Star Wars The Last Jedi – Final Trailer Analysis – Spoilers

Luke hand

IF YOU’RE TRYING TO AVOID ANY SPOILERS REVEALED IN THE FINAL TRAILER FOR STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, YOU SHOULD AVOID THIS POST. I HAVE NO INSIDER INFORMATION SO I’M NOT GONNA SPOIL ANYTHING WE DIDN’T SEE IN THE TRAILER

The latest trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi presents the idea that both Kylo Ren and Rey are two sides of the same coin. Both appear to exude a great amount of force energy, and in two completely different instances, references to “raw” power are mentioned, although from opposing sides of the force.

Kylo

Rey

 

“When I found you, I saw RAW, untamed power, and beyond that, something truly special.”

Snoke to Kylo Ren

“I’ve seen this RAW strength only once before (referencing young Ben Skywalker/Kylo Ren?) It didn’t scare me enough then, it does now.”

Luke to Rey

 

But you really have to ask, why do two separate people possess so much force power at the same time? Why now? Why has this never happened before? What does it mean? You could argue that they are both showing the very same potential that young Anakin Skywalker once displayed, if not on a greater level, but are we saying that there are now two different chosen ones at the same time?

Luke

If this is the case, what if Kylo is the reincarnation of Darth Vader, and Rey is the reincarnation of Anakin Skywalker? As if the duality of Anakin fractured into two completely different life forces, resulting in two completely separate reincarnations. It’s a neat idea, but I’m really not sure how the nature of reincarnation is supposed to fit into a universe in which force ghosts seem to hang around. A lot of people like to suggest that Rey is the reincarnation of Anakin, if that’s true, then why does Kylo also share a similar level of raw power at the same time? And if Rey is not Luke’s daughter then how does she have force powers? It makes sense to me that Rey and Kylo would have to be cousins to both have equal access to Vader’s bloodline and his natural force energy.

A lot of people thought that the force had gone dormant in the years leading up to The Force Awakens and perhaps this is why we didn’t see any force ghosts in Episode 7, but this trailer basically confirms that the title of the previous movie (The Force Awakens) is completely referencing Rey.

“Something inside me has always been there. But now it’s AWAKE, and I need help.”

Rey in Episode 8 Trailer

“There has been an awakening, have you felt it? The Dark Side and the Light.”

Snoke in Episode 7

That Snoke quote was in the Episode 7 trailer, but I’m not sure the full quote was in the actual movie, but that line suggests that the darkness had awoken too. Does that mean that Rey finding her powers has allowed Kylo’s powers to be amplified?

I really wonder if this trailer is all misdirection and Rey is the ONLY character dealing with this level of raw power.

Kylo

When Snoke says: “When I found you, I saw raw, untamed power, and beyond that, something truly special.” We assume he is speaking to Kylo, because Kylo is on screen, but what if this dialogue is actually directed at Rey in the scene where Snoke attacks her. If this is the case, it could mean that Snoke is the one who took Rey from her family, but she was smuggled out from under his watch before he could train her. The only way this would work is if a low-ranking member of The First Order saved young Rey and defected, because surely if that person returned Snoke would read their mind and know where Rey was taken. I’m guessing that Jaku was a safer location to bring young Rey than her home world. Her rescuer was likely killed before they could get back to check on Rey.

But if this is true, and Rey is the only one showing this level of RAW power, than what was the previous instance of Raw Power that Luke was referencing, if not Kylo? Could he be referring to his father Darth Vader?

I think a good way to decode this trailer is to take the dialogue and consider the most likely person the dialogue is being spoken to. This will help to shed more light on the context of the conversation.

“This is not going to go the way you think.”

Luke

Luke

It’s possible this line occurs in a flashback to the moment Ben turned on Luke and became Kylo Ren, but I think there’s a good chance this line is actually directed at Rey after she is tempted by the darkside. Luke knows what happened to his father after turning to the darkside and what happened to Kylo, Luke himself was almost converted as well. At any rate, this line means more if he’s talking to someone he cares about than if he’s talking to an actual foe. So for me, it’s Kylo or Rey. If Rey is going to become conflicted in this movie and go after Luke, I don’t think it’s going to happen in this scene, but the fact that Luke is laying down in this shot suggests that he may have been knocked down, unless he was laying down to rest and sat up to yell at Rey. Do you think Luke is in imminent danger in this moment or just in an argument?

