unfeeling; unlike the Jedi from the prequel trilogy, her emotions do not make her weak, but they can cause damage (believing she had killed Chewbacca and stabbing Ren).

Rey and Finn’s (John Boyega) relationship is central to their plots in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, while their relationship is sidelined in The Rise of Skywalker. Rey iconically keeps yanking her hand out of Finn’s when they first meet on Jakku, yelling that she can run without holding his hand and is, in fact, more capable than him and less in need of saving than he is. Rey and Poe (Oscar Isaac), Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), and Jannah (Naomi Ackie) rarely interact outside ensemble settings; Rey does not meet Poe until the end of The Last Jedi, and Rose is unconscious at that same time, so Rey does not interact with her. Given both Rose and Jannah’s limited roles in The Rise of Skywalker and Rey’s separate journey, she does not have time to develop a relationship with her female peers on screen. She also interacts with Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in mentorship roles. Han gives her a blaster and offers her a spot in his crew on the Falcon, while she flies with Chewbacca in all three films as copilots. Ren mocks Rey for seeing Han as a father figure in The Force Awakens; he says that Han would disappoint Rey if she placed her trust in him. Luke is much more reluctant to teach her to be a Jedi given how badly Ben’s apprenticeship went before the trilogy, and he is also afraid of her power and her tendency towards the Dark side of the Force. However, he eventually warms to her and provides her with advice, a lightsaber, and a X-wing during The Rise of Skywalker.

When Rey does interact with other women, it is in the context of mentorship with Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o). In The Force Awakens, Luke and Anakin’s old lightsaber calls to Rey from within Maz Kanata’s (Lupita Nyong’o) palace, the first indication Rey is Force-sensitive. She does not want that duty and refuses the call (a critical step in Campbell’s hero’s journey), running into the forest where she briefly and unsuccessfully faces off with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Rey and Leia have minimal interactions in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi because of their separation, but Leia does send Rey off at the end of The Force Awakens and tells Rey “May the Force be with you.” During The Last Jedi, Leia wears a homing beacon that connects to one that Rey has so Rey can find her way back to the Resistance. Rey and Leia end the film together again, recognizing that Luke has died and joined the Force and that, between the broken lightsaber and the Resistance survivors, they have everything they need to rebuild the Resistance and continue her training. In The Rise of Skywalker, Rey first appears going through a Jedi obstacle course around the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss, and it is clear that she has been training under Leia between the two films. Once again, the plot and Carrie Fisher’s death limit their screen time together in The Rise of Skywalker, but Leia clearly fills the mentor and mother roles for Rey.

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While Rey’s role as the first main female character in a Star Wars film who is also a Jedi is incredibly important to the franchise, Rey’s gender is a nonissue in the film. While romantic feelings are implied in several characters’ arcs, they are not really acted upon and could easily be removed from the scripts or cast as LGBTQ+ relationships. As a mechanic, pilot, and Jedi, Rey’s skills and training gets her to her current skill level, and besides appearing to be a Mary Sue to some fans after The Force Awakens, Rey succeeds at all of her tasks and overcomes all obstacles. Her clothing is functional and androgynous, the sashes mirroring the Jedi tabards from the prequel trilogy and acting as additional sun protection. In the first shots of The Force Awakens featuring Rey, she wears goggles and a hood to protect herself from the sun. While she made herself a doll as a child, it is a pilot doll (not dissimilar to the stormtrooper doll Jyn Erso played with as a child), reflecting a gender-neutral occupation and a desire to fly. Rey does not wear dresses or elaborate hairstyles the way Leia and Padmé do to indicate their status, and she rejects her Palpatine ancestry and instead chooses Tatooine and the Skywalker name to honor those who taught her and worked and trained for their status and position. Rey, like Leia, is never a damsel in distress, and she rescues herself and fights back to protect herself and her friends; she never needs to be rescued from others, though Finn often thinks she needs rescuing -- not because she is a woman but because she does not know the First Order and is in an unfamiliar place. Rey’s fierceness and independence (and self-sufficiency) is incredibly empowering as she, much more explicitly and frequently than her predecessors, demonstrates that she is fully in control of her life, her choices, and her future.

