The final trailer for the final movie in the Star Wars episodic saga has finally arrived (phew, that’s a lot of “finals”). The trailer, which debuted during last week’s Monday Night Football, gives us our most detailed look yet at the upcoming space opera — while also shedding a little light on what the Emperor’s grand plan may be.
If you saw the film’s first teaser, then you probably remember the big reveal at the end of Emperor Palpatine’s laugh. And while the new trailer doesn’t clarify how the Emperor has returned, whether it’s as a Force Ghost or that he somehow survived his long fall/subsequent explosion in The Return of the Jedi, it does reveal some of his motivations. “Long have I waited,” the Emperor says menacingly in the trailer. “And now, your coming together is your undoing.” When he says this in the trailer, we’re treated to a shot of our four main heroes — Rey, Finn, Poe, and Chewie — all together on the Millennium Falcon, marking the first time in the three sequel films that all of them have gone on an adventure together. But we’re pretty sure the trailer is trying to trick us here because we don’t think that’s who the Emperor is talking about coming together. No, we think he means Rey and Kylo Ren.
The two force users obviously have a strong rapport, we saw that in The Last Jedi, and odds are that their bond will grow even stronger in The Rise of Skywalker. We see a couple of shots of them working together in the trailer, and we’re betting that — after Rey flirts with the Dark Side — Kylo turns to the light and they unite against Palpatine. That is, apparently, what the Emperor wants, as it would hypothetically allow him to snuff out the last of the Jedi and the Skywalker line (assuming that Rey, too, is a secret Skywalker — which still hasn’t been disproven!) all at once.
Is our theory correct? We have no idea, but we can’t wait to find out on Dec. 20 when The Rise of Skywalker arrives in theaters.
