Rampant Last Jedi Speculation

Welcome to the latest edition of Rampant Star Wars Speculation, with your hosts, Dean and Joe. Today we will be offering guesses, theories, and - you guessed it - rampant, wild, mostly unfounded speculation about what we'll see in The Last Jedi.

Spoilers ahead. Maybe.

Let's get to it.

My big question actually has to do with the poster- Luke looms large in the background, the spot where the villain typically is. Certainly the question of where he has been and what he has been up to looms over the first two entries in this new trilogy, but the question for now is: Does Luke turn to the Dark Side?

Dean: My money is on no. I think he is conflicted and uncertain. I hate to draw another line directly to Empire Strike Back, but look how he was then- uncertain how to proceed, under-trained, but knowing he must act. In fact, he never really received training after that. He faced Vader, Yoda died, and that was that. He could fight well, and use the force, but he wasn't trained too much as a Jedi. Now, his study, attempts to rebuild the Jedi, failure, and isolation have shown him the failings of the Jedi - hence the title. So I think this has more to do with him wrestling with his path (see the IMAX display featuring him on both the Dark and Light side).

Joe: I'll agree with you here. I can't see Luke doing a full turn. I can definitely see him wrestling with if he is on the right path and being unsure if he truly is following the Light Side after his academy (a New Jedi Academy?) was destroyed by Kylo Ren.

But a Dark Side turn? That doesn't seem like it would be part of Luke's journey, especially not after the son of Han and Leia turned. Kylo's frequent references to his grandfather are enough of that generational Dark Side turn that we don't need Luke to turn, too. This isn't Dark Empire. Probably.

My bigger concern, based on the trailers for The Last Jedi is that they're hinting at a Rey turn - which, let me tell you, would be a really terrible idea.

Let's speculate some more on Rey's parents!


Joe: I'm still going to roll with my far fetched idea of Rey being the daughter of Mara Jade. To quote myself from the first time we had this conversation: 

Do it like this: She was one of Luke’s students in his New Jedi Academy school thing that he founded after Return of the Jedi. She, with another student (or not, I don’t care), had a daughter. Ben Solo turned, killed that particular class of students, and Luke hid Rey on Jakku rather than take her with him when he ran and hid.

Dean: Gawd, I love that so much. Mara Jade is the best of the old EU. My problem with that is that I doubt they go that deep, though. The closer we get, the more I lean towards her being Han and Leia's daughter. There are a million signs that point to it, which have been covered ad nauseum at this point. It's not the most creative, to be sure, but I prefer it to her being Luke's kid.

Unless they bring in Mara Jade.

Joe: Force bless Mara Jade.


Porgs: Awesome or terrible?

Joe: Awesome. Next question.


Dean: Super awesome.

Where do you think Rey & Kylo end up at the end of this movie?

Joe: I think there's two real directions for Kylo Ren, and it really depends on whether or not they plan to do a redemption story for him at all. If yes, expect to see a couple of hints at said redemption. It wouldn't be a full blown face turn, but we will be able to see the shape of the turn. It would be Rey turning Kylo.

If no, and I would prefer that Kylo does not get a redemption given that he did straight up murder his father (Han Solo, remember?) in The Force Awakens, then expect to see a doubling down on his dark side turn. Possibly blowing up the planet Leia is on. That would also be one hell of a way to write Carrie Fisher out of the franchise. Spoilers, there is at least a 60 / 40 chance I'm going to cry at some point during The Last Jedi because of Carrie Fisher.

Rey is tougher. She's going to have a lot of questions about her heritage, why she was abandoned, and I don't think Luke is going to do her any favors. There might be a little too much of old Obi-Wan in him now. Hermiting really gets to a Jedi, you know. I think the movie will hint at a dark side turn for Rey, but I just don't see it happening. She's got too much basic decency running through her. More than most.