Mentors and Leaders

The sequel trilogy continues the trend of the previous two in placing women in leadership positions, but it adds to this history of women leaders by including female mentors. Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o) fills a similar role as Yoda, providing early and cryptic guidance to Rey (Daisy Ridley) on Takodana. Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern) leads the Resistance with General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), and Leia also acts as Rey’s Jedi master in The Rise of Skywalker. Rey’s mother Miramir (Jodie Comer) appears briefly in flashbacks in The Rise of Skywalker; while she does not occupy a major role in the narrative nor act as a leader or mentor to Rey, she does play a role in Rey’s character development (as Rey believes her parents will come back to Jakku, a driving force behind her early motivations in The Force Awakens). Miramir, like many other mothers in Star Wars and other stories, was killed and fridged (before she appeared on screen in The Rise of Skywalker) to further her daughter's story, thus having her importance tied to another character (although female in this case). The sequel trilogy allows viewers to finally get a glimpse of what motherhood (in live action Star Wars content) could be like when all other mother figures in the films had been killed off previously.

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General Leia Organa

Leia’s evolution from princess and sister in the original trilogy to general, Jedi, and mother in the sequel trilogy demonstrates some fascinating commentary on the larger role of women in Star Wars. Fisher, by the time of her appearance in The Force Awakens, had visibly aged, and the character’s appearance reflects the evolution and aging of the character; continuing to wear practical clothing and Alderaanian hairstyles and dresses and adjusting for a more mature character continues the visual associations with original trilogy-era Leia. She noticeably does not wear white or her space buns (as she did in the original trilogy), again indicating that she has moved on from that part of her life. Leia more obviously takes on leadership roles in the sequel trilogy; while she often worked as part of a team in the original trilogy, everyone in the Resistance deferred to her, and she clearly commanded the rooms and command centers even when injured. She has also kept her last name and does not run the Resistance as General Solo; while indicative of her and Han’s (Harrison Ford) separation, this choice proves that Leia has continued to maintain her own identity and purpose after marriage in a way that Padmé (Natalie Portman) does not. While Padmé technically uses her maiden and state surname in Revenge of the Sith, she does so because her marriage is illegal and secret; with how central the Skywalker name is to the trilogy, it seems likely that she would have wanted to take Skywalker as her surname. Leia, however, has never been a Skywalker (legally, at least), and had kept her biological father’s identity a secret (as outlined in Star Wars: Bloodline (2016)), thus continuing to identify with the Organas and her public identity.

While Luke and Han also anchor the sequel trilogy to the original trilogy, Leia and Chewbacca are in all three films (even with the use of previously filmed footage for The Rise of Skywalker and Force ghosts exempted) and Leia interacts with all three main protagonists (Rey, Finn, and Poe) throughout the trilogy and is critical to their individual narrative arcs as Resistance members and Jedi. Leia, as a leader on multiple fronts (the Resistance, the Jedi, and the New Republic), the figurehead of the Resistance, and a massive threat to the First Order, shapes the trilogy and influences the protagonists. Her status as a mother and leader appears also in her mentorship of Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) in the first two films in the trilogy; Leia supports Finn’s desire to rescue Rey from Starkiller Base but, as a leader, cannot logically support such a mission given the risks,. Her motherly attitude towards Poe is much more obvious in The Last Jedi; she pushes him to think like a leader, not a pilot, and eventually names him as her successor to lead the Resistance in The Rise of Skywalker (and he recognizes that he needs help to lead, asking Finn to be a co-general and others to take higher command positions).

