We’re in the homestretch before Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker comes out and official info about the film is finally starting to slowly trickle out. That being said, some of the new tidbits are giving rise to new questions, such as “umm, why?”
Chris Terrio, co-writer of The Rise of Skywalker with J.J. Abrams, revealed to Empire that their Star Wars film will ask two big questions: who is Rey and how powerful is the Force?
The first question is understandable given how that’s essentially been the driving force for the entire sequel trilogy, so much so that the amount of theories and “deep dives” into Rey’s lineage is enough to fill another trilogy in of itself.
But as for the second one about how powerful the Force is? Well that’s a question literally no one asked or wanted an answer to.
Part of what helps suspend our disbelief about the Force is that it’s not entirely explained and we’re free to use our imaginations to fill in the blanks however we see fit. We’re told enough information outlining the broad strokes of how the Force works to not need any more clarification.
And besides, explaining the Force will give us another “midi-chlorians” situation all over again and no one is exactly keen to dig up that piece of Star Wars lore again.
Look, I’m probably jumping to conclusions a bit prematurely here and there’s every possibility J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio will have a good answer to the “how strong is the Force?” question.
But seeing as how The Rise of Skywalker has to wrap up plot points from eight previous films, such as how Maz got hold of Anakin/Luke’s lightsaber and the space elephant in the room that is Rey’s parents, it feels like a deep dive into how the Force works is a detour we don’t really need.