THANK YOU!!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

THANK YOU!!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Alrighty Folks, Listen Up

Ok, I know everyone is freaking out because apparently the JP leaks were confirmed by people who ‘supposedly’ attended the premiere, but all I’ve got to say is really? I love the Reylo fandom to bits - it’s full of amazing, talented people who genuinely care about Star Wars and the characters we’ve been introduced to in the ST, but y’all are some of the most gullible people I’ve ever met. Now, I’m not going to be a hypocrite. I’ll admit that when people first started claiming that the leaks had been confirmed last night, I had a breakdown. It was my worst nightmare going into TROS confirmed. I had a hell of a time falling asleep, and you can bet that it was the first thing on my mind when I woke up this morning. I was in a full blown panic - how could JJ do this to us? How could they end a 40 year saga about the Skywalkers by killing off the last Skywalker before he could get his happy ending? As soon as my mom was up I was ranting and raving to her about how the last four years of my life have been a wasted investment in a trilogy with an ending just as unsatisfactory as GOT. I saw TFA as a freshman in high school and now I’ll be seeing TROS as a freshman in college - this trilogy has gotten me through a lot over the last four years, and it feels like not only the end of the saga, but also a personal ending for myself. This is a big deal for me, and I was heartbroken by the prospect of such a tragic ending to what has always been such a hopeful story. But then my mom told me to calm down and think about it: do the leaks really make any sense? And who exactly is confirming them? The general audience has yet to see the film, and everyone at the premiere was VIPs and press who all have NDAs about specific plot points until the embargo is lifted later this week (and I’m sure breaking an NDA with Disney is going to cost an arm and a leg, so who would risk it?), so how can we really trust these ‘leakers’. I did what my mom suggested and sat down, took a deep breath, and just thought about it logically. Lo and behold, she was right. We can’t ignore the heaps of evidence that go directly against the leaks. So here’s some food for thought that will hopefully help quell some of your fears until y’all can see the ending of the saga with your own eyes:

1) Star Wars has and always will be about hope. I know people keep saying this and that it probably seems kind of hollow in light of the leaks, but we have to remember the foundations that Star Wars was built on. Hope is the main theme of the saga and it permeates every aspect of the films. Star Wars without hope isn’t Star Wars at all. And what about what JJ, Kathleen, and the cast has been saying throughout TROS press? They have repeatedly told us that this movie is about hope, plain and simple. JJ even told us that we’re supposed to leave the theatre feeling more uplifted and hopeful than we did when we entered. I fail to see how killing off the last Skywalker, who has finally triumphed over his life long abuser and has his happy ending just in reach, is a hopeful ending. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong dictionary, but the definition of hope doesn’t apply to the leaks we’ve been given. Ben’s death and Rey ending up alone on another desert planet would be a terrible message for children who look up to these characters and can see themselves within them, which takes me to my next point.

2) Star Wars is a fairytale for children. JJ has been repeatedly telling us this, and yet some people just can’t seem to listen. Ever since TFA, JJ has been comparing the ST to a fairytale - Rey is the princess and Kylo/Ben is the prince (also, he’s Princess Leia’s son, so that does technically make him a legit prince, and we all know how much Disney loves their princes) - and what do we associate most with fairytales? That’s right, a happy ending. And besides, this is Disney we’re talking about, the company that built its legacy on fairytales with happy endings. But wait! What about the Grimm Brothers and their tragic fairytales? Once again, let me remind you that this is DISNEY. They took the Grimm’s fairytales and completely changed the endings so that their movies could have happy endings, and you really think they’re going to give us a tragic ending to a 40 year, operatic space fairytale? Think again! And like I said, these movies are for children. Kids not only love Rey and Kylo, but they also relate to them. There are plenty of children out there that feel lonely and abandoned by their families, and Rey and Kylo are on screen manifestations of the real life things they deal with on a day to day basis. What message will it send to these children if Rey ends up ultimately as lonely as she was at the start of the trilogy? What message will it send if Kylo is redeemed only to die minutes later? Is Disney really going to tell kids that loneliness is inevitable and that after a life of misery, the only chance of redemption is death, never getting a shot at a happy ending? I’m sorry, but how will that give children hope? Frankly, that’s just not Disney’s MO, and I would genuinely be shocked if they allowed that sort of ending to fly because it practically goes against everything that Disney stands for. 

