Star Wars: Rogue One Vs. The Force Awakens, Who Had The Better Protagonist?

Lessons from the Screenplay is this fun channel on Youtube which likes to dig deep into the movie screenplays, and the channel has covered some interesting movies like David Fincher’s Gone Girl as well as Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight. This time, he goes in-depth into Force Awakens and Rogue One, and tries to compare and contrast protagonists Rey and Jyn Erso.

I have to be honest, I didn’t realize how inconsequential Jyn Erso was before I watched this essay. Turns out, she was a passive protagonist of Rogue One compared to the active protagonist that was Rey in The Force Awakens. Sure Jyn started becoming more important by the third act, but throughout the whole movie, she’s basically just dragged around, and she has flimsy character motivation.

As for Rey, though she is undoubtedly a lady of action, but her supposed “need to stay in Jakku” doesn’t really affect her character for most of the movie other than the time when Maz Kanata convinces her to move on.

All in all, I’m still happy with both movies (Rogue One my personal preference).Though Star Wars has lasted this long as a franchise, we all have to admit that every one of these movies have their flaws — it doesn’t mean, however, that they aren’t great movies.

The next Star Wars film coming is Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and it comes out on Dec. 15.

See Also: Star Wars Episode IX: Rian Johnson Wasn’t Involved With The Script