Are There Clues To Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker In Concept Artwork Of The Force Awakens?

Get to it already… what’s the adventure?

The Death Star remains sit in the ocean. How are they going to get to it? That Hashtag Show’s J.J. Goodman talked about this before… by taking the Millennium Falcon underwater!

Seeing the Falcon under the waves is a cool concept, and one J.J. Abrams has used before by putting the Enterprise underwater at the beginning of Star Trek: Into Darkness. What’s more exciting in this artwork is what the lights are shining on—the Emperor’s throne tower of the Death Star II. What’s in there that’s so important? What would they be looking for?

It won’t be the map to Skywalker. We’ve already gotten that part. So what is it? My guess is it’s either how they discover Palpatine is alive or a way to finally kill him. We learned in Episode VII that Rey didn’t even know if the Jedi were real, so it’s likely she would not be familiar with the players from the fallen Empire, especially the Emperor. Unless she scavenged something from his hidden lab on Jakku…

Either way, Palpatine is back. In what form, we don’t know yet. Fans are split between him somehow surviving the fall down the Death Star shaft or seeing him return as a Force ghost. With revelations for this years SDCC, I’m going to be on the first theory. Palpatine somehow survived and is in the flesh, be it him originally or a clone. Otherwise, why would we need the new Sith Trooper?

The Rise of Skywalker: What does the new Sith Trooper have to do with it?

With the death of Darth Vader and supposedly Palpatine, there are no Sith left. Snoke wasn’t one, and Kylo isn’t one. So what would be the purpose of naming the new crimson-clad warriors Sith Troopers? There must be a Sith around somewhere for that, and his name is Darth Sidious.

Another cool aspect of them is the chunky helmet. It hearkens back to the original Old Republic Sith Trooper helmets with those extra middle-face plates. It’s also hard to overlook the crimson-colored armor Palpatine favored for his personal guards. Other than this new trooper, we may have had an answer about the plot for Episode IX all this time and didn’t even know it.

Sound off! Tell us what you think. Have we had the clues to Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker all along? Is this just more speculation? We’ll all find out this December!

Source: Inverse