- Thank you to Zelda Symphony
for sponsoring today's episode.
Could Poe Dameron be turning to the dark side?
That's what we're wondering after taking a look
at some new info on an official Japanese Star Wars site.
It's no secret that Poe Dameron,
the cocky and charismatic Resistance fighter pilot,
was supposed to die in the original draft
of The Force Awakens but after actor Oscar Isaac
went to JJ Abrams pleading for a reprieve,
the character was spared and granted the remarkable ability
to survive a pretty violent TIE fighter explosion.
It was a move that left fans elated,
especially ones who wanted to see
some Resistance romance happen between him and Finn.
- Yeah!
- Yes!
- But it also left the character kind of aimless.
While Rey, Kylo, and the rest of the sequel trilogy gang
had their storylines more or less mapped out,
Poe had nothing but blank pages ahead of him,
but now it looks like we may know
what those pages are going to be filled with,
and it's probably a whole lot more sinister
than what you were expecting.
- What?
- The official Japanese Star Wars site just released
some new character descriptions for The Last Jedi,
and Poe's breakdown reads, "Poe is shining as a leader
"of a courageous flying battalion,
"but while he is brave and a skilled pilot,
"both The First Order and the Resistance alike
"are starting to fear his dedication to the war effort."
Now, we should stress that these were all translated
via Google, so the actual wording may be a tad off,
but that is a pretty shocking description all the same.
Of course, we'd hope that the First Order
would be fearing Poe's piloting skills,
but the fact that his teammates in the Resistance
are also starting to become worried
suggests that we're going to see the character
starting to take a dark turn.
Poe could become so obsessed with the war effort
that his sense of right and wrong begin to waver
and while he may be fighting for the good guys,
he might be doing it in some pretty questionable ways.
Now, it's really something we've never seen
in Star Wars before, I mean, moral ambiguity.
- Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
- Or at least something that we've never
really seen done successfully.
Perhaps there were some supposed to be shades of gray
in Anakin's turn to the dark side,
but he kind of goes from zero to slaughtering
dozens of sand people pretty quickly.
For the most part, however,
Star Wars has always drawn some pretty stark lines
between the good and the bad, the light and the dark,
but if there's guy to finally introduce a middle ground,
director Rian Johnson would seem to be it.
From Rick to Looper to even his episodes of Breaking Bad,
his genre work has always featured
morally questionable anti-heroes,
so maybe he's using Poe as an opportunity
to introduce some of those personal touches to Star Wars.
Plus, it feels like it would tie in nicely
with a lot of the themes we're already expecting
from The Last Jedi.
As we've speculated before, we think the new trilogy
is building to Rey and Kylo coming together
to create the gray Jedi, a new order that attempts
to balance the light and the dark side.
Maybe Poe is being built out as a counterargument to that,
an example of the bad that can happen
when you lose all sight of right and wrong.
Let's just hope BB8 can bring him back
from the brink of evil.
Of course, now the site didn't stop with Poe.
It did shed some light on some other characters as well.
The translated description also reveals
Kylo's biggest secret, that he's not able
to impress Supreme Leader Snoke.
Oh wait, that's not a secret at all.
- Kylo Ren is a punk bitch.
- But what is revealing about this write up
is that it confirms what many of us have suspected
after seeing the latest trailer,
that not only is Snoke disappointed
with Kylo's progress in the dark side,
but he's actively seeking out Rey
in hopes of replacing his current meh apprentice
with someone whose raw power can be put to evil use.
Based on the trailer, we're thinking
Kylo will fail to kill his mama,
which will then deepen the rift between him and Snoke.
In the Rey section, we get an even more pointed hint
about her meeting her hero, Luke.
Rey instead found a man who disagrees with her expectations.
We have heard for a while and even from Daisy Ridley herself
that this would be the dynamic between Rey and Luke,
and now we wonder whether this could mean
that their interaction will become even more adversarial
than we initially thought.
With Rey's face to face with Snoke
plus her seeking out guidance and context
for her place in all of this,
it seems pretty clear that she will quickly
turn her curiosity from a disillusioned Luke
to whoever can help her figure out where she belongs.
And as for Finn, he is at a crossroads
over his role in the war, which is super interesting,
since we know that he's playing spy for the Resistance
infiltrating the First Order.
Is he considering turning back to the dark side
once he puts on that fancy black suit?
And Phasma is described as determined
to destroy the Resistance and settle a private grudge.
No doubt that grudge is with Finn,
the defector who was under her command
when he helped start the chain of events
that brought about the destruction of the Starkiller Base.
- My name's Finn and I'm in charge.
I'm in charge now, Phasma, I'm in charge.
- Bring it down, bring it down.
- But what do you think?
Will The Last Jedi be able to pull off moral ambiguity
in Star Wars, and will our Poe Finn ship
be torn apart by the First Order,
and do all moral shades of gray prove
that we are getting gray Jedi?
Let's discuss.