Rey

What if this scene occurs right after Rey gets out of the water in front of Luke. Notice how Luke seems like he could be on the defensive in the above shot, although this could be a trick of trailer editing. Rey’s hair does seem to go from soaking wet to just wet, so these are probably different scenes, unless they forgot to completely re-wet her hair between takes.

Rey wet

The trailer really drives home the point that both Rey and Finn are going to be on the wrong side at some point in Episode 8, either by their own choice or because they’ve been forced by someone else and it will be up to them to resist and rebel against it.

Finn

 

Bonus points for this bad ass shot! It will be nice to see Phasma actually doing stuff, although I still don’t see how she got out of the garbage compactor in Episode 7 before all the fireworks. Who knew she was down there?

Finn reflectionI think that Luke may continue to push Rey away because he fears the raw power inside of her. He seems very cold to Rey over and over again, particularly the scene where he walks away from her after first discovering her raw power.

Rey

Luke seems to want Rey to give up on training and keep her powers from developing further, but Rey is confused and needs answers, so she’ll go to whoever she has to in order to get them.

Rey

“I need someone to show me my place in all this.”

Rey to Kylo?

Kylo

There is a real chance that this conversation will be the cliffhanger moment at the end of the movie, and we never actually see her take Kylo’s hand, but it would be best if it happened early in the 3rd act so we could see what happens next, but the falling debris in this scene really suggests that the climax has already been reached and they are conversing during the aftermath. The laid back nature of this conversation actually worries me if it is taking place during the aftermath, it could mean that Rey betrays Luke in the final showdown in order to save Kylo or Snoke in the same way Anakin once betrayed Mace Windu to save Palpatine. I’m all for the “Star Wars is Poetry and should Rhyme” school of thought, but this would just be a carbon copy of events in Episode 3, and it looks like it may already be borrowing more from Episode 5 than it should. Again, this could all be misdirection and Rey could be speaking to someone else here, but who else in the story is Kylo likely to raise his hand up to in this way?

Kylo

We all just assumed that Rey was Luke’s daughter and thus Kylo’s cousin, but what if she isn’t even related and the two of them will become lovers, sort of like an all powerful Bonnie and Clyde of the darkside, lol. Then they could possibly even become a sort of King and Queen of the Galaxy. It would be weird, but it would be original, and that’s what everyone wanted after seeing The Force Awakens. It might not be so bad to see a weird twisted romance develop, but I’d prefer it if this didn’t happen and they are actually cousins who never actually team up on the dark side. But nothing in this final trailer shot that indicates Rey is turning to the Dark Side, it’s also possible that Kylo had just betrayed Snoke in order to save Rey, which would actually be a carbon copy of Vader betraying Palpatine to save Luke, hahaha. But if Snoke dies in Episode 8, I would hope it would be at the hands of Luke, which would leave the possibility open for Kylo to lead the first order in Episode 9.

Kylo Rey Hand

Kylo has another line in the trailer that I think is directed at Rey after she potentially asks Kylo for help:

“Let the past die, kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you were meant to be.”

Kylo Ren

If this line does occur after Rey seems to team up with Kylo, the nature of the line suggests that Kylo has not redeemed himself and is still on the Dark Side. This line is placed on the shot where Kylo is contemplating blowing up the ship his mother is on, very much mirroring his encounter with his father in The Force Awakens.

ship

I think this could indicate that if they reveal Luke is Rey’s father early in Episode 8, that Kylo will attempt to get Rey to kill Luke in the same way Kylo seems to have dispatched both his parents.

Leia

I just have to say that Carrie Fisher looks great in this shot. Her eyes carry so much emotion in a single moment.

