Another mystery of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has been solved.
"Sabine — another one coming out!"
Near the film's end, right after the triumph of Rey over granddad Emperor Palpatine, she
and Kylo Ren appear to exchange words before the latter vanishes into the Force.
But no dialogue between the two is audible.
As it turns out, they did have some parting words after all and the movie's novelization
is apparently letting us in on what they had to say to each other.
You'll recall that Rey, egged on by the voices of Jedi past in her head, was able to seal
Palpatine's destruction by deflecting his own hateful, nasty Force lightning back at
him, apparently mortally wounding herself in the process.
Kylo, however having decided to go ahead and turn back to the light side and become Ben
Solo again transferred his life force to her at the last minute.
They had those mysterious words, shared a chaste kiss, and then he was gone.
"Curious."
According to the novelization, their exchange wasn't exactly the most creative thing in
the world.
If you happened to take a guess as to what they might've said, the chances are fairly
good that you were right.
"I couldn't really guess."
The relevant passage in the book reads,
"A voice came to her through the Force, clear and strong.
'I will always be with you,' Ben said.
She smiled.
Let the truth of it wash over her.
'No one's ever really gone,' she whispered."
"No one's ever really gone."
There you have it, folks; that clears that right up.
The revelation is a fairly minor one among the other story-related things that have become
known in the months following Rise of Skywalker's release.
As is becoming increasingly clear, a whole lot of seemingly important plot material for
Episode IX just straight-up wasn't in the movie.
To understand what happened, Disney apparently would rather you find out in a book sold separately,
of course.
"The sacred Jedi texts!"
The Rise of Skywalker has been accompanied by a pretty substantial amount of game-changing
supplemental material.
For starters, there's the movie's Visual Dictionary, released on the same day the film came out;
that ginormous tome revealed such plot points as the fact that, as many suspected, ex-Stormtrooper
Jannah is Lando Calrissian's long-lost daughter.
"The character you're playing, Jannah, she's Lando Calrissian's daughter."
"Yeah, there's that rumor."
That book also revealed that the planet Kylo visits in the film's opening is indeed the
same one Mustafar where Anakin Skywalker lost his famous game of "The floor is lava" with
Obi-Wan Kenobi, and that the candy apple Sith Troopers who show up out of nowhere to serve
on his Star Destroyers are actually the children of Palpatine's worshippers on Exegol.
Oh, and for some reason it also suggests that the vaunted Knights of the Old Republic RPG
is apparently canon again.
Why not?
"You cannot hide from what you once were, Revan."
More lost plot points from the movie will likely be laid out by the five-issue Rise
of Skywalker comic series, to be published by Marvel Comics starting in May 2020.
And you might recall that even more details about the movie literally had to be explained
by the movie's crew in various interviews.
For example, the film's editor Maryann Brandon divulged in a conversation with Huffington
Post why Rey was unable to simply kill Emperor Palpatine, explaining that she basically can't
strike him down in anger.
Apparently, it's only by reflecting his own hate back at him or in this case, lightning
bolts that she's able to beat him at his nefarious schemes.
On another occasion, director J.J. Abrams himself revealed what it was that Finn kept
trying to tell Rey for the entire movie.
Turns out he wants to tell her that he's Force-sensitive, and not, like you might imagine, that he secretly
loves her.
"You got a boyfriend?
Boyfriend?"
"It’s None of your business"
Depending on whom you ask, this all makes Rise of Skywalker either A) a thematically
rich, narratively dense work containing too much story to fit into its run time; or B)
an incomplete film which asks its fans to shell out extra cash to fill in its plot holes.
"Yeah, I think you're right."
If you happened to enjoy The Rise of Skywalker just fine as-is, more power to you.
But either way, we hope the next movie can manage to fit a whole story in before the
credits roll, and not leave the good stuff for the books.
The Rise of Skywalker will hit digital platforms on March 17, and DVD/Blu-ray on March 31.
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