The Rise Of Skywalker Spoiler Discussion

In the last few days a lot of new leaks and spoilers for the Rise of Skywalker were released on Reddit. Maybe not all of you know of the spoilers yet, and even if you know of them, we still haven’t really talked about them. So in this post I will summarize the most important spoilers, that should provide us with a basic idea what Episode IX will allegedly be about. The ultimate question is if Episode IX will be a satisfying conclusion not just to the sequel trilogy, but also to the Skywalker saga as a whole. So click through for the latest round of spoilers. And of course, if you want to know nothing then absolutely stay away from this post!

Spoiler territory

First, the following leaks all originated on Reddit by user JediPraxis, who seems to have some reputation in regard to posting accurate spoilers. For some of the other things I also use the Rise of Skywalker Spoiler Board.

I will list the most important bullet points, you can read more when you click on the links to the sources!

• early in the movie we will get a flashback of young Luke and Leia, with Luke training Leia to be a Jedi, who then says that she will not be a Jedi and abandons training because of her pregnancy. There may also be a training duel between Luke and Leia. Since these are supposed to be the post ROTJ versions, if begs the question if they de-aged Mark and Carrie or if they used a similar approach as in Rogue One, with an actor standing in and then adding a CGI face.
• also early in the movie we will see how General Leia is now training Rey, we saw a short bit of that in the D23 footage
• Meanwhile the Knights of Ren return from the Unknown Regions with info about a mysterious Wayfinder device, something that is needed to unlock Palpatine’s legacy, a fleet of ships, as Kylo tries to track down the Wayfinder, an object that once belonged to Darth Vader, he slaughters some people (footage seen in the first teaser trailer) and finally tracks down an “Oracle”, that gives him the Wayfinder, and the Wayfinder points to a location in the Unknown Regions
• Naturally, Kylo goes to the location provided by the Wayfinder and finds a very old and decrepit Emperor Palpatine. Apparently in the flesh. The leaks do not specify how and why Palpatine ended up there, when last we saw him he fell down a shaft, but apparently the movie will explain to the audience how Palpatine ended up in the Unknown Regions
• According to the leak Palpatine’s big plan is to have Kylo and Rey inherit his Empire, thus Palpatine tasks Kylo with luring Rey to him, so he can turn her to the dark side
• Palpatine used the decades in the Unknown Regions to build a massive fleet. We probably saw this fleet in the D23 footage, the Sith Fleet. These Star Destroyers have Death Star Tech Lasers and are capable of destroying an entire planet
• Meanwhile the Resistance / Rebels are tipped off by an informant within the First Order about the Wayfinder Kylo found. When Leia learns about this she sends the heroes on a mission to get a hold of this Wayfinder, and Leia tells them to go to a specific place to meet a contact there
• Turns out the contact is Lando, and Lando, while not pointing them in the direction of Kylo’s Wayfinder, know of anothere artifact, a dagger, there is an inscription on the dagger in an ancient Sith language
• While on the planet Kylo establishes a Force Link with Rey (it must get lonely in the Unknown Regions ;- ) ) and learns where she and her friends are. Kylo and the KoR attack the Resistance on the planet (Pasaana)- The heroes must retreat and are forced to leave the Millennium Falcon behind, Kylo takes it into posession
• C-3PO can’t translate the inscription on the dagger, his programming won’t allow it, this eventually leads to the scene with C-3PO’s red eyes, his programming is backed up to R2-D2 and 3PO is modified so he can translate the text
• While doing this, on the same planet, Kylo contacts Rey again and taunts her, he is trying to antagonize her, to stir the dark side in her. He tells her that the dagger was used to kill her parents. Rey does indeed get angry and a lightsaber duel begins, this is probably the rumored Force link lightsaber duel
• Kylo eventually arrives on the planet, he and the FO capture the heroes. But then it turns out that the mole who leaked info to Poe and Finn before is indeed Hux. He facilitates the espace of the heroes
• Rey encounters Kylo in the flesh once more, yet another duel begins, during this duel the bomb shell is dropped by Kylo, he tells Rey that while her parents were nobodies, her grandfather is not, her grandfather is none other than Emperor Palpatine
• Eventually all the heroes make their escape on the recaptured Millennium Falcon
• Using the info from the dagger the heroes travel to Endor, to go to the wreckage of the Death Star II; it is here that Kylo is already waiting for Rey in Palpatine’s throne room. Yet another duel between Kylo and Rey ensues and Rey taps into the dark side to defeat Kylo, leaving him wounded on the wreckage. Rey then takes posession of the wayfinder and apparently it is then that Rey has the vision of Dark Side Rey, which scares her
• Then the leaks say that Kylo, defeated and wounded, sees a vision of his father, it is not known if Han is a Force ghost or just a hallucination, but apparently Han tells Kylo that it’s never too late to change. This, for some reason, indeed changes Kylo and as he leaves the Death Star he is no longer Kylo Ren, but Ben Solo once more
• Rey meanwhile is so scared of her vision that she travels to Ahch-To, and she decides to do as Luke did, she wants to cut herself off the Force, she scuttles her ship she arrived in, tosses her saber away and is ready to become a hermit herself when Luke appears to her, handing back the lightsaber to her and giving her a pep talk, more or less, which convinces Rey to finish the job once and for all, to kill Palpatine for good this time
• Also, at one point in the movie Leia dies, the leaks say it’s similar to Yoda’s death, it’s just her time. Natural causes. Luke visists Leia one last time, passing on a final lesson to her
• On Ahch-To Luke gives Leia’s lightsaber to Rey, who know has two sabers, the repaired saber of Anakin/Luke and Leia’s saber
• The final act sounds a lot like Return of the Jedi, to make things short: Rey and the Resistance Fleet arrive in the Unknown Regions. Rey ends up with Palpatine, while the Sith Fleet and the Resistance Fleet are engaged in battle. Palpatine then reveals to Rey that he was shaken all those decades ago when he found he could neither maintain his hold over Vader nor convince Luke to join him because of the familial bond between them, which is why he hopes that his familial bond with Rey will be strong enough to convince her to join the dark side. It is then that Ben Solo appears. And now the final duel begins, Ben and Rey fight Palpatine, with both Luke’s and Leia’s saber (it may be that Kylo’s old saber was destroyed in the final duel with Rey). However, Palpatine overpowers both and supposedly kills Ben Solo.
• Meanwhile the Resistance fleet is trying to destroy the Executor, sorry, the Sith Fleet Flagship under command by General Pryde, so that navigation out of the Unknown Regions becomes impossible for the Sith Fleet, apparently only the flagship can do that for some reason
• Back with Palpatine… Luke and Leia appear as Force ghosts and side by side with Rey they manage to defeat Palpatine once and for all – and around the same time the Resistance fleet manages to destroy the Sith flagship
• Another leak says that Rey is grief stricken because of Ben’s death, but that Luke brings him back to life
• The final scene of the movie appears to be on Tatooine. Rey has constructed a new lightsaber, made with parts from both Luke’s and Leia’s sabers. Her new saber is supposed to have a yellow/golden blade. And on the Lars Homestead she buries the leftover parts of the two sabers, the heroes gaze into the twin sunset, credits roll