Her influence on Rey is particularly profound as it is the first woman-woman mentor-student dynamic (between Jedi and otherwise) depicted in live-action Star Wars (recently followed by Ahsoka Tano, Rosario Dawson, and Sabine Wren, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, in Ahsoka (2023)). It is clear that Leia (through her limited interactions with Rey in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi) can provide Rey with the support she needs to train as a Jedi; she acts as both a teacher and mother figure, significantly different from how Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) remembers his childhood issues with connecting with his parents. Unfortunately, the nature of their two character arcs and Carrie Fisher’s death in 2016 prevented their relationship from developing in The Rise of Skywalker. Leia’s presence in the three films greatly contributes to the three films’ passing of the Bechdel test; she speaks with Rey at the end of The Force Awakens, Vice-Admiral Holdo and Rey in The Last Jedi, Rey again in The Rise of Skywalker, and a deleted Force Awakens scene would have had her speaking with Korr Sella (Maisie Richardson-Sellers). Another example of Leia mentoring other women, her interaction with Sella is cut from the film, but Claudia Gray further expands on their relationship in Star Wars: Bloodline. Unfortunately, Leia does not interact with many other female characters (most of whom are in the background and do not have speaking lines), but it is incredibly likely that she does interact with them outside what is shown on screen. Leia also interacts with Amilyn Holdo as an equal and friend, and both Fisher and Dern created the sense that their characters’ friendship predated the film. By creating and emphasizing female mentorships and friendships, The Last Jedi in particular centers women and their relationships in a way that live action Star Wars had rarely done by 2017. The presence of many kinds of women’s relationships (mentor, leader, friend, etc.) throughout the trilogy and particularly through Rey (Ridley) and Leia reflects their centrality to this larger narrative of the Skywalker Saga; Lucas had originally visualized three trilogies focusing on Anakin, Luke, and Leia, and her central role as both the leader of the Resistance and a Jedi seems to articulate this vision.

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Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo

General Leia Organa is also notably not the only woman in the upper level of Resistance leadership. In The Last Jedi, Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern), with several impressive military victories to her name and a long friendship with Leia (beginning in their teens during their time in the Apprentice Legislature as described in Leia, Princess of Alderaan), takes command after Leia’s injury and the destruction of the Raddus command ship. Holdo is a particularly interesting character; her high military rank contrasts with her pink hair, quiet voice, and feminine appearance. She operates on a need-to-know basis and expects members of the Resistance to obey orders and not question them, introducing a new style of female leadership to the Star Wars universe which contrasts with Leia’s style that viewers and members of the Resistance are more familiar with. First mentioned by her rank (Vice-Admiral), last name, and impressive military victory, her feminine appearance does not match with viewer or character expectations, while her new leadership style is something to get used to and results in other characters, particularly Poe (Oscar Isaac), to underestimate her and distrust her. Leia, Princess of Alderaan (2017) seems to also suggest that Holdo is queer, possibly pansexual or omnisexual, and her appearance on-screen would make her one of the first semi-confirmed LGBTQ+ characters to have a major role in the franchise and in a leadership position. However, this is not a comment on her gender but her leadership style, and even when the crew mutinies against her she does not seem particularly upset, perhaps knowing that Leia will back her decisions and that she is in the right. Watching her reaction to insubordination and mutiny further speaks to her leadership abilities, as she does not escalate the situation. When Leia recovers and ends the mutiny, Holdo remains behind on the last command ship as a decoy so the smaller transports can land on Crait. Here, her sacrifice (in one of the coolest shots in Star Wars history) exemplifies the idea of the captain going down with the ship and taking responsibility that the majority of the crew can survive. Coming into the Star Wars universe as an established military and political leader with a reputation for success, Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo is a new and complicated type of leader who further diversifies the roles, responsibilities, and relationships which women can have in the Star Wars universe.

