By Maggie Inglesby

The final installment (well at least until there’s another reboot) of Star Wars is coming out in December and the new, long-awaited trailer recently came out and man, Twitter flipped out. The trailer shows the fan-favorite characters back for one last movie, and it appears as if it will be jam-packed with action and emotionally charged scenes.

The most anticipated (at least for me) are the scenes with Leia. As we know, Carrie Fisher passed away before the filming of Rise of Skywalker was completed, and this movie was supposed to be Leia’s final bow in the series like Force Awakens and The Last Jedi were for Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, respectively. The trailer shows Leia and Rey hugging and crying, which I can only anticipate will make audiences teary-eyed too. Leia will not be in the movie as much as originally planned, so we will have to see how they handle Leia’s suspected death. Now, that’s just my theory but I do not know how else they would go about it, and the last two movies featured death scenes for the other two members of the original trilogy.

Other important aspects to note in the trailer include an essential confirmation of the return of Emperor Palpatine and Lando Calrissian. Some fans (myself included) are upset that Palpatine is back, having been previously killed by Darth Vadar in The Empire Strikes Back. I personally feel like a different villain should have been used, or they should have simply stuck with using Kylo Ren. Speaking of Kylo Ren there is a lot of debate about his role in the upcoming movie. Will he turn to the light? Will he find redemption? Should he be redeemed? I personally think he will, and should be redeemed. I also think that this is the most likely theory as he is generally a parallel for Darth Vadar. 

The other hotly debated topic among Star Wars fans is who the endgame couples will be, because it would not be a Stars Wars movie without a whirlwind, battle-tested, romance. The one that seems to be definite is Finn and Rose who had their big romantic moment at the end of The Last Jedi after Rose saves Finn’s life. The other possible and hotly contested relationship would be between Kylo Ren/Ben Skywalker and Rey. While I personally do not ship it, I think this is a very likely possibility as they will most likely continue to Kylo Ren and Anakin comparisons. I think they will pull a reverse Anakin and Padmé situation to bookend the series. The two are also shown in some intense scenes together in the trailer, the most iconic of which is when they slice through a guy together in slow motion. This theory gained traction after The Last Jedi when they had the weird force mind-meld thing, so it seems as if they are being set up to be a thing and for Rey to get Kylo redemption. I personally would like to see Rey end up with no one, but I would still like to see Kylo Ren get redemption for the sake of cinematic parallels.

Additionally, fans want to see Anakin (who became Darth Vader) again on the big screen, and while it has not been confirmed or been seen in any of the trailers, it seems possible that Hayden Christensen could reprise his role in the final installment.

While those are the most likely theories, there are also the more wild theories like that Rey turns to the dark side or that Obi-Wan Kenobi or Qui (the Jedi master who trained Obi-Wan in the prequels)  might show up again. While these are doubtful, they would certainly be interesting, but we will have to wait until Dec. 20 to know for sure.