Some people have seen the film at early showings, but I’m still in the group that hasn’t seen it, which gives me a little more time to speculate about Rise of Skywalker. As we approach the release of Rise of Skywalker, I have one last thing on my mind. Its a plot point that was kind of left open in the prequels. It is just my humble opinion, but this one little piece could explain everything that people complained about the sequel trilogy, and serve to explain why it exists in the first place. Spoilers and speculation below. Let’s get to it!
This is a subject that we’ve discussed on this site before, but I recently read an interview with Chris Terrio that brought back this line of thinking. In the interview, Terrio shared his thoughts on what they were thinking about when writing the film.
There were perhaps two quotes that stood out to me the most. The first one was concerns the sacrifice of Anakin/Vader:
Of course, the sacrifice of Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi and bringing balance to the Force, we still had to honor that and I think we do honor that in the film. We don’t take the end of Return of the Jedi lightly at all, because it is one of the most beautiful moments in any film, really — in seeing what Vader does for his son
This one was particularly important to me, because if Palpatine comes back, it would essentially be the Sith coming back, which would undo the fact that Anakin effectively destroyed the Sith, and brought balance to the Force. At the same time, I have to ask “Is the Force really so balanced”? If it is balanced, then why do we have a sequel trilogy? Why is the dark side user Snoke around? Why is Anakin’s grandson a dark sider? The second quote is a direct follow-up to the first, and perhaps hints at how they will treat this Anakin issue:
We had to be careful about that, but if you look at some of the lore of Palpatine and the Sith and the way that George has embedded ideas about the Sith into the mythology of Star Wars, there are ways the presence of that character can still cast its shadow in the future.
And if you look at the saga as a whole, where is the biggest lore dump regarding the Sith that has never been resolved?
I’m referring to the scene that introduced Darth Plagueis, and hinted at the definite possibility that Palpatine created Anakin in the way he looks at Anakin when he says “…to create life”. This point was more explicit in some dialogue that was cut from an earlier draft:
Darth Sidious (to Anakin) — “Ahhh, but you know it’s true. When you clear your mind, you will sense the truth. you could almost think of me as your father.”
And of course Lucasfilm hasn’t forgotten about this point, as they brought it up in a recent comic, hinting at the same thing.
These are the huge dangling threads I am referring to. These two points definitely could be lore of Palpatine that Chris Terrio was referring to. We’ve discussed this idea at length in a previous article. The evidence that Palpatine created Anakin is pretty abundant. Maybe this point is still controversial, but it’s all there.
So what are the implications? It could mean that Anakin was part of Palpatine’s long con. There is an elaborate game of chess going on, and it has been going on since ten years before The Phantom Menace, around the same time when the clones were ordered from Kamino.
So if Palpatine used the Force to create Anakin, then that makes Anakin another pawn in his elaborate chess game. If this is true, then Anakin was created to fool the Jedi into thinking that he was the Chosen One. This would explain why the Jedi’s Chosen One would participate in killing off the Jedi, because of his dark origins. Anakin did make a sacrifice to save Luke and throw Palpatine down that reactor shaft, and this was a surprise to Palpatine. However it apparently didn’t kill him completely.
So that’s it. This is the thread I want to see addressed. I don’t know if it will be mentioned in detail, or only hinted at. If Anakin turns out to not be the Chosen One, then it opens the door to someone else being the Chosen One, namely Rey. One of the biggest complaints about Rey is that she is good at everything, just like Anakin was. If Rey is the real Chosen One, then it explains why she is so powerful, it explains why the Skywalker saber called to her, and it explains what she must do in Rise of Skywalker.
Beyond that, I’ll try to keep an open mind. However, I think it will be a waste to not pick up this thread. Enjoy the film! It’s been quire a ride and thanks for reading my stuff, and hopefully you’ve had as much fun reading them as I have had writing them! May the Force be with you.
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