Kylo RenI think the implication in these two shots is that they are sharing a brief moment together through the force, very much like Luke and Vader did in Episode 5, shortly after their encounter in Cloud City as the Falcon escapes. I’d like to think this will be a goodbye moment, as unfortunate as it would be, but with the passing of Carrie Fisher it’s the easiest way to write her out of the story. Although I think I read that Leia will be in episode 9 briefly via CGI face replacement, so it looks like either Kylo doesn’t pull the trigger or the shot did not fully destroy her ship?

Trigger

It certainly seems like The Last Jedi is going out of its way to be original. Many of the images we’ve seen from the set seem to depict a kind of fancy gala event with creatures dressed in formal attire. I wonder if this is an outer space masquerade ball in which Snoke is expected to attend? And Rey and Finn are going to sneak in to kill him, perhaps this is where Rey gets captured by Snoke and taken to his secret red planet? Snoke does appear to be wearing a formal golden robe thing while he attacks Rey, not exactly something you’d wear all the time, that gold screams “fancy public event” to me.

Snoke

Fulfill your destiny.

Snoke to Rey

Doesn’t this line seem a little too similar to Emporer Palpatine? Either it’s just conventional writing and there’s only so many ways to convey the plot point or maybe Snoke is actually Darth Plagueis, the one who trained Palpatine before Palpatine tried to kill him. Then Palpatine just repurposed the terminology later while trying to seduce Anakin to the dark side and later Luke. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I’d really like Snoke to end up being Plagueis because it would tie all 3 trilogies together. (I don’t care if Disney already denied this possibility, misdirection exists to hide reveals).

Snoke is using the force on Rey, really shaking her around. It would be really great to see if Snoke has a new force power that we’ve never seen before, something the depths of the darkside allows him to access. Perhaps this is what he’s doing to Rey, purposefully overpowering her with dark side energy and corrupting her, which would allow her to immediately switch sides and surprise and betray Luke. Not so sure about that. A big part of me thinks that they edited the trailer very carefully to paint the picture that Rey is going to become a villain and something like this may not even occur until episode 9. At any rate, I think Luke survives this movie, though he likely dies in the 9th movie. With Han killed off, Carrie Fisher dead in real life, I just don’t see them killing Luke, especially after he didn’t have a single line in Episode 8. We are due at least 2 Luke heavy movies in the new trilogy.

Luke hand

I originally thought that this battle would occur in a pale white desert, but if you look closely it’s actually snow and the red that comes up is actually red dirt/sand underneath a fresh layer of snow.

Red Dirt

Also if you look in this shot you can see a red texture on the rocks behind these ice wolves or…”silver foxes?”lol.

Red Rocks 1

It does kind of stink that they seem to be sort of rehashing the battle of hoth with another ATAT battle on snow, on no wait, these are different, they have angry eyes and monkey paws, not camel feet like last time, haha, at least there are different rebellion ships this time.

ATAT

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for going back to what worked before, so long as the story feels fresh, but there is a limit and you could really argue that Episode 7 was too similar to Episode 4, but I didn’t have a huge problem with it.

Snow Troopers

In this shot where Kylo is walking to likely meet with Snoke, you can see this same red texture on the rocks and these troopers are not the regular troopers, they are the snow troopers last shown in Empire Strikes back, I think this entire battle is occurring on the planet that houses Snoke’s hidden base.

And Chewy is flying the Falcon down through these red crystal caves probably in an attempt to rescue Rey after she is taken here.

Red Crystal Cave

Final thought: Leia looks like such a Boss in this shot, everyone start wearing your collars this high!  RIP Carrie Fisher.

Carrie Fisher

So these are my quick observations from the new Star Wars trailer. What do you think? Do you have a different interpretation? Let me know in the comments below and stay tuned for more right here on the Planet Calvin.

Star Wars 8

Calvin
I'm interested in anything out of the ordinary. Usually anything science-fiction-related and the darker the better, but I also really like positive character growth and emotional arcs in storytelling. I'm also fascinated by the unknown, I like trying to piece the whole picture together, which is why I enjoy making Theories. I will post more on PlanetCalvin.com than on YouTube, because it's faster, so keep coming back for more!