Luke, Han, Obi-Wan, and more are all talked about in conversations of fans’ favorite characters from the franchise, and rightfully so. However, there are plenty of other excellent characters that deserve more recognition. Here are some of the most underrated Star Wars characters.
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Poe Dameron is a character often sidelined in fan discussions, with audiences favoring Rey, Kylo Ren, and Finn over Oscar Isaac’s Resistance hero. However, he’s a character with a compelling arc across the Sequel Trilogy.
Interestingly, he wasn’t even set to survive The Force Awakens in the initial scripts, with Poe’s TIE-Fighter crash slated for be his death. Oscar Isaac, an actor who had previously played several roles in which he was killed off early, has since stated that he was initially hesitant to accept the role as not to be typecast in future films. Before he was able to accept or deny the role, JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan opted to change the script to have Poe survive and come back later in the story. With that decisions, one of the most underrated Star Wars characters was born.
Poe is a hero who is reminiscent of several Star Wars characters, in particular Han Solo and Leia Organa. Dameron has the swagger and arrogance of Han Solo, but with some of the heart of Leia. Isaac, so good at bringing that swagger to the table in most of his roles, proves to be just as capable of adding the heartfelt aspect to his character.
Poe also has a great arc across the trilogy, adding to his underrated status. While the journeys of Rey and Kylo Ren are the primary focus of the Sequels, the writers still gave Poe substantial development with each film. The best of Dameron’s character was seen in The Last Jedi, where he had the most overt arc. At the beginning of the film, Poe is willing to sacrifice many members of the Resistance to win a battle, but by the end, he is much more of a leader, ready to take on that mantle from Leia and whose primary focus is to save his found family. It‘s one of the strongest single film character arcs in the entire franchise, and serves as evidence that Poe truly deserves more recognition.
Kit Fisto is a memorable character for fans of the prequels as its related animated series, The Clone Wars, as the green alien Jedi appears in both. Fisto is a character who was never the primary focus, and has often been labeled as someone whose design is the only thing of interest in him. However, there’s actually more to Fisto than his look.
Fisto is the subject of some interesting stories, especially in The Clone Wars. He’s given more time to shine in this series, and helps his fellow Jedi significantly, especially in an underwater battle. Fisto has unique abilities in water, and can handle himself better than many other Jedi when in this type of environment, which has led to some amazing animated action sequences in The Clone Wars.
In Legends, Fisto also has some unique stories. In Star Wars Tales #14, released in 2002, the same year as Attack of the Clones, Fisto teams up with Aalya Secura, another Jedi during this era, to discover the mysterious origins of an unknown virus targeting and killing the Republic’s clone troopers. It’s a story that seems to have inspired a multiple episode arc in The Clone Wars, which revealed the chips implanted in the clones that force them to turn on the Jedi when activated. All in all, Fisto is certainly an underrated character in the Star Wars galaxy.
In 2022, years after Snoke’s first appearance in The Force Awakens, not much is known about the character still. He continues to remain a mysterious in a franchise that has a lot of the unknown, so Snoke fits right in. Initially an Emperor Palpatine type figure, later revealed to be under the control of the Sith Lord, Snoke is often lost in the larger debates about the direction of the story of the sequels.
Still, Snoke is a compelling character nonetheless, and some of this has to do with the mysteries surrounding him. For example, Luke, Han, and Leia all seemed to know about Snoke years prior to the events of The Force Awakens, yet the specifics of how they knew him and what they did with the information that there was a powerful dark side Force used in the galaxy still remains unsolved. Of course, Luke knew that he was attempting to corrupt Ben Solo, which led to the Jedi briefly deciding to destroy his apprentice. Beyond that, though, this still remains a mystery, adding to the interest of this character.
Also adding to the interest, and mysteriousness, of Snoke is the question of his origins. The comic series The Rise of Kylo Ren showed Snoke in between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, but added more to Ben Solo’s background than his master. Even with this comic series, the questions of how much was Palpatine in control of Snoke, was Snoke aware of this overarching presence, and if he was created from scratch by the Emperor or if Sidious was simply cloning and using an already existing person are all still in play, adding to the interest of this character. Snoke died abruptly, perhaps a reason for his understated status among Star Wars fans, but he’s still an underrated character in the franchise.
Many debates were born from the release of The Last Jedi and the many unique and surprising story developments of Rian Johnson’s film. One of these was the character of Rose Tico, her role in the film and Kelly Marie Tran’s performance.
Despite what many Star Wars fans have said about Tico, that she is uninteresting and undeserving of the screen time she gets, it’s clear in The Last Jedi that Tico has a great and emotional character arc, stemming from the death of her sister. Kelly Marie Tran does a great job with the role, in what was her first major acting performance of her career, and gave the character of Rose a true heart. Star Wars fans might debate about Rose, but she’s more compelling than many seem to give her credit for, hence her underrated status.
Alden Ehrenreich has had one outing as Han Solo date in Solo: A Star Wars Story, the origins tale of Star Wars’ most famous smuggler and scoundrel. While Han Solo himself is arguably the most iconic, beloved, and talked about Star Wars character, that goes for Harrison Ford’s version of the hero. However, Alden Ehrenreich’s very different, yet still Han Solo performance deserves more praise.
Ehrenreich doesn’t exactly resemble Ford, so he doesn’t have appearance to fall back on for audiences to connect this version to the one in the original and sequel trilogies. Ehrenreich also doesn’t do an imitation of Ford, and instead goes his own route to portray Han Solo. That in and of itself was a risk, but Ehrenreich pulled it off excellently. He still feels like Han Solo, therefore passing the ultimate test given to him when he was cast in the role and proves that his version is underrated.
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