Rise of Skywalker Teaser | Back to Some OT Good and Evil

The story is old as time: Evil vs. good.

Rise of Skywalker Teaser

Star Wars just made it sound cooler in 1977 by calling it dark side vs. light.

And, one of the coolest things George Lucas and his writers of modern myth did with the OT (original trilogy, ’77-’83), was make the differences between light and dark so damn clear. Luke and his family of moisture farmers were innocent, hard working simple folk from a brightly lit desert planet with two moons. Then, there’s Darth Vader. Pop culture’s baddest of the bad. Dude wears all black AND a cape. More machine than man, he literally lives and breathes the dopest looking helmet of all time, and builds a moon of mass destruction.

This past Friday, out of absolutely nowhere, the first teaser dropped for the ninth and final installment of the Skywalker family story. The royal family even makes it into the subtitle of this one too: Rise of Skywalker.

In reaction to the teaser, I did what I always do: recorded a podcast. Joining me on our network’s Update: Nerd Style show was close friend and pod co-host, Eli Benson @batman_beyond_fanpage on Instagram. Eli normally joins me on another show from the network, Above and Batman Beyond, so it was fun to hear his thoughts about a galaxy far far away from Neo Gotham (Both shows can be found on ComicBookIntl.com).

Early on in the Update, Eli and I talked about how this Rise of Skywalker trailer seems to be a return to the OT and to Force Awakens. When it comes to the dark side and the light specifically, Rise seems like a big departure from Last Jedi (Episode XIII, from writer/director, Rian Johnson ).

EB: What I find interesting about this [teaser], it seems like everyone now is on their affiliate sides. Like, it seems–based on the trailer, anyway– that Kylo Ren is fully, even if not dark side, he’s not a Jedi. And, obviously, it seems like Rey is like a Jedi, and she’s kind of adopting that light side philosophy, based on her light saber and her garb and stuff.

And, I find that interesting, because I feel like the last movie really tried to play with that ambiguity of like, blurring the lines a little bit. It drew some parallels between Kylo Ren and Rey and both of them kind of dabbled on other side of their respective philosophies. So, I find it interesting that now, they are stationed in their respective sides.

BD: Yea, good call. Like, we get that little clip of him rebuilding the Kylo Ren helmet.

EB: Right.

BD: Because, that was obviously super symbolic in the last one, of him smashing it, and goin’ like, “Maybe I’m not my grandfather.” Also, you have even the, let’s say, bio-dependency symbolism. That’s a lot of fancy words next to each other, but it’s like, with Darth Vader, he was dependent on that suit to breathe, which is indicative of him being more machine than man and more evil.

EB: Right.

BD: So, it’s clear who Vader is…What’s cool about the Kylo Ren mask is that it looks Vader-esque , and he’s obviously modeling himself after Vader, but he’s not biologically dependent on it. He can take that mask off.

But, again, now that we’re seeing Kylo rebuild his iconic mask in tge teaser, are we to believe he’s back to being a full on bad guy?

Do you guys agree that this trailer for Rise is less morally ambiguous than Last Jedi? Would some old school OT good vs. evil be on your wish list, or would you prefer the “blurred lines” of dark side vs. light pointed out today by Eli?

Comment below with your thoughts!

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