STAR WARS: 5 Best And WORST New Characters Added To The Franchise's Canon In Disney Era Of Storytelling

Disney has added a lot of new characters to the Star Wars franchise over the past decade, some of whom we love and others...well, they've been about as much fun to spend time with as old Jar Jar Binks!

By JoshWilding - Oct 23, 2022 11:10 AM EST

Filed Under: Star Wars

No one could quite believe it when Disney acquired Lucasfilm for a whopping $4 billion in 2012. The Star Wars franchise had remained pretty much stagnant ever since Revenge of the Sith was released, but the House of Mouse promised to move forward with a new trilogy of movies and vowed to expand this Galaxy Far, Far Away in a myriad of ways.

They've delivered on that, but not everyone has been pleased with the results.

It's been a hit-and-miss era of storytelling, with a divisive sequel trilogy, some hit TV shows, and many different projects that have failed to come to fruition. Along the way, we've met a lot of new characters, some of whom have joined the pantheon of icons like Han Solo and Darth Vader, and others...well, the less said about them, the better.

In this feature, we're taking a look back at the good and bad additions to Star Wars courtesy of Disney, and once you hit that "Next" button, be prepared to see some unexpected names...

The Good

5. Ezra Bridger

Spearheaded by Dave Filoni, Star Wars Rebels was the first animated series of the Disney era and introduced a whole new cast of characters. It didn't take long for familiar faces to pop up, of course, with the series ultimately becoming a showcase for Ahsoka Tano as well.

Ezra Bridger stands out because of his importance to the wider franchise.

A powerful young Jedi who appeared at a time when the Empire was at the height of its power, Ezra gave us the chance to explore new sides of the Force. With the character set to return in Ahsoka, his story is only just beginning, and we believe he'll be key to where the Star Wars franchise goes next.

4. Grogu

Initially, it looked like The Mandalorian might just be "Boba Fett: The Series," with many fans convinced he was beneath that silver helmet. We quickly realised that wasn't the case, and the first episode ended with one heck of a hook in the form of Baby Yoda.

That moniker stuck until we learned that the 50-year-old baby wasn't a Yoda clone; instead, he's Grogu, a Jedi youngling saved from the Jedi Temple on the night of Order 66.

On the one hand, Grogu is a good way for Lucasfilm to sell toys. On the other, he's unbelievably adorable, the source of countless memorable (and hilarious) moments, and perhaps the most intriguing character introduced during this era of storytelling.

3. Jyn Erso

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was the first of Lucasfilm's spinoff movies, and it proved to be even better than expected. Revealing what became of the brave Rebels who stole the Death Star plans, we met Jyn Erso, the young woman at the heart of a tale we had waited decades to be told.

Cassian Andor obviously deserves an honourable mention, but it was Felicity Jones who really stood out to us here.

Jyn is a character we wish had survived the events of this movie so we could have continued following her story. A prequel wouldn't make much sense, so we continue to hold out hope she found a way to fight another day (just don't bank on it).

2. Kylo Ren

The sequel trilogy made a lot of mistakes, and we may never be able to forgive Lucasfilm for dropping the ball on both the original trilogy characters and that final chapter.

Despite those issues, we do find it hard to find fault with Kylo Ren. A complex and terrifying villain, Ben Solo could have quite easily been a modern-day Darth Vader had J.J. Abrams not fumbled the ball with The Rise of Skywalker. As things stand, the "Supreme Leader" remains a truly great bad guy.

The fact that he ultimately found redemption wasn't the worst move, but there were arguably better ways to handle it. When Kylo Ren was unleashed, though, he's a villain who is still hard to top.

1. Din Djarin

Say what you will about this Disney era of Star Wars, but The Mandalorian is damn near perfect.

Despite showing his face on only a handful of occasions, Pedro Pascal has made bounty hunter Din Djarin someone who everyone has fallen in love with. A big part of that stems from his dynamic with Grogu, but the badass killer with a heart oozes cool and has shown us a side of this Galaxy Far, Far Away previously unexplored on screen.

As we continue to delve into Mandalorian mythology, we're sure Din will only become more fascinating. It says a lot, however, that even in Boba Fett's TV series, it was this bounty hunter fans were most excited to see.

Who are the WORST Star Wars characters from the Disney era?

