M. G. Siegler, over at his 500ish Words Medium site, spent a bit over 600 words to discuss a few personal theories on the next Star Wars movie, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. He’s got some great ideas, especially how Palpatine fits into all of this.

I agree the title is a bit bland. I prefer my title, The First Skywalker, as I have a theory the Jedi and Sith will be no more after this movie and “Skywalkers” will be the new name for Force users.

My own theory how Palpatine fits into the story ties into whatever the MacGuffin is in the movie. After seeing the trailer (and hearing the laugh), I’m convinced the quest the characters are going to be going on is finding some sort of Sith artifact that Palpatine merged his “Force essence” with at the time of his “shafting” my Darth Vader. I’m also convinced Matt Smith is playing a younger clone of Palpatine that finds the artifact before our heroes. Snoke might have been an earlier receptacle for Palpatine’s essence which would make both his backstory and death make more sense.

My theory that Rey is a clone of Luke Skywalker derived from his severed hand is still in play and I really hope I’m right.

My other narrative guess is Palpatine will jump to Kylo Ren for the final battle between him and Rey. Ren will essentially defeat Rey in an epic lightsaber battle, but at the moment Palpy-Ren tries to land the killing blow, Ben Solo reasserts himself and takes his own life to end the Palpatine threat once and for all.

Am I right? Well, we won’t know how wrong I am until December.