A new Star Wars 9 poster gives fans their first look at Emperor Palpatine!https://t.co/b6WONcRELx pic.twitter.com/BlTsMjwpsj
— Screen Rant (@screenrant) August 24, 2019
There has been a lot of exciting Star Wars news coming out of D23, from the new poster featuring Emperor Palpatine, information about the many upcoming television series including The Mandalorian and the next season of The Clone Wars. But what D23 audiences got to see, that we were not yet all privy to, was a new trailer to The Rise of Skywalker that gave a lot of teases as to what the end of this era of Star Wars will look like. Including a very interesting image of Rey wielding a red double-sided lightsaber. Sith style.
According to The Verge:
“The trailer opens with footage from all nine Star Wars films. A voiceover declares that there have been “a thousand generations, but this is your fight.” Rey, Poe, and Finn are preparing for the biggest fight of their life. Battleships tear through the skies, as Rey and Kylo Ren meet in the middle of a war-torn planet, ready to fight. The best bit of all? Rey is wielding a red, double-sided lightsaber.”
Rey wielding a red, double-sided lightsaber is my new sexuality for the record guys. As many of you know, the prequels were my first introduction to the Star Wars universe, therefor the Darth Maul duel lightsaber is one of those images that is just a huge part of my Star Wars nerd experience so the idea of Rey using one tickles me. However, because red lightsabers have often been associated with the Sith, some are wondering what this will actually mean in the narrative of the story concerning Rey.
Let’s see what John Boyega has to say.
John’s responses to the dark Rey questions are sending me, why is he like this😂 pic.twitter.com/4LUtJcuM2X
— Memo (@sithreepio_) August 24, 2019
Like Boyega, I have to say that I doubt that this series will end with Rey embracing the dark side. It just doesn’t seem like the narrative end for her character, nor do I think it’s something audiences would be satisfied with. If the three trilogy series has been (to this point) anchored with the Skywalker family legacy, I don’t think with the family or the family’s new avatar, returning to the Dark Side. That just seems really cynical and bitter, for a series all about capital H, Hope.
That being said, if we end up with a Sith Rey as long as it doesn’t mean Reylo is gonna be a thing, I’m game for it. Plus, maybe she just wanted to have the cooler weapon during the fight. Aesthetic matters in battle. If I did have to make one prediction about what this means about Rey that is actually real, it would be that maybe, just maybe, Star Wars is moving beyond the binary ideas of the Sith and the Jedi. That they will establish the Force is more complicated than that and to bring balance to the Force means being balanced with the light and dark within yourself.
But that’s just me, what do you all think?
(via The Verge, image: Disney/Lucasfilm)
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