“Something…inside me has always been there. Now it’s awake, and I need help.”
Still licking her wounds – both physical and emotional – after the events of The Force Awakens, Daisy Ridley’s Rey is clearly in need of some guidance by the time we arrive at Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Having trekked across the galaxy to find Luke Skywalker, Rey arrives on Ahch-To to begin her Jedi training…or so she thinks. Doing good on those earlier reports, last night’s show-stopping trailer proved that Luke is actually wary of Rey’s ferocious Jedi powers, perhaps because they evoke bad memories of his Jedi Academy and, more specifically, how it crashed and burned at the hands of Kylo Ren, the budding Jedi formerly known as Ben Solo.
It’s that fall from grace that essentially forced Luke Skywalker into exile, and we understand Mark Hamill’s wise old Jedi spent those intervening years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens searching for the last Jedi Temple. But how does this all relate back to Rey? Well, the way in which The Last Jedi‘s trailer has been edited certainly suggests that Rey, a disillusioned orphan from the desert planet of Jakku, is about to be swayed by the dark side.
File this one in the rumor cabinet for now, but Cinema Blend has pieced together some clues pertaining to Rey’s alleged change of heart. Not only does Daisy Ridley’s heroine master the Force remarkably quick, thereby aligning with Yoda’s original comments about the dark side presenting a faster route to grasping the Force and its many quirks, but Rey’s narration is bookended by a rather foreboding monologue from Supreme Leader Snoke, one in which Andy Serkis’ ancient alien comments on the raw power protruding from an unknown character.
Common logic dictates that that character is Kylo Ren, but now we’re not so sure. Also of note, there have been rumblings that Kylo and Rey are actually brother and sister, and that Adam Driver’s conflicted character is the last Jedi. Finally, keep in mind that Lucasfilm’s PR team may be calling upon a bait-and-switch, similarly to how The Force Awakens’ trailers framed John Boyega’s Finn as a Jedi.
All will be revealed once Rian Johnson’s sequel storms into theaters on December 15th. Tell us, though, what do you make of Star Wars: The Last Jedi‘s latest (and greatest?) trailer? You can drop your thoughts and predictions via the usual place.