5 Worst Star Wars Romances, Ranked

"Jar Jar is the key to all of this," George Lucas once remarked about making "The Phantom Menace" (via YouTube). It isn't just this clumsy Gungan, though, that has proven critical to making "Star Wars" motion pictures. Several other ingredients have constantly resurfaced across these projects, including the importance of friendship, grand battle scenes, practical effects wizardry, delightfully outlandish costumes, and so much more. Also repeatedly materializing throughout this saga is romance; you don't have to just watch "Love & Basketball," "Portrait of a Lady on Fire," or any of the best romantic movies of all time to experience sizzling cinematic connections.

Various "Star Wars" properties have delivered plenty of romance that has left casual viewers and diehard fans alike buzzing with excitement. However, given how many different "Star Wars" projects have been unleashed over nearly 50 years, some romances were inevitably going to work better than others. This harsh reality is unavoidable when examining the five worst "Star Wars" romances, ranked below from "least worst" to the most insufferable. What makes these relationships so underwhelming comes down to deeply specific details about each couple.

Perhaps one pairing suffered from bad writing, while others might've been undercut by prioritizing sequel teases. Just like in real life, there are so many ways "Star Wars" romances can go horribly awry. That endless assortment of flaws is inescapable when it comes to the five worst "Star Wars" romances — which, unlike Jar Jar Binks, are not essential to this saga.

Ironically, the one fan-theory or fan-ship that "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" didn't even come close to acknowledging was also the one fan-desired element that could've been interesting to see on-screen: the Finnpoe ship. Ever since "The Force Awakens" debuted, viewers had been hoping to see Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) romantically link up. Isaac even hinted that subtle elements of his "Force Awakens" performance teed up some kind of romance. Unfortunately, Isaac later revealed that the real reason "The Rise of Skywalker" lacked this romance was that Disney executives had no interest in it. It's frustrating that this didn't come to fruition, but not making this ship canon doesn't automatically render "The Rise of Skywalker" subpar.

Unfortunately, director J.J. Abrams and screenwriter Chris Terrio delivered tons of other shortcomings that ensured this project was unbearably bad. Among those weaknesses was the clumsy introduction of a former love interest for Poe, bounty hunter Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell). The idea of a classical hero figure like Poe having past romances across the galaxy makes sense. Unfortunately, Abrams doesn't let Isaac and Russell establish any kind of fun rapport in their screentime.

Worse, this introduction of this defunct relationship leads to the bamboozling reveal that Poe used to "run spice." Suddenly unveiling Poe to be some kind of drug dealer is a miscalculated choice speaking to how poorly written this subplot is. Surely executing the Finnpoe romance couldn't have gone worse than this.

Part of the untold truth of Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) is that his appearances in "Star Wars" media go far beyond the Prequel Trilogy. He also constantly showed up throughout "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." This character's return inspired further hilarious and cringe-worthy scenes that included everything from Jar Jar negotiating with General Grievous to this Gungan being mistaken for a Jedi. In one of his last "Clone Wars" appearances, Jar Jar Binks and Mace Windu teamed up to help Queen Julia (Ami Shukla). This mission eventually involved a reveal that Jar Jar and Julia were romantically involved, with the duo even sharing an on-screen kiss.

Truth be told, given the (sometimes excessive) hate Jar Jar has received over the years, props must be given for the "Clone Wars" creative team for committing to a concept like "Jar Jar gets smooched." The commendable audacity of refusing to give in to the Jar Jar hate, though, isn't enough to make this relationship compelling. For one thing, the combination of Julia's peculiar character design and the CG animation of "The Clone Wars" makes the sight of these two aliens kissing off-putting. For another, their romance is hampered by clunky writing.

Julia gets kidnapped shortly into the two episodes she appears in, meaning there isn't any time to get to know her as a character or probe the intricacies of her connection with Jar Jar. Reducing her to a MacGuffin that Jar Jar and Mace must track down dilutes the impact of this conceptually shocking romance.

