Entertainment
The Rise of Skywalker Is The Worst Star Wars Movie And A Secret Triumph
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
With Kathleen Kennedy finally stepping down at Lucasfilm, I found myself looking back at The Rise of Skywalker, otherwise known as the worst film in the Sequel Trilogy. Fans love to give The Last Jedi crap, but that film might as well have been Citizen Kane compared to TROS, a movie that offers nothing more than lazy nostalgia wrapped around an even lazier plot. However, while The Rise of Skywalker is the worst Star Wars movie, it is a secret triumph in how it centers its narrative around Rey’s quest for identity.
The Rise Of Skywalker Does One Thing Right
The original Star Wars films were famously written with Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces in mind, which is why the characters are broad and recognizable archetypes (Luke Skywalker is a young man of destiny like King Arthur, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Merlin-esque wizard who gives our hero an Excalibur-like magic sword, etc.). This helped make those films a success, but the later prequels and sequels ended up feeling like a lame retread because creators were once again creating broadly archetypal characters. By contrast, The Rise of Skywalker, even at its worst, was a narrative triumph making Rey three-dimensional in her quest for self-identity.
Obviously, Disney muddled the sequels on almost every level, which is why Rey went from having a possible connection to Obi-Wan in The Force Awakens (a little digital wizardry had Sir Alec Guinness calling out Rey’s name after she got Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber) to being the nobody daughter of nobody parents in The Last Jedi. The Rise of Skywalker infamously made her the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, and while this is the worst storytelling decision they could have made, it became an accidental triumph thanks to Rey’s realization that self-identity is a social construct.
In practical terms, this means that Rey the character finally realized something that had eluded countless fans and Disney’s own topic executives: that the debate over Rey’s identity is completely meaningless. Everyone wanted to pore over who she might be connected to in the Star Wars universe and how those connections define who she really is. The Rise of Skywalker, however, turned its worst story beat (Rey’s connection to Emperor Palpatine) into a triumph by having our new Jedi realize what almost everyone in the audience eventually realizes: one’s identity does not have to be determined by one’s family.
That may sound like a fairly basic idea, but it’s a concept Star Wars never really embraced before. Most of all three trilogies revolved around how the Skywalkers alternated between dooming and saving the galaxy, making it easy to think the almighty Force only really cares about one family. The Rise of Skywalker, for all its flaws, drives home that our heroes can define themselves and live full lives outside the shadow of their predecessors.
Now, before you say it, I’ll be the first to admit that this doesn’t magically make The Rise of Skywalker a good movie. Everything from the hokey return of Emperor Palpatine to the fetch quest plot to the inexplicable remnants of the Death Star is stupid enough to make you wonder why you fell in love with this franchise in the first place. And even Rey’s revelation that she identifies as a Skywalker made for a goofy stinger of an ending, but that goofiness hides a fairly important message about choosing your own identity.
Once more for the cheap seats: The Rise of Skywalker is the worst Star Wars film ever made, but it’s also a secret triumph because it recontextualizes the entire franchise. After eight films insisting otherwise, the franchise obsessed about cosmic destiny finally admitted that our heroes are free to choose their own paths and their own identities. Hopefully, Star Wars itself can follow suit and its connection to Disney won’t keep it from identifying as a decent franchise ever again.
Entertainment
Hurdle hints and answers for March 1, 2026
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it’ll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
If you find yourself stuck at any step of today’s Hurdle, don’t worry! We have you covered.
Hurdle Word 1 hint
Mixed metals.
Hurdle Word 1 answer
ALLOY
Hurdle Word 2 hint
A popular board game.
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Hurdle Word 2 Answer
CHESS
Hurdle Word 3 hint
The edge of the beach.
Hurdle Word 3 answer
COAST
Hurdle Word 4 hint
Milk-based.
Hurdle Word 4 answer
DAIRY
Final Hurdle hint
A Spanish character.
Hurdle Word 5 answer
TILDE
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Entertainment
Moon phase today: What the Moon will look like on March 1
It’s a new month, and while the Moon may appear totally full, we’re still a couple of days away from this yet. But in the meantime, there’s still lots to spot on its surface.
