Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker won’t be available to the public for a few hours yet, but the review embargo is up and spoilers are flying around online thick and fast. I won’t list all of them here, but what I’ve seen indicates that most of the interesting elements of The Last Jedi have been clumsily retconned in favor of fan service elements.
Now, we know the final scene of the film, a coda which takes place after the drama has been resolved and the big bad defeated. This comes courtesy of Redditor Tayme-kappa, who posted a screenshot of a now-deleted tweet. It said the following, though:
The end of the movie is Rey going to tatooine and she buries Luke and Leia’s light sabers. Then an old lady walks by.
Old Lady: Who are you?
Rey: I’m Rey.
Old Lady: Rey what?
Rey looks off into the distance and sees the twins’ force ghosts.
Rey: Rey Skywalker.
Cue the credits.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I really don’t like this. One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about the Sequel Trilogy is that it tries to unpick the dynastic elements of Star Wars. It’s always bugged me that certain families are essentially space royalty, receiving force powers simply because of their parentage. Rey was established as the opposite: a nobody who nonetheless rose up to become a galaxy-saving hero.
But what we’re hearing from multiple sources who’ve seen The Rise of Skywalker is that Rey was secretly a Palpatine all along (which We Got This Covered first told you months ago). However, by the end of the movie, she adopts Luke and Leia as her parents, taking on the Skywalker name.
One commenter says a far better ending would have been for Rey to reply “just Rey” as the final line of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. And I agree wholeheartedly.
