Walt Disney Pictures
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker caps off a story that spans nine films over the last four decades. That’s a lot of baggage to unload, and director J.J. Abrams attempts to pay off earlier elements while offering nods to the classic trilogy. But just who is the Skywalker in the title?
I’ll break down the ending of the film. But first, here’s your courtesy spoiler alert.
One last warning: Spoilers below!
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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – Official Trailer (2019)
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The Rise of Skywalker ends with a massive space battle between the Resistance and the First Order, this time armed with a freshly built fleet of Star Destroyers because, well, it’s Star Wars and that’s how these movies end. The real action, however, is on the Sith planet below, where Rey has her own fight against a resurrected Emperor Palpatine.
Throughout much of the latter half of The Rise of Skywalker, Rey (Daisy Ridley) has to deal with the revelation that she is Emperor Palpatine’s granddaughter. She’s not just Rey, she’s Rey Palpatine, a retcon of The Last Jedi’s idea that anyone could be a Force user. Her flirtation with the dark side is a key theme that plays a role in her final struggle with Palpatine.
Like he did with Luke in Return of the Jedi, Palpatine invites Rey to strike him down and fulfill her legacy as the new emperor. She doesn’t, of course, and gets help from Ben Solo, who dropped the Kylo Ren act earlier in the film after Rey impaled him with a lightsaber, only to use the Force to heal him. But Palpatine was expecting this, and taps into the Force powers of both Rey and Solo to fully revive his damaged body and sends Solo flying.
As Palpatine cackles that he carries all of the Sith with him, a chorus of classic Jedi, from Yoda to Star Wars Rebels’ Kanan voice their support for Rey, and she responds by saying she represents all Jedi. She brandishes both Luke and Leia’s lightsabers and deflects the lightning that’s attacking her, killing the emperor and herself in the process.
Solo climbs back up the cliff he was thrown off of, and proceeds to use the same Force healing technique to resurrect Rey. When she wakes up, they embrace and kiss, and he dies, having sacrificed his life energy for her.
It’s the final scenes that offer a true answer to who the Skywalker is and rebuts the idea that Rey is a Palpatine and evil. After a victory celebration, Rey travels to Tatooine, visiting the moisture farm Luke Skywalker grew up on. It’s there she buries Luke and Leia’s lightsabers together, and shows off her own new yellow lightsaber. Building your own lightsaber is one of the milestones on the way to becoming a true Jedi, and that glimpse is a nice visual cue of just how far she’s come.
An old woman passes by and asks Rey who she is.
Rey looks out and sees the Force ghosts of Luke, Leia and Ben, and she answers, “Rey Skywalker.”
So even if she’s a Palpatine by blood, her time spent training under Luke and Leia, and her efforts to redeem Ben, forged her new family.
She and BB-8 stand in front of the twin suns of Tatooine, echoing the beginning of Star Wars and the end of Revenge of the Sith. And so ends one of the greatest sci-fi tales ever.
