1 hour ago, pyoinator said:

So possible new configuration/title to the silencer incoming???

I doubt it. Here is my wild guess. It is a Special Forces version of the FO Interceptor. It seems this movie is giving us 3 different new TIES. The one in the trailer, the re purposed TIE from TFA concept art that was on the leaked (now more legit) promo poster and the TIE Echelon.

I am gonna go ahead with this hot take and say that Palp is either alive or this is a misdirecting recording. Given how that kind of misdirection would likely be received, I am gonna speculate that he is alive and either was Snoke or was using Snoke as a puppet.

This is because I believe that Disney canon will firmly follow the interpretation that Sith cannot become Force Ghosts. It requires selflessness and a oneness with the Force that unredeemed Sith cannot achieve.

In meta terms, this further ties the semi-religious concept of the Force to the more positive and popular of the real world interpretations of faith in a guiding power. Good people get a good afterlife or rebirth. Even bad people can be forgiven if they truly atone, so there is always hope and a reason to be better. Unrepetent bad people, on the other hand, only suffer from death and the uncertainty it brings. They cling to life, no matter the cost, because they fear death so much.

This is also based on statements from Pablo Hidalgo and the episodes "Sacrifice" and "Destiny" from the newly resurgent Clone Wars series. JJ has admitted that he leans heavily on the guys universe knowledge and Pablo has been pretty clear how he feels about the question in the past. Sith cannot be Force ghosts.

Yet Palp is laughing at us again somehow? He never actually died. It's the only explanation that currently makes sense in the official canon. Though the power of hamdwavium or even basic bait has certainly denied me my obvious mental superiority before 😡 . I am not, in any way, sure that this isn't just a long lost recording of Palp being dangled as bait.

I don't think they have underestimated Kylo's popularity at all either. He was definitely my favorite in 8, while I thought he was little more than a bad Vader clone in 7. With that in mind, I don't l ike the pettiness of fixing the destroyed mask, as I had hoped he would discard it for good in an effort to move beyond trying to emulate his very limited image of his grandfather. I always liked that part and hope he eventually realizes what a mistake that stupid mask/persona w as.

Eh, it certainly won't make or break the entire movie for me. I cannot wait and I also hope that at least Thrawn appears. The Skywalker title does tie into the books about him nicely and the Chiss arriving from unknown space could both serve as a way to grow interest among more traditional fans and expand the story into new space. That's why the Chiss have Skywalkers right? To navigate uncharted space hazards using the Force to guide them right?

32 minutes ago, Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun said:

J J Abrams said this was part of the opening.

Probably outside Black Spire outpost.

11 minutes ago, ScummyRebel said:

However, the new canon also mentioned the empire signing a truce with the new republic, so there is a remnant that is not the FO.

The TLJ novelization goes on to say that the imperial remnant was gathered up by snoke and made into the FO, so a little of both probably.

14 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

Because they just didn't kill the happy ending of ROTJ enough in Force Awakens. They needed one more twist of the lightsaber.

Well, let's not forget that if Palpatine did use the strength of his hatred and connection to the Dark Side to survive the destruction of the Death Star and its crash into Endor, I mean...

...it's been 40 years at that point. He'll have to be eating something all that time.

Just now, xanderf said:

Well, let's not forget that if Palpatine did use the strength of his hatred and connection to the Dark Side to survive the destruction of the Death Star and its crash into Endor, I mean...

...it's been 40 years at that point. He'll have to be eating something all that time.

Please PLEASE let this be a thing.

18 minutes ago, RebelProfundity said:

I don't l ike the pettiness of fixing the destroyed mask, as I had hoped he would discard it for good in an effort to move beyond trying to emulate his very limited image of his grandfather. I always liked that part and hope he eventually realizes what a mistake that stupid mask/persona w as.

So it's early at this point, but keep in mind all the screen time with Kylo has the mask off so far... and if watch closely, the hands repairing the mask either have fur, or are wearing fur clothing. These do not look like Kylo's hands.... I don't think Kylo is wearing that mask anymore.

41 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

Because they just didn't kill the happy ending of ROTJ enough in Force Awakens. They needed one more twist of the lightsaber.

I am really really stoked for this.

1 minute ago, Jo Jo said:

This was a thing in one of the the old comics

Kylo Ren is a Skywalker. Perhaps he is on the rise?

One of my complaints about Star Trek (2009) was that the creators seemed to get their knowledge of Star Trek not from actually watching Star Trek but from watching parodies of Star Trek. JJ is such a cheap hack.

My guess is that its a vision, a holocron, or an apparition like Bane from the end of the Clone Wars, tied to the remains of where he died. Not really a force ghost, but a manifestation of the darkside, not unlike Vader in the Cave on Dagobah, taking the form of the last Sith Lord.

Eh. Still not very interested enough to fork over money to see it.

