The Rise of Skywalker Is So Important

Leave hot takes about The Last Jedi by the door, we are talking about the end of another saga, and one of the biggest moments in nerd culture since the last momentous one, like, a few months ago: The Rise of Skywalker is here. And while the first trailer released isn’t all that impressive, except for the laugh at the end—the second one is perhaps the greatest leveraging of nostalgia ever put in a trailer.

Sure, we are used to characters and things we grew up with making big sweeping returns to the screen—and anyone who grew up a fan of comics has been in heaven for a long time—but this one trailer takes one of the biggest defining movies of all time, and its sequels, and brings it home with a chilling statement of intent.

This is it.

This is the moment.

I realize more than half the footage is old and reused, but what isn’t is amazing. The new footage of Ray and Kylo fighting, of ominous rumblings of old characters, and heavy hints of something with Ray that we’ve all been wondering: is she the newest Sith?

Or are we passed that, now, the Sith, the Jedi? I’m not the person to go for theorizing here, but despite the presentation being arguably dodgy, this new trilogy is still one of the most story-rich takes on the universe put to film. Decades of hindsight and lore, taken to new places.

I know for some cynicism has taken hold—the dark side of the media criticism world in control—but this is the literal culmination of the most important story of multiple generations, a touchstone for sci-fi and fantasy, a genre definer given its final song for now. Do not boycott it just because you didn’t like the last movie—see it because you owe yourself the final part. Good or bad, Episode One quality or Episode Four quality, fans should be ecstatic to see lightsaber duels, and the Force choose a winner, and a Galaxy so far away come to its conclusion.

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