3) We also need to pay attention to what JJ, Kathleen, and the cast have been saying throughout the press tour. They’ve been saying that the movie is fun - hell JJ even said it’s romantic. Kylo’s been described as having some really comedic moments and Daisy herself said that Kylo gets to do some fun stuff in TROS. Personally, I don’t see a character dying as ‘fun’…. unless there’s an epic resurrection scene shortly after. Now that would be fun. John Williams even called TROS a comedy,  which makes me think of Shakespeare. All of Shakespeare’s comedies have something in common: they’re about lovers, and they almost always have a happy ending. Now compare this with Shakespeare’s tragedies (Romeo and Juliet anyone?) and there’s a glaring difference: it’s about lovers, yes, but the ending is about as depressing as they come. If that was the kind of ending we were getting, I doubt that John Williams would have called the movie a comedy. Why give people expectations going into the movie that are going to be severely let down? And we can assume that John Williams has some knowledge of Shakespeare and the themes within his different plays because Williams chose to use an excerpt from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in ‘The Abduction’ (bridal carry scene) in TFA (and no, don’t read too much into the fact that it’s Romeo and Juliet! That just proves that there was romantic intent in that scene and remember, it’s a comedy! No tragic endings allowed!) Besides, JJ has been telling us this whole time that it’s a fun and satisfying ending to the saga, and if the ending is really what the leaks claim it is, then obviously JJ is a sadist. To claim that the death of a fan favorite character who is the last member of the family that is the heart of the Star Wars universe is satisfying is royally messed up, especially after it’s been confirmed that Kylo has been manipulated and abused by Palpatine his entire life. Where’s the fun in that? It’s not there, and that’s why I call bullshit on the leaks.

4) Palpatine!!! This is the most important piece of evidence I have against the leaks because honestly? All the stuff surrounding Palpatine in the leaks just doesn’t make any sense. Rey is his granddaughter? What? Wasn’t it confirmed recently that Palpatine never had offspring in canon? So when the hell did he have time to produce two generations of offspring? In terms of the timeline it just doesn’t seem reasonable, and it would just be shitty retcon writing, especially since during the entire press tour Daisy and the rest of the cast has been placing an emphasis on the fact that you don’t have to be related to someone famous to be important or possess great power. And I’m sorry, but I really don’t see JJ Abrams as the type to completely retcon Rian’s storytelling from TLJ. He may expand on it, yes, but to completely change it? No respectable director or writer would do that, especially not one as professional as JJ. Also, I think bringing back Palpatine is a super cool move. He was already the big bad of the galaxy, but to bring him back as the final boss is epic. However, this really only works if Kylo, the boy that Palpatine has manipulated since before his birth, whose entire family line has been manipulated and tormented by Palpatine over three generations, gets to finally kill off the old wrinkly raisin, and live to tell the tale. Kylo’s defeat of Palpatine is only satisfying if he gets to live on to experience a life free of Palpatine’s influence, the first Skywalker to do so. Killing Kylo off immediately after he defeats Palpatine is a low blow. Let this family be fucking happy for once, Jesus Christ. Honestly, that would just be terrible writing, and I have hope that JJ wouldn’t try to pull something like that. And once again, that leads me to hope. What hope would it give people if Kylo is finally redeemed through Palpatine’s death, only for him to die immediately after?