The Holdo Maneuver from The Last Jedi

Maz Kanata

Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o) primarily appears in The Force Awakens, with a smaller role in The Last Jedi, and takes on an early mentor role for Rey (Ridley). Over 1,000 years old and a pirate queen who seemingly knows every inhabitant of the less-than-legal underworld including Han (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), who she seems to have a crush on. As a pirate and business owner (of a bar in an old castle on Takodana), Maz is incredibly self-sufficient and used to working on her own. She is involved in ensuring that The Force Awakens passes the Bechdel test by speaking with Rey about the Force and her destiny away from Jakku because her family is not coming back for her. Here, Maz is the one to introduce Rey to the concept of the Force and takes an important, Yoda-adjacent place in Rey’s heroine’s journey as the person who introduces the protagonist heroine (Rey) to the wider world and a more significant place in it. Maz also takes up the warrior role when the First Order arrives and destroys her castle, showing her versatility as a character and her ability to occupy multiple roles at once. Her character is later sidelined in The Last Jedi to giving Finn (Boyega), Poe (Isaac), and Rose (Tran) information about a Master Codebreaker on Canto Bight to help them escape the First Order, and in The Rise of Skywalker, she joins the Resistance on Ajan Kloss as an advisor to Leia before the latter’s death; Maz holds a vigil at Leia’s body and sees her join the Force later in the film. In the final celebration sequence Maz takes on a role Leia had in A New Hope by giving Chewbacca a medal. While she appears throughout the final movie, her role is much smaller and she does not interact with many other female characters since Rey is not with the Resistance for most of the movie and because of the limited footage of the late Carrie Fisher. While the character was created with CGI and motion capture technology, Lupita Nyong’o (also known for her performances in Twelve Years a Slave (2013), Black Panther (2018), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Queen of Katwe (2016), and Us (2019)) has continued to voice Maz Kanata in other places within the Star Wars franchise, particularly the shorts series Forces of Destiny, and is the first major Black actress to appear in the franchise in a recurring role (as a supporting character with a speaking part). Even with her limited role in the sequel trilogy, Maz Kanata’s age, wisdom, and background make her a good candidate for future roles and appearances elsewhere in the franchise in animation and live action.

Captain Phasma

Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) exemplifies the anonymous and androgynous nature of the First Order; she wears armor and a helmet like all the other stormtroopers, but hers is chrome instead of white, emphasizing her high rank within the organization. Unlike many of the other characters from the sequel trilogy (and unlike Rey), she stars in a 2017 novel by Delilah S. Dawson and a 2017 comic series, both of which expand her background. Initially, Christie had not been attached to the project, nor had Phasma been female; changing the character’s gender increased the number of main female characters in the trilogy until she was killed off in The Last Jedi. Phasma unfortunately lacked character development and personality in the two films she appears in, and she eventually becomes a B-plot antagonist meant to resemble Finn’s break with the past, the First Order, and the power it held over him. Phasma, however, operates in a position subservient to several men (Domhnall Gleeson’s General Hux, Andy Serkis’s Supreme Leader Snoke, and Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren) in the First Order’s military hierarchy, though both Hux and Ren fight for power and Phasma does not. Seemingly content with her position and authority, Phasma does not fight against the current power system and military hierarchy she exists in, so clearly she experiences several benefits from the First Order in terms of fair and nondiscriminatory treatment. The book and comics exploring her backstory indicate she earned her position through military prowess, but she had to impress the right men (particularly Brendol Hux, General Hux’s father) to get her position. That being said, she does kill Brendol Hux (played by Brian Gleeson in the third season of The Mandalorian) so he no longer has power over her (as no one else knew her background), and freeing herself and choosing to remain in a position where she has power (and is the most powerful woman in the First Order) is fairly feminist, especially since she is the first major female antagonist in the Star Wars films.

The Resistance Lives

Within the Resistance, several named female characters fill several different roles within the organization at all levels. While only eight of them have speaking roles, the many named women in the Resistance reflect the evolution of women’s representation in the franchise, especially since at least two women (Admiral Amilyn Holdo and General Leia Organa Solo) are among the leaders of the Resistance (see previous section). As in other cases, women tend to hire other women or have more in common with the oppressed people. Within the Resistance, women are involved in command and communications positions, mechanical positions, pilot roles, medical roles, and political roles, while Jannah (Naomi Ackie) acts as a warrior integrated into the established hierarchy and Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) is a mechanic turned warrior and leader with their larger roles in The Rise of Skywalker and The Last Jedi respectively.