Now, this is very important, almost all of that is unconfirmed, a few things are corroborated by the footage we know, but many other things are 100% unverified and could be completely wrong.

It also must be noted that another leak (released several weeks ago) has somewhat different details:

• Palpatine’s spirit takes posession of Kylo/Ben, Ben can retain some control and asks Rey to kill him, and Palaptine along with him, which she does, it may be that Luke then resurrects Ben from the dead
• the KoR may betray Kylo, one of the KoR is posessed by Palpatine’s spirit

Yet another leak says that apparently about a dozen or so edits of the movie exist at the moment, with JJ and Lucasfilm not sure what version to use, so it may be that some of the conflicting leaks are based on the various edits that exist.

All that being said, it seems to be that The Rise of Skywalker will contain several elements of Return of the Jedi. One person who claims to know things posted on Twitter that the movie feels like The Force Awakens and Return of the Jedi on shuffle.

Anyway… what do you think of these leaks? And again, almost everything is unverified. Also, it’s incomplete, many details are missing, this are just glimpses and not the whole picture. But provided the leaks are true, what do you make of it? Is that something you will like? Do you think Rey being Palpatine’s granddaughter makes sense? It DOES make sense that she’s not a “nobody” after all, Rey needs to be somehow connected to the grand scheme of things, which is not possible if she were indeed a random nobody.

And the final question: if any of the leaks are true, why is the movie called “Rise of Skywalker”? Unless the redemption and possible rebirth of Kylo as Ben is said “rise”.

My own personal opinion? Some of the things the leaks claim sound absolutely crazy. And I am not sure how fans will react to some of the things happening in the movie. But as usual a barebones bullet point list of things will never tell you how something is executed, and everything may be spectacular and great. You can reduce even great movies to lame sounding bullet points, especially when some context is missing. So keep that in mind.

Finally, remember what Saw Gerrera said: “Lies! Deception!” – it may be that almost none of the above things are true, other than for the things confirmed by the footage we have seen already.

But if it is true, all of it – how do you think general movigoers and fans will react to the movie and its revelations?

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