5) I know everyone is freaking out about TROS ending similarly to GOT, but I really don’t think that’s something we have to worry about. First of all, back in August, Daisy said that the ending would be less controversial than that of GOT, and I trust her. Plus we have to remember that D and D from GOT were slated to work on a Star Wars series, but they have recently resigned from that. They claim it’s because of a conflicting Netflix deal, but we all know that Kathleen Kennedy was not about to let them touch Star Wars after the disastrous GOT ending. DLF doesn’t necessarily cater to exactly what fans want, but if they know that something is going to cause a lot of backlash amongst the fans, they aren’t going to pursue it. Fans are the ones with the money, and it’s important for them to be kept happy. After the outrage that rippled through the GOT fanbase because of the final season, I’m sure DLF saw the reactions and decided that it was better to avoid such backlash. This is the exact reason I’m not worried about the leaks. Everyone seems to be pissed about the ending that is proposed by the leaks, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the majority of the Star Wars fandom united. The movie hasn’t even been released to the general audience yet and people are already talking about returning their tickets and boycotting the film all because of the leaks. Listen, Disney knows their consumer base, and they know the kind of ending that would alienate most of the fans, and that’s the kind of ending the leaks propose. DLF wouldn’t pursue such a risky ending if they knew that it might piss off a majority of fans because the future of Star Wars is riding on this movie. If everyone hates TROS, they’re not going to be excited to go see new Star Wars content, even if it’s a new story line that’s not about the Skywalkers. I mean hell, I’ve already seen fans that have declared that if the leaks are true, they are done with Star Wars forever. DLF knows this, and they aren’t about to risk the future of the franchise, especially not when it has the potential to become even more of a money maker than it already is. They know that the fans vote with their wallets, so why would they give us and ending they know the fanbase will universally find unsatisfactory? 

6) And about the leaks in general, how the hell could the entirety of JP’s leaks be correct? They’ve been up online for months, and yet Disney has failed to see them and take them down? That seems fishy to me, especially when we have cold hard proof that the mouse immediately goes after anything and anyone they think could threaten the secrecy around the movie. There was that girl who had her entire blog taken down just because one of her theories ended up being incredibly close to the actual plot of the TLJ, and there’s also that leaked image of Ben and Rey standing next to each other both with blue lightsabers that was taken down as soon as it was up. Disney monitors the hell out of the Internet, and there’s no way they’d allow so many ‘leaks’ to stay up if they were in any way accurate. And now people are claiming that these leaks are the exact plot of the movie? Something’s off. Also, the whole “Burger King leaked the plot of the movie already” is complete and utter bullshit. Matt Martin confirmed on Twitter that that was in no way associated with DLF or TROS. It was clearly just a publicity stunt that was trying to piggy back on the hype around TROS. They couldn’t even mention Star Wars directly or call the characters by name (Rey is young sword girl; very official sounding right? lmao), and the people at BK just went online and looked for ‘leaks’, obviously stumbling across the JP leaks that have been online for months. To insinuate that Disney would allow Burger King to know the legitimate plot of what might be one of the biggest movies of the decade, is laughable. That literally just makes zero sense, especially not when TROS has been kept under such tight wraps. We already know that JP has been full of shit before, and that was with TLJ when leaks were actually possible. Usually movies have test screenings and such, and movie theatre staff are allowed a staff screening before the movie is released worldwide, but Disney didn’t do any of that with TROS. There were no test screening where normal people could have had the opportunity to see the movie ahead of time, and apparently if a theatre does a staff screening ahead of time, that theatre will never be able to show TROS, which would be a huge monetary loss for the theatre, so no one would risk that. Up until last night, there were only about a handful of people who had seen the movie (between 8-12, from the mouth of JJ himself), so there’s no way in hell any random person or a ‘friend of a friend of a friend’ had seen the movie. Because the number of people who had seen the movie was so small, there’s no way an insider was leaking anything. We’ve seen how the mouse can sniff out spoilers and such on the vast Internet, and people really don’t think Disney would be able to sniff out the leaker from a group of a dozen people? I find your lack of faith in the mouse disturbing. It’s been said before, but y’all seem to keep forgetting, so I’ll say it again. Disney is the king of the entertainment industry - they own so many different studios and companies that if you were one of the few who was privy to the secrets of one of Disney’s most anticipated and secretive movies ever and you jacked it up by deciding to leak spoilers, Disney would ruin your career. Not only would you be fired from Disney, but they would make sure that it would be hell for you to try and find another job in the entertainment industry. Disney own so much of the industry that it would be no problem for them to crush the career of a leaker, and no one in their right mind would take that risk, especially not to just satisfy some randos on the Internet, and especially not without a massive bribe. They’re not going to throw away their careers for free. Anyone who claims to be an insider who knows the plot is lying because they only allowed a small handful of trusted individuals to know the true plot. And at the premiere last night, it was only VIPs and press who were allowed in, and as I mentioned before, they all had to sign NDAs. No one from the general public was allowed in, and that chick on Twitter who claims she saw the movie is probably lying. Sure, she supposedly showed her ticket, but has anyone thought about the fact that it may have been a ticket just to the outside red carpet event? They would never let a GA member see the film without forcing them to sign an NDA first. Disney isn’t stupid. I know everyone wants to believe that someone wouldn’t lie to us or troll us in the final days before the film, but look at what happened with Kira on Twitter who claimed to be an insider who knew the end of the movie, but disappeared as soon as someone from DLF called her out on her lies. I believed her for a long time, and as much as it sucks to know that people would have no problem trolling fans, we have to acknowledge that some people just aren’t above that sort of trickery. I genuinely believe we are being trolled as a last laugh before we really learn what happens in the movie. Clearly JP and the other leakers are just people who had access to the promotional material and fabricated a plot around them. We haven’t even gotten any legit footage from TROS premiere like we did with TLJ premiere (hand scene, shirtless Ben, etc), except fro a few images from the photo. preview shown before the movie, which clearly DLF doesn’t have a problem with being out on the Internet since they haven’t taken the images down yet. We have zero footage that actually supports the leaks. All of the leaks have been based off of the trailers and other promotional material which barely scratches the surface of the film. The leaks also contradict all of the initial reactions we’ve been getting from the press. Everyone seems to be pretty happy with the ending, and the press members who are legitimate fans all seem to think that the ending is a satisfying way to wrap up the saga, and I can’t believe that any true fans would find the leaked ending satisfying. 