Among Resistance leadership and supporting command staff, there are several female characters throughout the three films. Kaydel Ko Connix (Billie Lourd, Carrie Fisher’s daughter) has the largest role over the trilogy, participating in the evacuation of D’Qar at the beginning of The Last Jedi and in Poe’s mutiny later in the same film. Lourd even doubled as a younger Leia (with CGI replacing her face with a younger Carrie Fisher) in her Jedi training sequence in The Rise of Skywalker. Commander Larma D’Acy (Amanda Lawrence) also has a recurring role throughout the trilogy as one of the higher-ranked officers that survived The Last Jedi, and the character is the first confirmed LGBTQ+ characters in the Star Wars films; D’Acy and her wife, pilot Wrobie Tyce (Vinette Robinson), appear kissing in the background at the end of The Rise of Skywalker. While queer characters have appeared elsewhere in other media within the transmedia franchise, this moment is particularly significant because it appeared in a canon film and between an interracial lesbian couple. Many other female officers appear throughout the trilogy, Officer Goneril (Amira Ghazalla), Commodore Meta (Morgan Dameron), Koo Millham (Chelsea Hamill), Tabala Zo (Philicia Saunders), Pammich Nerro Goode (Crystal Clarke), Tabala Zo (Philicia Saunders), and Min Sakul (Leanne Best) being the named characters, and women are constantly present in the background of all shots of the Resistance throughout the trilogy. While many of these women do not have speaking roles, the normality around their presences in the trilogy really is remarkable. When Leia and Mon Mothma (Caroline Blakiston) had been the only women in Alliance leadership in the original trilogy, seeing Leia with several other female officers with high ranks and in all sorts of positions in the Resistance is a remarkable and critical change for the franchise. Two women, Dr. Harter Kalonia (Harriet Walter) and an unnamed Resistance medical officer (Priyanga Burford), occupy similar positions of leadership in the medical arm of the Resistance; Kalonia is one of six women in the Resistance who has a speaking part in The Force Awakens. Korr Sella (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) briefly appears just before the destruction of Hosnian Prime as Leia’s representative to the New Republic, and her character and her relationship with Leia receive further development in Star Wars: Bloodline set between the original and sequel trilogies. A deleted scene from The Force Awakens would have further expanded on their relationship and perhaps would have indicated why Leia wanted Sella to go to Hosnian Prime. Astromech R2-KT, named for Katie Johnson (the daughter of 501st Legion founder Albin Johnson, whose terminal brain cancer diagnosis sparked fan fundraisers for cancer research and other charity fundraisers), made her live-action debut in The Force Awakens after appearing in The Clone Wars as part of the 501st legion alongside Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter), Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein), Captain Rex (Dee Bradley Baker), and R2-D2.

While women have appeared elsewhere in the Republic and the Rebel Alliance in smaller numbers, the sequel trilogy particularly centers women pilots in combat. Tallissan “Tallie” Lintra (Hermione Corfield), Paige Tico (Veronica Ngo), Jessika Pava (Jessica Henwick), Kallie Lintra, Cova Nell (Daniela Tlumacova), Commander Center Resistance Pilot (Shauna Macdonald), and Pilot Wrobie Tyce (Vinette Robinson) are among the named or credited Resistance pilots in the sequel trilogy, and three of them have speaking roles. Wrobie Tyce is also in a canon LGBTQ+ interracial relationship, a first for the films, which is worth mentioning again. Tallie Lintra (Hermione Corfield) occupies a leadership position as an A-wing pilot and Blue Leader at the beginning of The Last Jedi until her death later in the film, and she operates as Poe Dameron’s (Oscar Isaac) equal in the initial bombing run over the First Order Dreadnought Fulminatrix. Her sister Kallie Lintra appears in the novelization of The Rise of Skywalker and dies in the Battle of Exegol, the only character on this list who does not technically appear on-screen in the trilogy. Paige Tico also plays a massive role in this opening sequence of The Last Jedi; the slower bombers are all taken out except her ship the Cobalt Hammer, and her pilot is dead. Paige, despite falling and briefly losing consciousness, has to drop the bombs on her ship to ensure that the mission succeeds. With her remote a level above her, Paige kicks the ladder to knock the remote down to herself, catches it before it falls out of the ship, and releases the bombs, but she and her ship are caught in the blast. With Paige’s character, the first major Asian human woman character appears in the Star Wars universe and sets up Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico who appears in both The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. Despite not interacting with younger sister Rose on screen, Paige and Rose’s relationship is the first major depiction of sisters in the Star Wars films and does not show a familial relationship from a man’s perspective. Normalizing women’s relationships with other women and decentering a male perspective is particularly significant because the franchise has historically centered male characters, even in shows where women like Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein and Rosario Dawson), Sabine Wren (Tiya Sircar), and Hera Syndulla (Vanessa Marshall) play major narrative roles. By creating precedent for sister relationships like Rose and Paige (expanded upon in the novel Cobalt Squadron), it allows other women to continue to occupy these positions and take new ones in the franchise.

Lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix (Billie Lourd)

Paige Tico (Veronica Ngo)

Commander Larma D'Acy (left, Amanda Lawrence) and Pilot Wrobie Tyce (right, Vinette Robinson)

Tallissan Lintra (Hermione Corfield)

Jessika Pava (Jessica Henwick)

Rose Tico

Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) is the first major Asian character, male or female, to appear in Star Wars. Sister to pilot Paige Tico (discussed in the previous paragraph), Rose is a mechanic and works behind the scenes in the Resistance who appears in The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. In The Last Jedi, Finn and Rose realize that the First Order is tracking them through hyperspace (hinted at during Rogue One) and realize that their skills as a mechanic and former stormtrooper would allow them to infiltrate the First Order’s flagship and shut the tracking system down. Here, Rose’s skills are critical to a larger mission rather than supporting the large missions, placing her skills (not her gender) as central to the narrative. After escaping prison on Canto Bight, they end up in fathier stables where Rose recruits a young Force-sensitive boy to the Resistance and releases the mistreated fathiers (one of her and Paige's favorite animals and mistreated by the wealthy much as the Ticos and other people across the galaxy were mistreated by the Empire and First Order) into the streets of Canto Bight. To get help from criminal DJ (Benicio del Toro) Rose trades her pendant (the one that Paige had the twin to) for his help. Successfully infiltrating the First Order, DJ betrays them, and Rose and Finn are set to be executed when the Raddus destroys the Supremacy. During the Battle of Crait, Finn attempts a solo run towards the massive cannon, trying to sacrifice himself, but Rose crashes her craft into his, saving his life and briefly kissing him. She last appears unconscious in the Millennium Falcon. In The Rise of Skywalker, Rose has a much smaller role as a commander in the Resistance and the leader of the Engineering Corps. She continues to work behind the scenes for the Resistance by studying Imperial Star Destroyers and fixing the Resistance fleet for battle, but she joins Finn and Jannah (Ackie) at the Battle of Exegol though she does not stay with them to destroy the transmitter.

Rose is a change of pace from other characters in the universe, representing the everyday people who join up to fight back. She also does not occupy a front-line role in the Resistance; characters from other films who have shared similarities with her are often in fighting roles as pilots or foot soldiers, not mechanics. Her hero-worship of Finn is endearing and further indicates this gap between the faces and the hands of the Resistance. Like Rey, she wears androgynous and functional clothing; her skills and faith in the Resistance, not her gender, define her. Post-release interviews have revealed that Rose had originally been set to spend time on Ajan Kloss with Leia (Carrie Fisher) during The Rise of Skywalker but issues with the excess footage of Carrie Fisher and CGI prevented those scenes from being usable in the final cut of the film. With the addition of several new B-tier characters in The Rise of Skywalker and with these unusable scenes, Tico is sidelined in the final cut of the film. Rose’s love for her sister as part of the unique sister relationship from The Last Jedi continues to be significant, as sisters only recently reappeared in the franchise in 2024’s The Acolyte TV show. Rose, in The Last Jedi, is a complex and dynamic character, expressing disappointment, awe, anger, grief, bravery, and many other emotions in her scenes, and she becomes the emotional heart of the movie (though her emotions never overpower her). She is also an explicitly STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) female character; while such skills are par for the course in science fiction and in Star Wars, Rose has made her living off of these skills and explicitly represents women in STEM (and in STEM leadership positions) in the franchise. Like Rey (Ridley) and Jannah (Ackie), Rose has had to work for and earn her position based on her own skills and hard work, a more relatable background than the royal backgrounds of Padmé (Portman) and Leia (Fisher). Unfortunately, Rose’s sidelining in The Rise of Skywalker does not allow her to receive much more character development in her second appearance in the franchise, thus impacting her chances for greatness (again) and a larger role in the First Order’s final defeat. However, since the franchise is continuing to grow and release more content, there are still opportunities for Rose to appear in other media as the star or a supporting character and receive further character development.

