Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

We got our first teaser for episode 9 of Star Wars.

(WARNING: Unmarked spoilers for Last Jedi in this post. Read at your own risk.)

In it, we see Rey on a desert planet watching as a Kylo Ren's TIE fighter(-like ship) heads toward her, igniting her lightsaber and jumping right as the ship closes in.

We see a few different shots, with Luke's narration (presumably we're going to get some Force Ghost Luke) and see a number of things, including the massive fragments of what looks to be the Death Star (1 or II I don't know - but I imagine either Yavin or Endor have had some serious environmental damage from the wreckage.)

The teaser ends on what sounds like Palpatine's laugh.

And then we get the title (and it's blue - so I guess they've got a color scheme for these movies, with Yellow, Red, Blue.)

So what does Rise of Skywalker mean?

Well, first off we need to delve into the extremely divisive reaction to Last Jedi.

As I wrote on this blog, I was a big fan of Rian Johnson's take on Star Wars. It subverted a lot of expectations, blowing up supposed mystery boxes (by far my favorite example being the revelation that Rey is not the scion of some famous family, but just an ordinary person capable of extraordinary things.)

I felt it grappled with the realities of living as a myth, particularly in Luke's arc. I think it had something to say in a way that the Force Awakens, while enjoyable and buoyed by a cast of interesting new characters, didn't really.

But there are certainly some who felt disappointed by the Last Jedi, and I don't know whether Disney is happy or upset with the reaction it received.

Anyway, given that the last Skywalker died at the end of the Last Jedi (though Kylo Ren/Ben Solo is obviously just as genetically a Skywalker as anyone who would have gotten that name through patrilineal naming conventions,) it's surprising to see the title of this be The Rise of Skywalker. It feels like one of the major points of the Last Jedi was to hand off the legacy of the Jedi to people who weren't Skywalkers - that the Star Wars saga itself was moving on to other people, opening up to a broader universe.

(EDIT: I feel like a dunce here ignoring that Leia is, obviously, just as much a Skywalker as Luke. Leia's survival of Last Jedi creates some awkward behind-the-scenes issues, given that Carrie Fisher - badass - died in 2016. Leia has demonstrated some force powers - presumably she could have been as much of a powerful Jedi as Luke had she gotten the training, but the only time we see her use her powers is to escape from the void of space in Last Jedi. Leia as a character might not be canonically dead, but I obviously can't imagine that The Rise of Skywalker is going to focus on her all that much, unless they go with that creepy uncanny valley CGI like they did with Tarkin and a younger Leia in Rogue One.)

So does this signal that JJ Abrams wants to undo much of what happened in the Last Jedi? Are they going to reveal Rey is actually a Skywalker/Solo/Kenobi/Palpatine? How much coordination was there on this trilogy? A lot of people who disliked the Last Jedi seem to feel as if Rian Johnson was just allowed to go off an do his own thing regardless of the plans for the trilogy, but that seems crazy, especially given Disney's experience with coordinating movies like the MCU (though maybe Kevin Feige is just an unparalleled genius at that?)

Anyway, there's really only so much we have to go on. I'm sure we'll have a media blitz in which Disney tells us all the things they want us to know before seeing the film. I guess I'm just nervous that they want to walk back a lot of the interesting ideas they introduced in Last Jedi.