rise of skywalker

Disney sure likes to tease, don’t they? Remember how long they took to reveal Avengers Endgame’s name? Just a few short months before release! It’s almost evil keeping fans guessing that long!

Luckily, that’s not the case for Episode IX. We now know it’s officially called The Rise of Skywalker. Here’s the first teaser trailer.

Now there’s tons of speculations of what this means. TONS of it!

Some are saying it’s an ironic title and Episode IX will end with the First Order triumphant, with Kylo Ren ruling the galaxy with an iron fist. After all, Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) IS part Skywalker, on his mother’s side.

That would certainly make the title fit. It’s the rise of Skywalker all right, nowhere in the title says it’ll be a good Skywalker.

As much as we love the idea (and we love it VERY, VERY much), we don’t think Disney’s going to end the current trilogy on such a dark note. We suspect this is going to be more of a metaphor than a physical thing. Perhaps, Luke’s spectacular troll of Kylo Ren on Crait is a rallying call to the galaxy at large, thus giving rise to the Skywalker legend.

…Nah, we don’t like this one either, so hopefully it’s not true.

Most intriguing of all, is why we’re hearing Palpatine’s laugh at the end. Has he been a Force ghost that’s been influencing Kylo all along?

The Marvel Star Wars comics (which are canon) do show that Dark Side Force ghosts exist so that’s certainly a possibility. If Yoda is still around, Palpatine (who died shortly after Yoda) could’ve definitely been floating and influencing people too.

Hell, for all we know, this could be building up to a reveal that Anakin Skywalker has been alive all along.

Yeah, Luke saw his Force ghost at the end of RotJ, but that certainly have just been a combination of wishful thinking and hallucination on Luke’s part. After all, he did get blasted by Palpatine’s Force Lighting a bazillion times just a few hours before. Who knows what damage that could’ve done to him?

Vader could’ve Jedi mindtricked Luke, made him burn an empty/spare suit while he ran off for some R&R somewhere.

…yeah, we don’t think so too.

The wait for December is going to kill us all.

Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.