For Han Solo's origin movie "Solo: A Star Wars Story," this smuggler got a new love interest in the form of Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke). In some ways, the character's moral uncertainty harkened back to classic femme fatales. That's a perfectly cromulent archetype to adhere to, especially since "Star Wars" is so rooted in pre-'50s cinema (an era housing the noir, where the femme fatal was popularized). Unfortunately, Qi'ra and Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) never really worked as a romantic pairing, partially because the film couldn't commit to giving the former a discernible personality.

Throughout "Solo," Qi'ra's motivations are kept intentionally cloudy solely so the film can end on a sequel tease involving the reveal that she's actually working for Darth Maul. This narrative decision gives Clarke and the audience nothing to work with in terms of Qi'ra's concrete characterization. Clarke and Ehrenreich don't also have much memorable chemistry in their scenes together, which further hampers the potency of a duo that could use all the help it can get.

There's also just the inevitable problem that this "Star Wars" prequel is always working in the shadow of pre-existing, superior Han Solo exploits. That includes Solo's eventual romance with Leia, an inevitable relationship that inherently makes these Qi'ra shenanigans feel superfluous. So much went wrong with this relationship, despite how intriguing it sounds to give Han Solo a femme fatale flame.

Though the most powerful female "Star Wars" characters of all time certainly speak to how many memorable women inhabit this franchise, this list makes it clear that "Star Wars" media has often struggled to deliver compellingly written ladies. So many "Star Wars" romances would be infinitely better if the women in these relationships had been given dimensions, flaws, and concretely idiosyncratic personalities. Unfortunately emblematic of this problem is Natalie Portman's Padmé Amidala and her relationship with Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). This forbidden love is the crux of both the Prequel Trilogy and Anakin's descent into the Dark Side.

Everyone's firmly aware that this boondoggle of a romance features some truly abysmal dialogue, like Anakin's "I don't like sand" speech. However, the subpar writing of Padmé especially makes it hard to get invested in this pairing. In "Revenge of the Sith," for instance, Padmé has nothing to do beyond stand around in her apartment expressing excitement for her impending twins. There's no interiority to this woman, which just heightens how uninvolving Anakin and Padmé's romance is. Neither character comes off as an engaging human being, no matter how many sunny picnics or kisses they exchange.

The best tragic romances ensnare discernibly human creations. Anakin and Padmé are, unfortunately, flatly realized entities whose artistic shortcomings go well beyond some clumsy sand-oriented dialogue.

One of the ingenious things about the Sequel Trilogy was initially defining Kylo Ren's wickedness through terms and relationships tragically familiar to younger 21st century viewers. His villainy originating through slaughtering other adolescent Jedi-in-training, for instance, made Kylo Ren an intergalactic equivalent of a school shooter. Meanwhile, his verbiage towards Rey in "The Last Jedi" ("you're nothing, but not to me") evokes how abusive partners or parents talk to the people they're abusing. The horrors that millennial and Gen Z audiences couldn't escape in their day-to-day lives were crystallized in Kylo Ren's evilness.

Then "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" and that Rey and Kylo Ren scene came around and capsized everything. This movie's overly familiar redemption arc for Kylo was already atrocious, but having Rey and this former Sith Lord sharing an open-mouth kiss was particularly terrible. Their dynamic, especially before "Rise of Skywalker," didn't remotely tee up this connection. For another, Kylo's gruesomeness across the Sequel Trilogy was impossible to forget. Rey and Kylo suddenly being lovers felt egregiously disconnected from everything else in this saga.

As many "Star Wars" fans have already pointed out, there's also the potential incest vibes to this relationship that make it even ickier than it seems on the surface. Having the first woman protagonist in "Star Wars" history just fall in love with her male adversary is also such a hokey narrative choice. Any way you slice it (even with Kylo's ramshackle lightsaber), the Kylo Ren and Rey romance is disastrous.