WOW this looks good. Super excited for Lando coming back. I have believed that Snoke was a Palpatine clone since TFA, just like Dark Empire, and the laughter, if it's not misdirection, could support that theory.

2 hours ago, kris40k said:

TIE Interceptors are not melee weapons, I don't care how angry you are. There better be some sort of weapons failure in play here.

"Anything can be a melee weapon if you're brave enough." -Ron Jeremy probably

Luke's monologue seems to indicate that there will finally be a satisfying explanation as to Rey's sudden growth in power. Ya know, something that makes sense in universe, as opposed to "The force just makes an enemy for you to battle when you gain force powers. If you get stronger so does this rando. The force is cheeky like that." That explanation from TLJ is just transparently lazy.

From what little dialogue there is in the trailer, it sounds like ghost Luke and probably Yoda and the other ghosts from the end of ROTJ actually trained her between films. Either that or she's the force Avatar a la Last Airbender, meaning she's connected to the Jedi that came before her, and can therefore access their wisdom and strength when needed. The second one definitely sounds new for Star Wars and could be interesting, but the first would be just fine as well since it fits what we already know about the setting.

I just really hope there is an actual sense of time passing in this movie. TLJ feels like it picks up like 2-3 days after the destruction of Star Killer at most. I can't think of a single other movie in the series that picks up so quickly after the last movie. I feel like losing that passage of time did a huge disservice to this trilogy. The FO lose their most important super weapon but still have the military might to crush the Resistance, and apparently conquer the majority of the galaxy with little effort. It paints them as comically overpowered, despite them supposedly not being the ones in power when the trilogy began. Time passing also helps us with the scale of the universe. A war that ends in a week would not have the same impact as the years of struggle that played out in the OT.

I wont board the Hype Train for this one, but I wont try to derail it either. Here's hoping that Abrams can make this one both fun, and an actual Star Wars movie.

2 hours ago, RebelProfundity said:

I am gonna go ahead with this hot take and say that Palp is either alive or this is a misdirecting recording. Given how that kind of misdirection would likely be received, I am gonna speculate that he is alive and either was Snoke or was using Snoke as a puppet.

This is because I believe that Disney canon will firmly follow the interpretation that Sith cannot become Force Ghosts. It requires selflessness and a oneness with the Force that unredeemed Sith cannot achieve.

In meta terms, this further ties the semi-religious concept of the Force to the more positive and popular of the real world interpretations of faith in a guiding power. Good people get a good afterlife or rebirth. Even bad people can be forgiven if they truly atone, so there is always hope and a reason to be better. Unrepetent bad people, on the other hand, only suffer from death and the uncertainty it brings. They cling to life, no matter the cost, because they fear death so much.

This is also based on statements from Pablo Hidalgo and the episodes "Sacrifice" and "Destiny" from the newly resurgent Clone Wars series. JJ has admitted that he leans heavily on the guys universe knowledge and Pablo has been pretty clear how he feels about the question in the past. Sith cannot be Force ghosts.

Yet Palp is laughing at us again somehow? He never actually died. It's the only explanation that currently makes sense in the official canon. Though the power of hamdwavium or even basic bait has certainly denied me my obvious mental superiority before 😡 . I am not, in any way, sure that this isn't just a long lost recording of Palp being dangled as bait.

I don't think they have underestimated Kylo's popularity at all either. He was definitely my favorite in 8, while I thought he was little more than a bad Vader clone in 7. With that in mind, I don't l ike the pettiness of fixing the destroyed mask, as I had hoped he would discard it for good in an effort to move beyond trying to emulate his very limited image of his grandfather. I always liked that part and hope he eventually realizes what a mistake that stupid mask/persona w as.

Eh, it certainly won't make or break the entire movie for me. I cannot wait and I also hope that at least Thrawn appears. The Skywalker title does tie into the books about him nicely and the Chiss arriving from unknown space could both serve as a way to grow interest among more traditional fans and expand the story into new space. That's why the Chiss have Skywalkers right? To navigate uncharted space hazards using the Force to guide them right?

Possible way Palpatine survived: He managed to break through to the World Between Worlds.. or at least part of it, falling down the shaft of the DS2, opens a portal, gains access to the WBW, but his momentum carries him to another portal and spits him out decades later.

Further possible proof:

Palp using blue flames in WBW..

then his "death"

I'm a little perplexed by the immediate jumping to the assumption that Sheev Lives. Just from his disembodied laugh? If they'd done a haunting Yoda quote -- I dunno, maybe, "Mine! Mine!" -- would people be assuming Yoda were alive? Sometimes an evocative evil laugh is just supposed to be an audio cue triggering other thoughts and emotions, you know?