Head over to SFFGazette.com by CLICKING HERE
to see the next five entries in this feature!

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42 Comments

1 2

IcePyke - 10/23/2022, 11:36 AM

MrDandy - 10/23/2022, 11:58 AM

Ezra over Kanan??

What insanity is this?

RolandD - 10/23/2022, 12:02 PM

Lame effort to get clicks at one of the other sites, all of which don’t seem to get much traffic. The several times I have clicked on once of those stories, I have never seen any comments. Hard pass.

HeavyMetal4Life - 10/23/2022, 12:08 PM

Lol, I'm not clicking a different link to see the 5 worst.

Lokiwasright - 10/23/2022, 12:13 PM

You dumb people in the comments get triggered over the most minor things ever.

Jesus f'n christ. You people are pathetic.

All you dull people do is complain about articles about fictional things...

JFerguson - 10/23/2022, 12:24 PM

I've been bitter about Disney's direction for star wars ever since they took tiny death star off the app store and stopped updates for it. used to be my favorite game

marvel72 - 10/23/2022, 12:59 PM

I guess this is pretty much correct, K-2SO is probably my favourite new Disney Star Wars character.

LegendaryOutlaw - 10/23/2022, 1:23 PM

The 5 worst list is hardly a list of five of the worst additions but five characters with wasted potential. I think you can definitely argue for the biker gang for being some of the worst considering they didn’t really add much substance other than a “cool” factor, but the way I see it, Snoke was arguably fine as is, bringing Palpatine back instead of just letting Kylo be his own villain left a bad aftertaste on Snokes legacy. Max Kanata made a decent impact on her first appearance, then they just threw her out. I’ll stand by the fact that Rey is a great character, Rise of Skywalker just ruins her arc. Specifically, Palpatine ruins her arc.

mountainman - 10/23/2022, 8:41 PM

@LegendaryOutlaw - The biker gang was the opposite of cool.

LegendaryOutlaw - 11/6/2022, 8:51 AM

@mountainman - K

Corruptor - 10/23/2022, 1:44 PM

Jar Jar WAS fun to spend time with, nerds were just scared of being teased about the comical alien.

CamtonoOfBeskar - 10/23/2022, 2:44 PM

Rebels had a lot of good, new characters.

Ginley - 10/23/2022, 3:16 PM

"Rogue One" has to be one of the most overrated films of the last decade and this nonsense is why.

iT iS sTaR wArS fOr aDuLtS ... which apparently means you can explain away serious storytelling deficiencies.

And the lack of character development was a problem in "Rogue One". I didn't need a long back story for everyone but better defined their characters would have been nice.

The dialogue among the protagonists sounded like it could have all come from the same character.

How are they fleshed out beyond them telling us or us seeing what they did in their pasts?

I've loved Felicity Jones and Diego Luna in other films, but here they made no impact.

Mads Mikkelsen provided that element of humanity best.

Jones didn't connect at all.

Tragedy works BECAUSE audiences cares what happens to the characters.

And it's flat-out offensive to claim that Rey was one of the worst characters while Jyn was one of the best.

"The Force Awakens" succeeded because it introduces these characters, gives you a feel of who they are as people, and then creates a story where we are invested about what happens to them.

It invoked real emotion in the story as we watched them undergo their conflicts and triumphs. The audience feels these emotional beats in the story.

And Ridley had big-screen charisma and charm, unlike Jones who always looked uncomfortable and brought zero weight or credibility to her supposedly tough character.

mountainman - 10/23/2022, 8:44 PM

@Ginley - To each their own. I find Rogue One to be the best Disney Star Wars movie (and Andor is even better so far) and found Episodes 7-9 to actually be worse than the prequels in quality. The only character from 7-9 that wasn’t terrible is Kylo Ren.

Ginley - 10/23/2022, 3:17 PM

Baby Yoda is a meme, not a character.

marvel72 - 10/23/2022, 4:57 PM

Rey has got to be the worse new Disney Star Wars character.

bkmeijer1 - 10/23/2022, 6:07 PM

The Star Wars franchise needs a Cabbage Man. Would easily be top of this list

GreedoSarducci - 10/23/2022, 6:55 PM

"Who are the WORST Star Wars characters from the Disney era?

Head over to SFFGazette.com by CLICKING HERE
to see the next five entries in this feature!"

F.UCK YOU