'The Rise of Skywalker' D23 Trailer | Breakdown

Let's just get to the point. There's a new Star Wars trailer. And we're here to break it down. Just like we broke down the first one. We scrolled through the whole thing, start to finish, to try and pick out the crucial frames worth examining. What does the trailer reveal? And what does it keep secret? We're ready to find out. Let's get into it.

Of course, if you're the kind of person who likes to avoid all spoilers, get out while you still can.

The trailer begins with Rey locked in combat. Her face glows with the light of red and blue lightsabers. We assume that Rey has the blue saber, and this is a clip from her battle with Kylo. We'll see if that theory lasts until the end of the trailer.

While she's defending herself in her lightsaber battle, Rey's eyes suddenly shoot open. It is reminiscent of her other moments from Rey's force training. We tried desperately to zoom in on Rey's eyes to see what she was looking at. There's no saying for sure, but it does look like she's looking at someone holding a red lightsaber. Big surprise there.

Next, we see our Star Wars sequel essentials. Rey, Finn, Poe, C-3PO, and Chewie, have disembarked the Millenium Falcon and are standing in the desert. They are looking at something in the distance, but we can't tell for sure what it is.

The next shot suggests that the crew have found a village on a new planet in the Star Wars universe. Perhaps this is the village that the rebels retreated to at the end of The Last Jedi. The immediate next show, which shows General Leia Organa standing in a jungle, leaves some questions there. But whether this is the new rebel base or a totally separate society, we know that The Rise of Skywalker will continue to expand the Star Wars universe to never before seen planets.

Speaking of expanding into space, we get a couple of exciting looks at starships in this trailer. The first shot is some really gorgeous footage of the rebel space ships. The shot is mostly silhouetted, but we can definitely some classic Star Wars outlines in the group. And even the collection of new ships give us even more new territory that the final Star Wars chapter might introduce us to.

On the other side of the battle line, we have no trouble identifying what types of ships have entered the battle. We get a glimpse of the biggest collection of Star Destroyers we've seen in any Star Wars movie.

But these aren't just any Star Destroyers. After putting these shots through some photo editing software to try and get a better look, we noticed something different about them. These Star Destroyers have red details around their edges. And, as friend-of-the-site Da7e Gonzales points out on Twitter, this could be a fleet of Sith Ships.

[embed]https://twitter.com/Da7e/status/1165999956097949696?s=20[/embed]

To conclude the space battle section of the trailer, we see Finn and Jannah, a new character played by Naomi Ackie. They're in a spaceship with an unidentified pilot, staring at something that has them looking very concerned.

Next, we see C-3PO. Except he has red eyes? No idea what we're supposed to think about that. Speculation was bubbling that 3PO could take a turn to be an evil protocol droid, like 0-0-0. That seems unlikely, but it certainly would be exciting to see C-3PO expand his skills to the realm of torture!

Of course, this is a Star Wars movie so we get a quick shot of lasers shooting down from space doing incomprehensible damage to a planet's surface. For those playing along at home, that would be the free space on your Star Wars Bingo card.

In one of the most exciting scenes in the trailer, we see Rey training in the jungle with a Marksman-H combat remote. This is reminiscent of several of the different training sequences we see Luke undertake in the original trilogy. Couple that with the virtual guarantee that Luke's force ghost shows up in this episode, and this is almost definitely Rey's Dagobah sequence.

But if this trailer is anything, it is perfectly balanced. As all things must be. During the outer space sequence, we saw both sides of the force going up against each other. And now, after seeing a shot of Rey training, we see an awesome shot of Kylo Ren looking especially formidable. The setting is deeply reminiscent of the vision Rey had in The Force Awakens of her encounter with The Knights of Ren. That was a plotline that seemed forgotten in Episode VIII. But we would welcome more information about them in The Rise of Skywalker.

As if there were any questions as to whether our main hero and biggest villain would battle in the final Star Wars film, we conclude the trailer with a shot of the pair battling over water. As many have pointed out, the prequel trilogy ended with Anikan and Obi-Wan battling over lava. It would be amazing symmetry for the sequel trilogy to end with a battle over water.

And then, as the trailer comes to a close, we get the shot that everybody is talking about. In voice over, we here The Emperor himself, Shiv Palpatine, say "Your journey is near its end."

Then we see the image that the entire internet is referring to as "Dark Rey." Rey, decked out in Sith robes, with a dual-sided red lightsaber, as unstable as Kylo's. Comparing this to the first shot of the trailer, we're forced to ask ourselves if perhaps Rey was the one holding the red lightsaber when the trailer opened.

Speaking of questions we're forced to answer, here's another one. Why aren't we saying Darth Rey? Star Wars already has an evil prefix. We don't have to make one up, internet! This should be Darth Rey!

Anyway, her lightsaber unfolds which is super awesome. Most likely, Darth Rey isn't something that will actually happen in the movie. Given Star Wars mythology, and Disney's tendency to hide things in trailers, we're betting this is a vision. We think the most likely scenario is that Rey encounters Darth Rey in a kind of personal trial like when Luke went into the tree-cave on Dagobah.

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But what do you think? Is Darth Rey the inevitable ending of the Skywalker Saga? Could Rey secretly Obi-Wan Kenobi's grand-daughter? Is Jar Jar the true evil in the galaxy? Let us know on Twitter @NerdItHereFirst. And don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter for all our Star Wars coverage!