What is today’s Moon phase?
As of Sunday, March 1, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. According to NASA’s Daily Moon Guide, 94% of the Moon will be lit up tonight.
With just your naked eye, tonight you’ll be able to see the Mares Imbrium and Crisium, as well as the Tycho Crater. If you have binoculars hanging about, dust them off and pull them out to catch a glimpse of the Mares Nectaris and Frigoris, and the Endymion Crater. And proud telescope owners will see all this and more, including the Apollo 15 and 17 landing spots, and the Schiller Crater.
When is the next Full Moon?
The next Full Moon will be on March 3. The last Full Moon was on Feb. 1.
What are Moon phases?
According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to orbit the Earth. Over the course of this period, it moves through eight recognisable phases, what we call the lunar cycle. While the same side of the Moon always faces us, the amount of its surface lit by the Sun changes as it continues along its path. The shifts in sunlight create the different appearances we see from Earth, ranging from a fully illuminated Moon to a thin sliver or near darkness. The eight phases are:
New Moon – The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
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Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)
Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) – Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
Entertainment
Men are paying to have negative posts removed from Tea app
As reported by 404 Media, online service Tea App Green Flags will scrub negative posts from anonymous gossip app Tea and similar online forums where women post about negative experiences they’ve had with men they’ve dated.
According to 404 Media’s interview with Tea App Green Flags’ founder, simply identified as Jay, the company launched two years ago to tackle posts on the many Are We Dating the Same Guy Facebook groups. His focus has turned to Tea in the past year.
“We just want to take down posts about people who are being defamed,” Jay told 404 Media. “And when I say defamed, it means like, ‘this guy has a small penis,’ or ‘this guy smells.’ That doesn’t fit the mission statement of what the Tea app was for, which is to warn women against people who are harmful, who are abusive, who are cheaters.”
Tea App Green Flags’ site claims to have removed over 2,500 posts from the Tea App for over 759 clients. Most of the service’s clients are men, although Jay noted that occasionally the wives and girlfriends of men posted on the app will reach out.
Prospective Tea App Green Flags clients must provide their name, age, location, and photo to the service, as well links to specific posts targeting them. According to Tea App Green Flags’ FAQs, they can only remove posts with direct references to a client. On average, the site says, a Tea App “takedown campaign” will take 21 – 30 days. The lengths of other takedowns depend on the platform.
Price-wise, it costs $1.99 to report one Tea account and up to $79.99 to report 25 of them. The company also offers “24/7 Reputation Monitoring,” which costs $19.99 per month and alerts clients when they appear on Tea or Facebook.
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Jay would not share the details of the takedown process with 404 Media. Tea does have a free form for takedown requests on its website, and says that it will “only reply to takedown requests submitted via the takedown portal.”
Jay emphasized to 404 Media that Tea App Green Flags does not extend its services to people who have been accused of sexual assault multiple times on Tea, or who have been accused by one person using their real name and photo in a Facebook group.
“Sometimes we find along the process that there are pedophiles or people who actually did what they did, and they’re very bad,” Jay told 404 Media. “So we say, ‘we’re not doing this.’ We can’t take a rap for that. We’re ethical. We just want to take down people who are being defamed.”
Tea markets itself as presenting “dating safety tools that protect women.” In July 2025, it was the target of a large-scale cyberattack that exposed thousands of user images including drivers’ licenses, leaving users vulnerable to doxxing and harassment. These images were provided as verification for accounts, although the app itself is otherwise anonymous.
Jay claimed to 404 Media that Tea’s anonymity “causes a cesspool of defamation,” and that he would prefer if women shared their faces, even if they are speaking out against dangerous men who have done them harm.
While Tea is meant to be a women-only app, Tea App Green Flags is proof of men’s infiltration of these online dating spaces. (Tea itself was founded by a man: Sean Cook.)
“I have a Tea app account. I’m a dude,” Jay told 404 Media. “All my reps have Tea app accounts. They’re men.”
Mashable has reached out to Tea for further comment.
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