Star Wars Fans Say The Sequel Trilogy’s Biggest Flaw Ruined Han, Luke, And Leia

Star Wars fans are back at it, picking apart the sequel trilogy and asking the same question that has haunted this thing since 2015: what was the biggest mistake? And yeah, the debate keeps circling the same painful point — the original trio never shares a single scene.

The gripe that won’t die

'The sequel trilogy's biggest flaw is not having Luke, Han, and Leia in a single scene.'

That sentiment popped up (again) on Reddit, and it’s hard to argue with the sting of it. By the end of the sequels, all three are gone — Han dies in The Force Awakens, Luke goes in The Last Jedi, and Leia passes in The Rise of Skywalker — and we never got the money shot of them together one last time. In the world of the films, Han and Leia are long since broken up, Luke is off the grid, and the movies keep them orbiting each other rather than colliding.

The rest of the laundry list

• The missed reunion is the headline, but fans also harp on how abruptly the movies handle some key emotional beats — like Luke learning Han was killed by Ben Solo (who was both Luke’s nephew and former student) and the story essentially hard-cutting past Luke’s reaction.
• Another popular complaint: the trilogy gives the legacy characters pretty bleak lives and then kills them all anyway. Some argue The Last Jedi would have landed better if Luke hadn’t died; people waited decades to see Luke as a full-on Jedi Master, and they never really got that victory lap.
• Not everyone agrees. A chunk of fans push back on the reunion obsession, calling it cheap fan service, and say the sequels actually handled the original trilogy characters well — especially once Carrie Fisher’s passing limited what The Rise of Skywalker could do.
• Then there’s the big-picture criticism that keeps popping up: the whole endeavor felt like it didn’t have a multi-movie plan. That inside-baseball gripe isn’t new, but it does explain why the baton kept getting fumbled between films.

So, was the no-reunion call a dealbreaker?

Honestly, not putting Luke, Leia, and Han in one room — for even a single scene — still feels like a baffling choice. It’s not about ticking a nostalgia box; it’s about paying off the foundation the sequels are built on. And with the trio’s fates sealed across three movies, there was only one shot to do it. They didn’t take it.

What’s next in the galaxy

The next Star Wars feature is The Mandalorian & Grogu, set to hit theaters on May 22, 2026. Until then, expect more debates, more rewatches, and probably another round of 'what went wrong' threads.