Jannah

Jannah (Naomi Ackie) appears in The Rise of Skywalker and takes on a role within the Resistance as a new ally. Meeting Poe (Isaac), Finn (Boyega), and Rey (Ridley) on Kef Bir, a moon orbiting Endor, Jannah reveals that she and the others living on Kef Bir had been abducted as children and indoctrinated to be loyal stormtroopers in the First Order. Like Finn, however, she and the others from Company 77 rebelled against an order to kill civilians and deserted the First Order to hide on Kef Bir. Eventually joining the Resistance, Jannah takes part in the Battle of Exegol and works to take down the navigation signal and keep the First Order fleet above Exegol with Finn, and they eventually use a turbolaser to destroy the command ship and kill the general in command, setting off a chain of destruction which destroys the fleet and ensures the Resistance’s victory. A conversation with Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) back on the Resistance base at Ajan Kloss hints at future travels and adventures for Jannah, who does not know where she comes from, and more of a backstory. One of the major Black women characters in the franchise, Jannah is also particularly interesting as one of the few canon female stormtroopers, and her character provides more context for Finn’s own character arc in The Force Awakens; however, this makes her character a bit redundant, as she does not add much new information to the film and conflicts with Rose’s (Tran) screen time and character development (see preceding paragraph). Also only present in the final movie of the trilogy, she does not experience character development and is fairly stagnant throughout the film. With a lack of character development and a minimal role in the storyline, Jannah’s character had a lot of wasted potential and seems to enhance Finn’s storyline. Since Rebecca Harrison’s research did not extend to The Rise of Skywalker, it seems likely that the final film in the sequel trilogy and the Skywalker Saga will have a high screen time percentage for female characters likely in the 35% to 45% range that Rogue One (2016), The Force Awakens (2015), and The Last Jedi (2017) fall in. Jannah does not have much of an independent storyline; often seen in collaboration with Finn, she seems to emphasize his growth from The Force Awakens and act as a foil to Rose (who has been part of the Resistance for a long time), Rey (who has taken on a new role as the last Jedi), and Zorii (as the skeptic and the cynic). Adding diversity to the cast and further humanizing the stormtroopers, Jannah’s limited character development and role in The Rise of Skywalker’s storyline leaves a lot of her potential out of the final cut of the film but leaves some room for potential appearances and quality character development and depth.

Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell)

Bazine Netal (Anna Brewster)

The Caretakers

Lovey (Lily Cole)

Criminals and Civilians

Like the other Star Wars films, women characters appear in the background of several major scenes and occupy positions of dubious morality. Women appear in Tuanul Village at the beginning of The Force Awakens and are captured and killed by the First Order; only one of them, Dasha Promenti (Ana-Maria Leonte), is named. None of these women have speaking roles and experience violence towards them; Dasha Promenti fights back against the violence, but the other women receive the violence and seem to recognize that fighting back is not in their best interests. Maz Kanata’s (Lupita Nyong’o) bar features several aliens and other people from the fringes of galactic society, including musician Taybin Ralorsa (Laurence Sessou), who is the first Black human woman to appear in any role in the franchise; while Black actresses like Femi Taylor, Gin Clarke, and Lily Nyamwasa) have had roles in previous movies, they have played alien women, not true humans, so the distinction here is significant. Bazine Netal (Anna Brewster) is, besides Maz, the most significant female figure in this location, as she not only has a name but also informs the First Order that BB-8, Rey (Ridley), Finn (Boyega), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) have arrived on Takodana. She later receives more character development in a short story.

In The Last Jedi, Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) interact with the Lanai Caretakers, who Rian Johnson has said were inspired by nuns (given that their village has the isolated qualities of a nunnery and was filmed in an ancient Christian monastic community off the coast of Ireland, Skellig Michael). Male and female Lanai have clearly defined binary gender roles; the women are the Caretakers (historically a gendered-female role) that involves them providing domestic support for Luke and Rey. The presence of binary gender roles that conform with real world gender roles and expectations is a bit bizarre in the fictional Star Wars universe (and in so many different situations and species) and indicative of a need for gender familiarity as a cultural anchor. In The Last Jedi, the Canto Bight scenes and the casino are the equivalent of the cantina scene in A New Hope and the bar scene in Attack of the Clones, and female characters feature prominently in the background. Lovey (Lily Cole), Baroness Wayulia Tagge-Simoni, and Ubbla Mollbro all appear in this scene; Lovey is the Master Codebreaker’s (Justin Theroux) companion who, other media reveals, is planning to usurp his position after she learns everything she can from him, while Baroness Wayulia appears briefly as a hologram and Ubbla Mollbro is a singer featured at the casino.

