Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker looks set to dip into the past of the franchise in some major ways. Not least via the return of Emperor Palpatine from beyond the dead, as promised in the first trailer. Clearly, there will be some callbacks to the Original Trilogy, then, but the movie might also feature a connection to the more recent Anthology film, Rogue One. Specifically, we might be in for another visit to Darth Vader’s castle on Mustafar.
Making Star Wars has got hold of some concept art pieces that come straight from behind the scenes on Episode IX. MSW points out that a handful of the images have a “very Mustafar vibe to them with fire and a castle,” and say that other info they’ve heard backs up the idea that Vader’s old home will appear in the trilogy-closer.
They’ve been told that either the planet will be the location of a big “flash fight” between Rey and Kylo Ren, or else Ren will take his broken helmet to a “creepy monastery” on the planet where a monkey-like alien will mend it, adding in that distinctive red detailing seen in promo images.
There were rumors last year that The Rise of Skywalker could return to the world with so much importance in Vader’s life as production partially took place in Mount Etna, Sicily, which had previously been used as Mustafar for the climax of Revenge of the Sith. It’d make sense, too, as it’d bring the Skywalker saga nearly full circle if Rey and Kylo Ren had a major final battle on the same world that Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi once fought on.
In any case, we’ll just have to wait and see what Lucasfilm has planned, but we’ll keep you posted as more on the mysterious nature of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker‘s plot is revealed before it hits cinemas on December 20th.
