The recently unveiled title of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker seems deliberately chosen to create speculation, in which case, the fans have been all too happy to oblige.
Take Kevin Smith, for instance, who’s already praised last week’s trailer as “elegant and exciting,” and now has a few thoughts on the “Skywalker” that the title might be referring to. In a recent episode of his Hollywood Babble-On show, the filmmaker and podcaster presented a “shot in the dark” theory on the matter, which he explained as follows:
“The last movie was The Last Jedi. What if they are telling us the fucking title?…The way that Jedi has been used historically in these movies, including in the last movie – ‘the last Jedi, the Jedis must end’, all that shit – what if that’s it for the Jedis? And perhaps the new religion [are the Skywalkers]? Didn’t that just give you fucking chills? What if it’s that?”
It’s perhaps worth noting that Luke Skywalker himself already contradicted the title of Rian Johnson’s film when he told Kylo Ren at the climax, “I will not be the last Jedi.” Nonetheless, it’s an interesting and plausible suggestion that quite a few other fans have arrived at independently.
What’s more, Smith clearly sees a lot of emotional weight in the idea. When co-host Ralph Garman suggested that the Skywalker order might “supplant the order that existed beforehand,” Smith started to get a little sentimental:
“Wouldn’t that be fucking dope? Like, [Luke] was so fucking important – like, I’m going to cry – to the universe, that from then on, they named the order after [him]. They’re all Skywalkers.”
Another point in this theory’s favor is that it would solve the conundrum of how exactly a “Skywalker” could “Rise” in a film that’s supposed to serve as the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga. After all, doesn’t the word “Rise” suggest a beginning, rather than an end? And if the Skywalker rising is a particular person – be it Rey, Kylo or whoever else the fans are suggesting – then what’s to stop them from featuring in a future movie, thus continuing the Skywalker Saga?
Regardless, the internet still has more than eight months left to speculate on the title, before Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker finally offers some clarification when it arrives in theaters on December 20th.