Dean: Much of the complaints about TFA were that is basically recycled A New Hope, which, yeah, a lot of the beats were the same (hey, if y'all want another Phantom Menace...), but this trilogy has a lot of grey to it... look at where we find Luke, previously this hero and beacon of light and hope. Snoke is not Sith, but he is dark. Kylo is conflicted the whole way, not just end like his fallen idol. So I think the end of this movie will reflect that, possibly with both of them closer to the middle, rather than extremes of light and dark. This will of course set up the reveal that Snoke is Revan in IX. (alternately, they may just go deeper into those extremes)

By Alice X. Zhang, check her stuff out seriously omg http://www.alicexz.com/

What gets answered in The Last Jedi, and what questions will remain?

Joe: I expect we'll still be wondering who the hell Snoke is and never get a satisfactory answer.

Dean: I just said he's Revan! Or maybe not? IS IT THE 15TH YET?!!?!?

Heirs to the Inquisition

Are you excited for The Force Awakens? Of course you are! You are a human being, on planet Earth, so you're excited. (This is the part where I say, there are probably no spoilers in this, but if you are trying to go in totally blind, uh, spoiler warning).

One of the things I have heard/seen commented on is that, just like in Episode IV, the Force, the Jedi and now the entire Galactic Civil War are basically just myths and/or entirely forgotten. How can that happen? How, in the 30 years between III and IV, can the Jedi be forgotten? And the same span of time after VI, can that whole war be forgotten?

This brings about one of the things I love about Star Wars (the original trilogy, because, you know... the prequels suck). In the entire trilogy, the entire narration only shows us locations on the periphery of civilization. Never mind that the EU and video games and the prequels fetishize them- there is no reason, as a normal being in the Star Wars universe, you would have any reason to go to these planets. They are the Topeka, Kansas of Star Wars. So if you lived in any real population center, you probably won't hear about what went down on Hoth, Cloud City or Tatooine.



via Rolling Stone

But clearly the Empire had a stranglehold on government- the senate was disbanded in the first five minutes of A New Hope, and the, you know, blew up Alderaan, which people certainly would have heard about- but that is exactly what the Empire wanted, and why people would have forgotten the Jedi.

Because as we never see the real civilization of Star Wars, we never see the government of the Empire in operation. But we do know how they keep the 'local star systems in line', as Tarkin put it- through fear. And as soon as Palpatine took full control, it's a sure bet that he began a campaign of fear- and as a Sith, his chief concern would be to scare people out of any memory of the Jedi.

This would hardly be without precedent- think of the various tyrannies throughout history. Ever heard of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition? It's the fancy, official title for what we call the Spanish Inquisition. And that was just the Spanish Inquisition- it was a continuation of the Medieval Inquisition, and the inquisition was a large undertaking. Its purpose was to maintain the orthodoxy of the Catholic church.

Their objective was to control information, and they controlled it through torture and fear. Did it work? From Wikipedia:

According to actual records the Spanish Inquisition was widely hailed as the best run, most humane court in Europe.

Which may have had some truth to it, but that makes it much more depressing since burning supposed heretics alive was sort of their thing. The Inquisition is far from alone in history, in its object or its methods.

And in an obvious nod to those real events of history, the group of individuals tasked with wiping out the last of the Jedi in Rebels are called Inquisitorius. So we can infer a lot about the Empire, its methods and its objectives.

via Wookiepedia

So how do the Jedi vanish into myth in the space of a few decades? By just that- by fear, by fear- those who mention them, wish for the good old days, speak out- we don't have to wonder how the Empire would deal with such ones. And pretty soon, the average person is in the habit of never speaking of the Jedi, then after a while, maybe they start to wonder if the Jedi were ever real.

But what about Episode VII? How is an entire war forgotten? That seems like it would be memorable, right? And the First Order doesn't seem in a position to scare everyone into line. Plus, Rey has been scampering about the wreckage of a massive battle.

But that battle happened before she was born. So maybe what we see in the trailer is simply her own incredulity, coming from spending her whole life on a backwater planet, instead of a larger campaign of fear. This- to me- seems the more likely, since Kylo and his Knights of Ren seem more interested in spreading Vader's Dark Gospel rather than keeping it secret.

So it seems the First Order will follow in the same pattern as its predecessor, and so many other tyrants and despots in history- attempting to rule through fear and strangle the information and truth the average citizen has access to.

The sad part is that this is not solely the province of fiction.

-DESR