Star Wars: Episode IX Trailer Breakdown

In the midst of the intense hype of Avengers: Endgame, Game of Thrones final season, Shazam! and even the new Lion King trailer, I nearly forgot that the Star Wars Celebration was happening this weekend. I was doublely shocked when a teaser trailer was dropped for the last installment of the Star War series, coming to theaters in December. So here I am, breaking down this trailer for you lovely people, and providing a few of my theories that my brain came up with.

The trailer opens with Rey standing on some desert planet, breathing heavily as she awaits for what we later see is an enemy ship speeding towards her. We hear the voice of Luke Skywalker giving comfort to our newest Jedi through the Force, telling her that the Jedi have given her all the knowledge she needs to know as she grabs for her lightsaber. As the ship barrels towards her, we get a glimpse of the leather gloved hands of the person driving it, of whom I believe is none other than Kylo Ren. Rey leaps into the air and narrowly avoids being hit by the ship.

Here’s where things get interesting: we get a few clips of a ship flying, Kylo taking down and guy with his lightsaber, the repairing of Kylo’s helmet, BB-8 being adorable as ever, Finn and Poe on some rock cliff, Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian flying the Millennium Falcon, ships fighting, Poe and Finn amongst the fight, Rey and Leia hugging, our marvelous trio appearing to find part of the destroyed Death Star followed by an ominous laugh of Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine, and the ultimate title card appearing as we know learn the name of the saga’s finale.

To start off, am I happy with this title? No. Do I think there’s a better one out there? No. Star Wars: The Rise of the Skywalker is quite similar to Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi  and Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith, making the parallels of the previous sets of trio films coming to a conclusion. LucasFilms has always created poetic parallels in their films in everything from the characters to plot lines and now even the titles.

Now as far as the rest of the trailer, already I have some theories.

My main theory stems from the last scene and the Death Star that contains some ominous laughter that I instantly recognized as Emperor Palpatine. As much as I was hoping that this final movie would revolve around Rey and Kylo overcoming their differences for one last monstrous fight to Kylo’s inevitable death, I believe that Rey and Kylo will team up alongside Finn and Poe to take down Emperor Palpatine and get rid of the Sith forever, not after having Kylo destroy his troops and General Hux in the process. Perhaps the movie will end with the two leads as friends, perhaps it will end similar to how The Last Jedi did where Kylo starts off on Rey’s side and then changes to being bad again, attempting to convince her to join him as well.

Since this is presumably the end of the saga, there’s bound to be death for some major characters, either Kylo Ren or Emperor Palpatine if my theory checks out. Going back to the poetic parallels that the trilogies present, we have seen in both Return of the Jedi  and Revenge of the Sith that the main Sith Lord dies/becomes anew. This is why I cannot say for certain if Kylo will simply die or if the character of Kylo dies and he simply goes back to being Ben Solo. Either is a possibility, but I would be slightly disappointed if Kylo decides to become redeemed.

Another theory comes from the title itself: The Rise of Skywalker. As we know, Kylo Ren is techically a Skywalker despite his name being Ben Solo. So, if my previous theory holds true, this film will be about Kylo redeeming himself and becoming Ben Solo. If my theory is wrong and he does not team up with Rey to beat Emporer Palpatine, then my second theory is that Rey is indeed a Skywalker. There would be no point in having the title of a film used as a namesake for characters that are no longer in the film franchise. As much as I am still a fan of the theory that Rey is Obi-Wan Kenobi’s granddaughter, I know that it will be revealed that either Kylo is our deemed Skywalker or Rey herself possesses that name.

Regardless of what actually happens in the film, I can say for certain that it appears we will finally get the main trio helping each other out in this film, something we have yet to see in this trilogy compared the the other two. I’m excited to see what other trailers we get over the next few months so that we can get a better idea for the story line of this film. For now, I am just ecstatic that we got this footage that gives us a brief glimpse into what we’ve been waiting for since 2017, and I must say that I cannot wait to see what Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has in store for us.

 

Solo: A Star Wars Story Predictions

Unless you live under a rock, you have probably seen advertisements or commercials for the upcoming Star Wars movie, Solo, coming out on May 25th. I remember a few years back when it began circulating that they were going to make this movie, and now, it’s hard to believe that it comes out in this week.

I’ve always been a big Star Wars fan and was super psyched when they announced that they were going to create three more in the series. Then, when they added Rogue One and now Solo, you can imagine how my nerd brain reacted.

But, I have to admit, even though I’m a huge SW nerd, I wasn’t too thrilled at the idea of Solo, and I have a seen a few of my fellow SW nerds on social media reacting the same way that I did.

Is this a movie that I will go and see opening night? Probably not, mostly because I’m quite busy this week. Will I go and see this movie at all in theaters? I would venture to say that yes, I will. But, I’m just not as excited for this film as I have been for the other recently released films.

For me personally, the hardest thing that I have trouble with is visioning anyone else except our beloved Harrison Ford play Han Solo. I have no idea who Alden Ehrenreich is or have seen him star in anything before. I’m not saying that he isn’t a good actor and can’t play the part, but there’s just something about not having Ford play Han that, for me, makes it harder for me to picture that this is actually Han Solo.

While I’m on the subject, I’m also a huge Game of Thrones fan, so seeing Emilia Clarke play anything other than Daenerys Targaryen is a little weird for me. I will admit that I was thrilled when I learned that she was playing a character that we’ve never met before, so it eased that one a little.

The only character that I’m actually excited for is Lando Calrissian who will be played by Donald Glover. Now, this one, I believe and can imagine. From the trailer, it seems that he does a good job in portraying him.

In regards to my predictions for the film, I’m not entirely sure that I have any solid ones. I haven’t read any books about young Han Solo and who he was before we were introduced to him in A New Hope, so I don’t really have an idea of what this film will be about. From the trailer, however, we see that Han will be introduced to Lando, so I can imagine that we will get to see how their friendship started and perhaps how they went their separate ways. Unfortunately, it looks like Han and Chewbacca are already friends, so we probably won’t get to see how they are introduced to each other.

As far as my predictions go, I only have pieced together one that I’m heavily banking on after watching the trailer many times. One character that sticks out to me is Qi’ra. Like I said, I don’t believe we’ve met her in any other film or even heard about her. Maybe we have and I just missed it, but I don’t believe so. In the trailer, we see Han and Qi’ra talking, and she says to him: “You look good. A little rough around the edges, but good.” To me, this indicates that they know each other or that they have worked together in the past.

A little later in the trailer, some guy (who I believe is called Beckett) says to someone that we aren’t shown, “Let me give you some advice: assume everyone will betray you.”. My immediate instinct is that he is saying this to Han. Now, throughout the trailer, we see the two of them talk, and it seems like this guy wants Han to work for him, so we are led to think that he is on the same side as Han.

My prediction is that Qi’ra will be the one to betray Han in some way. Like I mentioned, it seems that these two already know each other and haven’t seen one another in a long time, so it would make sense that if they are reunited years later, Qi’ra has some secrets that she doesn’t tell Han.

I’m predicting that she will act like his friend through most of the movie only to betray him (and Lando) when it becomes critical. This will either lead Han to kill her, which is why she is never mentioned in later movies, or he will capture her and turn her in. And perhaps, the end will reveal that Beckett and Qi’ra are working together and that they are both bad guys.

 

I will follow this up later on once I have seen the film, so be on the lookout for my review of Solo: A Star Wars Story!