Oh, now they’re just trolling us.
Wednesday morning, seemingly out of nowhere, the official Star Wars YouTube channel posted an official clip from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker called “Rey and Kylo Ren vs. Palpatine.” You know, it’s the clip from the end of the movie where Rey and Ben finally team up to fight Palpatine and his goons. Basically, the best part of an otherwise disappointing movie—and the scene where Adam Driver finally gets to be the son of Han and Leia we all dreamed of seeing.
Clearly, the clip is a big spoiler, so posting it well after the film’s release makes sense. But you don’t post it SIX YEARS AFTER THE FILM’S RELEASE AND THE SAME WEEK NEWS BROKE THAT DISNEY REJECTED A FILM THAT WOULD’VE BROUGHT ADAM DRIVER AS BEN SOLO BACK. Here’s the clip before we continue.
For anyone who may have been in the Sarlacc all week, in a new interview, Adam Driver revealed that a few years back he’d recruited Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh to helm a post-Rise of Skywalker film that would’ve dove deeper into Ben Solo. The Hunt for Ben Solo even had a script, by frequent Soderbergh collaborator Scott Z. Burns, that Lucasfilm loved. But, according to Driver, Disney CEO Bob Iger and co-chairman Alan Bergman didn’t see how Ben Solo could come back to life. So they killed it.
The news sparked an overwhelming outpouring of support for the idea from seemingly every niche of Star Wars fandom and for a multitude of reasons. Some just wanted to see a Steven Soderbergh Star Wars movie. Others wished we could’ve spent more time with Ben Solo. And then, of course, there was plenty of discussion about the borderline idiotic logic behind not moving forward with the film. Characters in Star Wars, after all, have come back from the dead so many times and in so, so many ways that it’s probably more common than a character actually staying dead.
So after all of that, for the official Star Wars YouTube to post this clip this week, in this moment, feels like such a tease. A perfect, subtle, and devilish acknowledgment of this moment. Maybe, as many have pointed out on social media, Driver’s comments will act almost like the leak of Deadpool footage all those years ago. Footage that was shot as a test, passed on by the studio, but then secretly revealed to the public, and completely celebrated. That worked out for Fox and Disney in the end, did it not?
A Ben Solo movie, directed by Steven Soderbergh, could potentially be even more exciting. News of its mere existence has certainly been met with more excitement than other recent Star Wars news.
Any thoughts on the timing of this clip being posted? Do you think a Ben Solo movie could still happen?
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