In The Rise of Skywalker, unnamed women villagers and tourists on Pasaana and women villagers on Kijimi appear in the background but have no names or lines in the film. Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell) has a major role in The Rise of Skywalker as a connection to Poe’s (Oscar Isaac) past as a spice runner (which has unfortunately alluded to the stereotype that Latinx/Hispanic culture implies an involvement with the drug trade in the real world). Bliss wears a helmet and rarely shows her face, suggesting that she too has something to hide and presents a certain facade to the world, suggesting that she needs to use it to protect herself from the world. However, the abrupt introduction of the character in the final film in the trilogy forces her into a minor role (not even a B-plot, perhaps a C-plot within The Rise of Skywalker) that does not allow her to experience character development. While the lack of character development and plot relevance does not make her a necessary or complex character, her presence is still valuable; at that point in franchise history, there were very few live-action female bounty hunters or morally ambiguous female characters, so including this character is a step forward in the franchise even though she has serious character issues.

The First Order

Several women officers appear throughout the trilogy as part of the First Order, but few of them have speaking lines. Officer Nastia Unamo (Kate Fleetwood), unknown First Order officer (Hannah John-Kamen), an unknown First Order monitor (Kate Dickie), First Order officer (Angela Christian), and an unknown number of female stormtroopers and other unnamed officers all appear in the trilogy, making the number of scenes with female characters much higher than in previous films. The nature of the helmets of First Order pilots and stormtroopers make their numbers harder to estimate and identify than the women in the Resistance; the helmets and lack of names, as Finn and Jannah’s journeys indicate, serve to dehumanize the soldiers and pilots of the First Order while the lack of full-coverage helmets in the Resistance (and the Rebel Alliance) encourage viewers to sympathize with the “good guys” (the clone troopers’ helmets in the prequels and the Clone Wars emphasize their sameness and not their individual personalities or physical differences).

Officer Nastia Unamo (Kate Fleetwood)

The Sequel Trilogy: Feminist?

As divisive and potentially worthy of serious critique as the sequel trilogy may be, it did give fans of the franchise the first major Asian character (and two major Asian women characters), the first major Black female character, several powerful female leaders, the first female stormtroopers, female pilots with speaking roles, the first canon LGBTQ+ relationship, the first female protagonist of a Star Wars movie and trilogy, and the first major female Jedi in a Star Wars movie. While the character development of minor characters was sidelined deeper into the trilogy to the detriment of some female characters, Rey (Ridley) and Leia (Fisher) had complex and unique storylines, and Rey in particular will have the opportunity to continue to grow beyond her sequel trilogy arc in a future film. With so many different named female characters and female characters with speaking lines occupying many different roles in the First Order and the Resistance and with gender often appearing to be a nonissue to the narrative (while also not being overly feminine), the sequel trilogy is most definitely feminist. Giving women the highest percentages of screen time in the franchise through 2017, the sequel trilogy has not only increased the racial and ethnic diversity of the franchise but also the types of roles that women take on. With Leia Organa, Captain Phasma (Christie), and Amilyn Holdo (Dern) in positions of military leadership and Rose Tico (Tran) in a STEM position as well as a position of leadership, the women of the sequel trilogy are more numerous and occupy more positions of authority than their counterparts in the other trilogies have. Women characters and women of color have continued to populate the big and small screens in animation and live action since Star Wars returned to theaters nine years ago because of the sequel trilogy and the decisions made at Disney Lucasfilm. The increase in the number of female characters between trilogies is significant, but what really matters is the quality of the characters. By no means a perfect trilogy, either for the franchise or for the female characters in it (to say nothing of the vitriol directed at the cast, directors, writers, and producers by fans), the sequel trilogy brought several complex female characters and a few underdeveloped female characters (who still had personalities and backstories) to life, and as part of the Star Wars canon, there is room for more growth and development for all of the women in this particular trilogy.