7) I want to leave everyone with one last bit of hope. I’m sure a lot of you have seen the image of the legacy saber and another lightsaber resting on an orange sheet in the desert, which is apparently from the end of the movie. At first glance, it looks like both of Rey’s hands reaching over them, but if you look closer at the right side of the screen, you can see that the other hand can’t possibly be Rey’s other hand unless she has two left hands, and it is clearly Ben’s hands. There’s hope that they’ll be together at the end of the movie! :)

TL;DR

Star Wars is a hopeful fairytale for children and the cast has repeatedly called TROS fun and praised it for being a satisfying ending to the Skywalker Saga, which does not line up with the supposed leaked plot. Ben’s death after killing Palpatine would not be satisfying, and if it’s true, it would make JJ a sadist for claiming that such a sad, tragic ending is hopeful or satisfying. DLF isn’t going to pull a shock ending because they don’t want to alienate the fans, and the people who have been confirming the leaks are lying because no one except the press and VIPs have seen the film yet, and everyone who’s seen it has signed an NDA. And finally, Rey doesn’t have two left hands! Hmmmm, who could be with her at the end of the film with lightsabers, apparently on Tatooine? It couldn’t possibly be our favorite Byronic space hero, right (wink, wink)? 

Anyways, everyone just needs to relax and take a deep breath. There’s no point of worrying about the movie or deciding it’s awful until we’ve seen it with our own two eyes and finally know the truth. It’s been an amazing journey with all of my fellow Reylos, and no matter what happens, we’ve created a community that has had a massive positive impact on so many people. Just remember, we haven’t come this far to let some trolls and leakers get the best of us in the eleventh hour!

Keep your heads up, and may the force be with you! <3