Today, dear reader, is October 21. Fall is here; and on this year, the year of the Jedi 2019, there will be a new Star Wars film. It’s not just any Star Wars film. It is The Rise of Skywalker, the final film in the new trilogy and the final film of the Skywalker era. This, friends, portends good things and bad.
First, the good: This thing looks incredible—so many lightsaber battles! So many beauty shots of the Millennium Falcon (with Rey in the cockpit)! This movie will, if nothing else, go out with a bang—and, one can only hope, a porg. (The bad thing is, of course, that Rise of Skywalker marks the end of an era.)
So what can we glean from this new trailer? Well, for one, this movie looks like it’ll finally settle which side of the Force both Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) will fall on—and if it’ll be the same side. Actress Daisy Ridley has already promised the movie will address the toxic relationship between the two, and while this trailer makes it seem as though they’ll be doing a lot of addressing of issues with their lightsabers, they’ll presumably be doing a lot of processing of family drama too. Also, there will be quite a bit of Carrie Fisher’s final performance as Leia Organa, so bring tissues.
More than anything, though, this trailer shows that Rise will bring finality—something director J.J. Abrams has thought a lot about. “Endings are the thing that scares me the most,” he recently told Entertainment Weekly. “This is about bringing this thing to a close in a way that is emotional and meaningful and also satisfying in terms of actually answering [as many] questions as possible. So if years from now, someone’s watching these movies, all nine of them, they’re watching a story that is as cohesive as possible.”
So, what are your lingering questions about Star Wars? Is one of them, “When can I get tickets?”? Well, that one we can answer right away. They’re on sale now.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters December 20.