Just now, Jeff Wilder said:

I'm a little perplexed by the immediate jumping to the assumption that Sheev Lives. Just from his disembodied laugh? If they'd done a haunting Yoda quote -- I dunno, maybe, "Mine! Mine!" -- would people be assuming Yoda were alive? Sometimes an evocative evil laugh is just supposed to be an audio cue triggering other thoughts and emotions, you know?

And there is nothing in Canon excluding strong darksiders from becoming force ghosts. Heck, "light"siders had no clue how till Qui'gon figured it out.

1 minute ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I'm a little perplexed by the immediate jumping to the assumption that Sheev Lives. Just from his disembodied laugh? If they'd done a haunting Yoda quote -- I dunno, maybe, "Mine! Mine!" -- would people be assuming Yoda were alive? Sometimes an evocative evil laugh is just supposed to be an audio cue triggering other thoughts and emotions, you know?

They also had Ian McDiarmid at the show, which seems a bit overkill a tease/misdirection if you're just sampling some audio from him for the trailer.

And it sure looks like they went back to Endor, where we can clearly see big chunks of the Death Star are still intact. I mean, heck, Darth Maul was cut in half before falling down his not-a-safety-hazard-at-all-why galactic-standard-bottomless-pit, and he came back from that. Palpatine was FAR stronger with the Dark Side than Maul, and hadn't even been injured when thrown down his bottomless pit.

33 minutes ago, Hippie Moosen said:

Luke's monologue seems to indicate that there will finally be a satisfying explanation as to Rey's sudden growth in power. Ya know, something that makes sense in universe, as opposed to "The force just makes an enemy for you to battle when you gain force powers. If you get stronger so does this rando. The force is cheeky like that." That explanation from TLJ is just transparently lazy. From what little dialogue there is it sounds like either ghost Luke and probably Yoda and the other ghosts from the end of ROTJ actually trained her between films. Either that or she's the force Avatar a la Last Airbender, meaning she's connected to the Jedi that came before her, and can therefore access their wisdom and strength when needed. The second one definitely sounds new for Star Wars and could be interesting, but the first would be just fine as well since it fits what we already know about the setting.

I just really hope there is an actual sense of time passing in this movie. TLJ feels like it picks up like 2-3 days after the destruction of Star Killer at most. I can't think of a single other movie in the series that picks up so quickly after the last movie. I feel like losing that passage of time did a huge disservice to this trilogy. The FO lose their most important super weapon but still have the military might to crush the Resistance, and apparently conquer the majority of the galaxy with little effort. It paints them as comically overpowered, despite them supposedly not being the ones in power when the trilogy began. Time passing also helps us with the scale of the universe. A war that ends in a week would not have the same impact as the years of struggle that played out in the OT.

I wont board the Hype Train for this one, but I wont try to derail it either. Here's hoping that Abrams can make this one both fun, and an actual Star Wars movie.

Yea, Rey's explantion in the film has been that the force just props someone up and makes them stronger, in the books and other material I think they've instead pushed that she somehow just absorbed all of Kylo's force and lightsaber training when he failed trying to force information out of her in TFA. Either way it doesn't really give her much agency as a character and just gives her power to have her be powerful rather than having her train or earn it.

Based off a comment John Boyega made TRS/RS/TROS, what acronym do we want for The Rise of Skywalker(?), takes place one year after TLJ. As for all the other films TPM to ATOC is 10 years, ATOC to ROTS is 3 years, ROTS to ANH is 19 years, ANH to ESB is 3 years, ESB to ROTJ is 1 year, ROTJ to TFA is 30 years, TFA to TLJ is like 2 days tops, and TLJ to Rise of Skywalker is 1 year.

So the war likely won't end within a week, but rather a year. That or they end up having Kylo leave the First Order and join the Resistance/Rebels and they end the film with that group going on to fight the good fight and try and bring peace to the galaxy again.

2 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

And there is nothing in Canon excluding strong darksiders from becoming force ghosts. Heck, "light"siders had no clue how till Qui'gon figured it out.

Except Pablo Hidalgo has been hard up on the stance that dark side users can't become force ghosts in new canon so they struggle to stay alive and maintain their power or imbue part of themselves to something like a horcrux. Of course, with what little pull the story group has that can change.

Just now, Animewarsdude said:

Except   Pablo Hidalgo has been hard up on the stance that dark side users can't become force ghosts in new canon so they struggle to stay alive and maintain their power or imbue part  of themselves to something like a horcrux. Of course, with what little pull the story group has that can change

With where the laugh was featured I think the "horcrux" is right in front of them, and wasn't Hidalgo pulled from control of Canon?

Honestly, I think this looks a bit lame...

TLJ has killed any interest I have in the new characters. Was Finn even in this trailer? Meanwhile I doubt Lando can do much to carry the film and bringing back iconic dead characters, while fan service, undermines the resolutions of the original films.

I'm like, 30% interested for this movie.