Do you have any thoughts you don’t mind sharing about ep9’s title? Do you think it means Kylo is getting a redemption? A dumb move to ignore TLJ’s parent reveal and make Rey a biological Skywalker? Or maybe it means a continuation of the Skywalker legacy w/Rey as protege? None of those? I’d love to hear your take :)
This might be odd coming from a writer, but I admit I don’t pay much attention to titles. They’re chosen for so many different reasons and, especially when you’re discussing a commercial work, primarily designed as part of the branding and marketing. So it just doesn’t tickle my brain at all.
I do have thoughts, of course, on the things you describe. I do think Kylo will redeem himself. (And I use those words very intentionally–I feel like TLJ, above all else, made it clear that this is something Kylo needs to do himself, and that no one else can be or should be responsible even if they can stand beside him as he picks himself back up.) I feel pretty sure Rey will join the Skywalker family one way or another. (Though not by marriage, and not by last minute amnesia reveal blood ties, I HAVE DECREED IT JJ.) There will be more to the story of her parents, as I have said before, but the family that made her isn’t necessarily the family she needs. Abrams laid that idea out way back in TFA, and she’s tightly interwoven with the Skywalker-Solo clan now. I can’t imagine that, when everything gets down to the darkest hour, they won’t be there to remind her of that.
To that end though, I guess this is my title thought: Abrams might have something specific in mind, but to me, SW titles are meant to make you think of something obvious, and then be fleshed out in a more interesting but ultimately general way. You can guess that Palpatine or Darth Maul is the Phantom Menace, but to me the important thing in that movie is that feeling of dread on the horizon. You can guess that Luke will Return the Jedi, or even that Anakin the Jedi will Return–but the important thing is that feeling that a restoration has happened. That Luke and Anakin both embody the spirit of the Jedi that had been lost, and now is found again.
Therefore, my possibly unsatisfying guess is that The Rise of Skywalker is about all of it. It’s about Ben Solo crawling out from under the mask of Kylo Ren and accepting the truth that is his family. It’s about Rey realizing that the belonging she seeks is right in front of her. It’s about the family name and legacy, as a concept, breaking free from everything that has been done to them, and everything they have done to themselves–and so everything will fall under that umbrella.
Or, to put it another way, it’s about the one word Kathleen Kennedy used to describe the film: “Hope.”
