A recent Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker theory from Mike Stoklasa of Red Letter Media predicts the film will feature a “horrible time travel story.”
Stoklasa and his co-host Rich Evans discuss the idea at the 19:16 mark below. Mike states, “They are going full-on Avengers: Endgame and they are retconning everything.”
Mike then supports his prediction with “a lot of clues.” He starts off by quoting Luke Skywalker from the first trailer, “A thousand generations live in you now.” He notes this is a reference to time.
Then Mike reveals what might be his biggest clue, the circle deflector dish on the Millennium Falcon is back. As Mike points out, the dish had been knocked off in Return of the Jedi and been replaced by the curved one in The Force Awakens.
Mike then points out that there is the Emperor Palpatine laugh, Leia holding the A New Hope medallion from the original film’s award ceremony after Luke destroyed the Death Star. He then adds, “Another thing, Rey has Luke’s lightsaber which was utterly destroyed in The Last Jedi.” He continues, “Also from Disney’s perspective, everyone is dead. There are no new Jedis, and there is nowhere forward to go. You can only go back.”
He then states, “I think there is going to be some kind of time travel device…but I believe that the Death Star’s wreckage has something to do with it. Because when we see them approaching the Death Star, they’re walking, Rey has a sack with her. She’s holding a bag. It’s a big, heavy bag…she’s holding some kind of bag with something in it.” Mike then speculates, “Maybe the second Death Star’s core is powered by some supreme power source and it still kind of exists.”
He then states, “Think about it. Bring Luke back, you can travel to the past, you can do whatever you want, you can bring back Yoda, you can bring back any character you want. You can fix the timeline via an Abrams-esque Kelvin/Prime universe.”
Mike even states, “I think Luke has taught Rey how to time travel.” He continues, “That very well could be Darth Vader flying that Tie Fighter trying to kill Rey because he knows Luke’s Force ghost taught her how to time travel.”
A recent rumor suggests that The Rise of Skywalker will tie in with A New Hope and involve “Luke [Skywalker] or Darth Vader or maybe both.” It’s possible Mike’s prediction might be right on the nose given this recent rumor.
Mike’s prediction does open up The Rise of Skywalker to the potential of retconning Rey’s parentage, presenting Luke Skywalker in a better light, and even utilizing past heroes from the Rebellion.
The theory is certainly food for thought.
Would you be happy with J.J. Abrams using time travel to fix Star Wars?
Let us know in the comments.