A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there lived a family whose saga was coming to an end after 40 years, three galactic civil wars, two masked dark lords and one legendary composer. Disney is keeping fans in the dark for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; they only unveiled the red Sith Troopers, two tie-over comic book series and some visual guide companions at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Almost everything else we know is based on rumors, leaks and (thanks to J.J. Abrams' Vanity Fair interview) fairy tale literary theory.
J.J. Abrams and Daisy Ridley have said in the past that we can expect a hopeful fairy tale for the final episode of the Skywalker saga. Taken at face value, this means it should be possible to apply fairy tale tropes to The Rise of Skywalker and guess its plot points and predict its ending.
Generally speaking, every fairy tale (and Star Wars movie) is built around an initial quest that then morphs into something else as the hero progresses. If the final scene of The Last Jedi, a Force-sensitive slave child holding a broom and wishing upon a star, just like Cinderella, is anything to go by, our heroes' initial quest will be to locate and save any potential Jedi before the enemy does.
On the Dark Side, the Knights of Ren have been on their quest for the last two movies, tracking down Darth Vader relics just like Galahad looking for the Grail. This sets up the Dark Side of the Force quest perfectly and comes in handy for this article -- cursed items are a key fairy tale trope, and cursed castles are the perfect place to find them. And what castle could be more cursed than Fortress Vader on the lava planet Mustafar (whose concept art was leaked weeks ago) and contains an exciting array of dark resurrection and eternal life-related artifacts?
Rise, by the way, is another word for “resurrection.”
What about the (now haunted) Forest Moon of Endor, where parts of the Death Star II (a Dark Castle) crashed, along with the body of the Emperor… and that Finn, Poe and Rey are staring at in the trailer as Palpatine’s laughter rises over them?
Here are some of the major fairy tale beats we should be looking for according to the rules laid out by folklorist Vladimir Propp:
Kylo Ren is “home” as the Supreme Leader of the Galaxy, Rey has found a “home” with the Resistance and maybe someone else (Finn, the most human of the heroes) could find their literal long-lost home and family.
These work perfectly for both the hero and villain quests: If the Force users (children) are hidden, they will be unrecognized. Similarly, most of the villains in The Rise of Skywalker are wearing masks that obscure their real identities (the Knights of Ren, the new Sith Troopers, the regular Stormtroopers, Keri Russel’s bounty hunter Zorri Bliss and even Kylo Ren has repaired his mask).
The chances of someone using this masquerade to pretend to be someone else are very high, especially on the First Order side, and particularly if J.J. Abrams is looking to establish parallels between movies: Padmé Amidala disguised her handmaidens as queens and herself as a handmaiden -- that was her key defensive move in The Phantom Menace. Han and Luke dressed up as Stormtroopers in Episode IV: A New Hope.
Why shouldn’t their villainous descendant, Kylo Ren, play the same move?
The trailer opens with Kylo’s Silencer trying to run down Rey à la North by Northwest, and there is also a bounty hunter, Zorri Bliss, featured prominently in the promotional material… so, yes, the pursuit will happen.
If the Force Flash Fights happen, Rey and Kylo Ren will have to survive each fight through endurance, strength and acrobatics (Daisy Ridley has promised the most epic lightsaber fights of the trilogy).
There’s also the difficult task of defeating Palpatine, who is already dead; a riddle for the ages.
The hero or heroine receives a new appearance, due to aging, the magical regrowing of a new limb or the results of his or her past trials.
This might also be a rebirth of sorts or a metamorphosis into something else that allows them to defeat the main villain of the story. In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin’s eyes first change, and then his body is destroyed and rebuilt. In Return of the Jedi, after defeating the Emperor, Luke removes his father's mask and shows his “true” face.
A massive and dramatic change would be for either Kylo, Rey or both to completely lose their Force abilities as the only way of defeating the Emperor -- but that’s just pure speculation and based on what transformation would be the hardest to accomplish.
So, this being a Disney movie, we can be pretty sure that Palpatine will be defeated and that there will be a massive celebration of some sort at the end of it, like the Ewok rave but bigger. The wedding itself is a bit more controversial; although the movies, the novelization, the cave Jedi yin and yang mosaic and the sizeable Reylo community have been hinting at a romantic connection between Kylo Ren and Rey, this “wedding” could also be a celebration of every person in the Galaxy.
From a structural point of view, it's interesting to note that every episode of the prequel and the original trilogy ends with this “wedding” or “celebration” scene. Attack of the Clones has a literal wedding, Revenge of the Sith ends with Owen Lars and Beru looking at the twin suns as a young couple and even The Empire Strikes Back ends with Luke hugging Leia and facing the future together.
However, neither The Force Awakens nor The Last Jedi have this last celebratory scene: The Force Awakens ends with a cliffhanger, Rey (the heroine) meeting Luke (the mentor), while The Last Jedi ends with a Force-sensitive slave child looking at the stars, which suggests that the creators have been saving this incredibly celebratory scene for Episode IX on purpose.
Finally, there have been three confirmed planets where the characters will physically be (not hallucinate or Force Flash travel for a fight): Pasaana, which is a desert planet like Jakku; Kijimi, which is covered with mountains and dusted with snow; and Endor’s Moon, which used to be covered in green forest and Ewoks but now seems pretty stormy to say the least.
These three planets follow the desert, snow, plants triple pattern of previous trilogies and suggest that the protagonists, if they finish on a hopeful note as Abrams and Ridley have promised, will have moved from a dead place where nothing grows (Finn's First Order dreadnought, Rey's Jakku) to a thriving, lush garden -- another trope of fairy tales (Rapunzel, The Snow Queen, Sleeping Beauty) and essential mythology (Hades and Persephone, Osiris and Isis, any Bible desert story where people survive).
A green planet would also rhyme with the place the saga started (Naboo) and where it ended the last time (Endor’s Forest Moon), making it a fantastic thematic homage and an inspiring “return to paradise” full circle.
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