A rumor has recently been making the rounds that Star Wars: Episode IX will see Hayden Christensen reprising his role as Anakin Skywalker, and while we’ve yet to receive any compelling evidence that this will be the case, the speculation will likely continue in light of this new report that teases Kylo Ren encountering his grandfather in a vision.
According to a leak shared by Express.co.uk, a scene description sees Kylo in a medical room when he hears the sound of someone screaming in pain. After the following the sound, he discovers another room where Anakin writhes in agony while wearing his Darth Vader suit, albeit with the mask off. After witnessing heavy machinery replace the old arms and legs of Christensen’s character with new ones and fitting the Sith with his trademark helmet, Kylo awakens from this nightmarish illusion.
While this doesn’t sound like a bad idea for a sequence, if you didn’t believe that Christensen is returning before reading this unverifiable account, then your mind will likely remain unchanged for the time being.
Still, after Kylo’s idolization of Vader proved central to the new villain’s arc in The Force Awakens, there’s a good chance that J.J. Abrams will find some way of bringing back this element once more. Moreover, we already know that Luke Skywalker will be returning to represent the middle generation in the Skywalker lineage, so perhaps there’s room for one more Force Ghost in the mix.
In any case, after The Force Awakens paid heavy tribute to A New Hope, it’s all but inevitable that Abrams is planning some new nostalgia-heavy callbacks for this next movie, with previous reports suggesting he’ll even find ways to reference the prequels. We’ll see what blasts from the past await when Star Wars: Episode IX hits theaters on December 20th, 2019.
