Luke Is Back
Well, first things first… Luke Skywalker is back!
The trailer opens on a nervous breathing which we soon find out is Rey. Then as the young Jedi calms, a voiceover starts up and it’s instantly recognizable as Mark Hamill, despite Luke having perished at the end of TLJ.
“We’ve passed on all we know,” the late Jedi master intones. “A thousand generations live in you now. But this is your fight.”
We always knew that Hamill was going to play a role in Episode IX, likely a key one, but I don’t think many were expecting for Lucasfilm to include the character in the very first trailer for the movie. It’s well-pitched, though. His narration explains how the torch has been passed from him to Rey and, as the last Jedi, it’s now up to her to end the reign of the dark side, just as it was once up to him in his younger days.
Presumably, this is the voice of Luke’s Force ghost, visiting Rey to impart some wisdom and words of encouragement just as Luke’s own master Obi-Wan appeared to him following his death in the Original Trilogy. Unless, of course, Abrams has really gone to town on retconning TLJ and is about to resurrect Luke properly. Which, I suppose, we can’t rule out, given that title.
Rey’s Becoming One With The Force
As if Luke’s voiceover wasn’t cool enough, the scene it plays over is an epic display of how amazing Rey is. If Luke’s words didn’t make it clear, Rey is the new Chosen One and the hero set to save the day. As the tagline puts it, “every generation has a legend.” We’ve seen Anakin’s story and Luke’s, but now it’s time to see how Rey’s ends.
After her breathing slows and she gets in control, Rey whips out her lightsaber – Luke’s blue one, apparently fixed since TLJ destroyed it – and readies herself for the TIE silencer coming towards her. At the right moment, she shows Neo from The Matrix how it’s done and leaps and twists in the air. We don’t see what happens next, but we can assume she sticks the landing and heads for the pilot inside.
Obviously, this is the most powerful we’ve seen the character. Though she’s always had a strong connection to it, she’s much more at one with the Force in this clip than she was in TLJ. But who’s she battling here? The black gloves heavily suggest this is Kylo Ren. An intriguing theory going around on social media though is that maybe Kylo isn’t attacking Rey but training her – proof that he switches back to the light. I don’t know about that but, if it is Kylo, he could be testing his frenemy to see what she’s capable of.