Fair Warning: There is one mild spoiler here, but if you watch national news, this headline will have been spoiled for you already and this two-second scene will have been shoved down your throat countless times by now.
If opening weekend predictions are any clue, you have probably already seen the climatic denouement of the historic Skywalker Saga. The Rise of Skywalker has its sights set for $450M in the next three days.
And, of its rather quick two hours and 22 minutes, many headlines have focused on two seconds in the film. Forget the closing of a 40-year-long saga. Never mind the character debates surely to take place in comic shops globally. Lets pick apart two seconds — yes, 1…2…and scene — about the closing moments in the film.
Again: Here is the mild spoiler…
Star Wars got its first same sex smooch in its cinematic history. Yes, really. Only, it went by so fast, you may not have noticed it. In summary, there’s a celebration among the Resistance for “something” and scenes of primary and secondary characters of flashing on the screen over a span of five minutes.
High fives. Happy hugs. Firm handshakes. Yawps and embraces. And then, it happens: two inconspicuous female members of the Resistance (seriously, with maybe a full minute of screen time prior to this moment among Rise’s 142 minutes) see each other and smack each other on the lips.
If you blinked, you missed it. And was that the intention in the first place?
Right Kiss. Wrong Couple?
Since the beginning of The Force Awakens, fans of the Resistance have been clamoring for some of that sexual tension between Finn and Poe to be realized in The Rise of Skywalker. If you haven’t noticed it, you may not be alone but, um…not really paying attention.
Shoot, even Oscar Issac was hoping for a little closeness to happen between the two stars, as noted in Variety:
“Personally, I kind of hoped and wished that maybe that would’ve been taken further in the other films, but I don’t have control,” Isaac said. “It seemed like a natural progression, but sadly enough it’s a time when people are too afraid, I think, of…I don’t know what. But if they would’ve been boyfriends, that would have been fun.”
So, even though the Rebel Thrupple of Rey, Poe, and Finn remains connected throughout the movie, you have to sift through the crowds and catch two women with very little screen presence finally sharing some same-sex love in a galaxy far, far away.
It is obviously shoehorned in the movie, and it was like J.J. Abrams had their checklist for a Disney-approved film resting in front of them…and “gay kiss” finally got the mark in this historical franchise.
“In the case of the LGBTQ community, it was important to me that people who go to see this movie feel that they’re being represented in the film,” Abrams shared in that same article.
Was this the seal of approval needed to make the Skywalker saga complete? Was it pandering to a crowd for some obligatory attention? Did Abrams put in there because “it was just time”? See what you think because it sure appears… well, “FORCEd” to me.
#SorryNotSorry
I would have loved it to be Finn and Poe, they made a great couple! LGBT people are everywhere, so they should be in space too. I don’t think there should ever be LGBT characters just to be politically correct, but it’s actually extremely unlikely that there wouldn’t be all kinds of LGBT people out there, so it’s more unbelievable not featuring any! I am a proud LGBT nerd!