“Darkness rises… and light to meet it.”
All throughout Lucasfilm’s Sequel Trilogy – nay, the entire Star Wars franchise – there exists a constant and seemingly never-ending struggle between two sides of the Force: dark and light. Good and evil. You can’t have one without the other, essentially.
Indeed, such is the binary nature of Star Wars that when a character treads that fine line between dark and light – like, say, Ben Solo – it stirs genuine excitement and intrigue among fans. Take Daisy Ridley’s Rey as an example. Introduced as a Palpatine in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the wayward scavenger went on to defeat the Emperor and essentially bring balance to the Force.
Or so says The Rise of Skywalker scribe Chris Terrio, who offered a little more insight into Rey’s character arc – and, specifically, how her actions affected the Force – during an interview with IndieWire.
The balance of the Force always, as George [Lucas] has said, means that the dark and the light exist. There are corners everywhere in the galaxy where the dark still exists, except that with the rise of Palpatine and the original trilogy, I think the way George would describe it is that the dark had become too powerful to the point where the light had almost disappeared. So in winning this victory against the First Order and the remnants of the Empire and the Sith loyalists, I think that the balance is restored, because the dark had been growing much, much more powerful than the light. By Rey striking this blow, it doesn’t mean that everything is happily ever after forever, but it means that at least for this moment in time, the dark has been held off as the light has pushed back.
Thanks to Rey – and the generations of Jedi before her – the light side of the Force was able to push back against the resurgent Sheev Palpatine. So while the Emperor had somehow (almost inexplicably) constructed a fleet of souped-up Star Destroyers, he was ultimately foiled by Rey and the thousands of generations that had come before her. And that, as they say, is that.
Now approaching its third weekend at the global box office, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker still has a ways to go before it crosses the $1 billion mark. It’s currently simmering just north of $725 million, though its performance in China – the second-largest film market on the planet – has left much to be desired.
