Skywalker Saga Hot Take

I wrote the following word vomit a couple of weeks ago in the middle of the night when my head was swimming with inspiration. While I still stand by all of my major points, please do not judge me too harshly on the method or manner of my writing.

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Okay nerds, cryptids, cupcakes and communists, grab a Dr. Dewcoke and settle in while I spew out my Skywalker Saga hot take.

I used to be one of those Star Wars fans that did not actually have a major issue with midichlorians. I even used to have some sort of out-there take that they were a technological construct created by The Ones on Mortis but I really did not have any further backing to that. I have since had an awakening. My third eye has opened.

By the way, I don’t give half a salami sandwich what books or comics say on these matters, even current Disney-canonized ones. If that bothers you then put down your drink and read something besides this that matters and makes sense.

Midichlorians (From here on referred to as MC) never actually existed. Qui-Gon Jinn already had controversial views on the Jedi order and paths to take, and his obsession with MC was just one more wild idea that made the council and other Jedi roll their eyes at him. It was the Star Wars version of thetans. He had an imaginary detector thingy that he indoctrinated Obi-Wan with in his padawan years. Obi-Wan probably dropped the belief later after he saw what happened to Anakin and learned about force ghosting, but that’s not really important.

But wait, Nevan. They are mentioned by the Whills to Yoda in Clone Wars, and Palpatine mentions them to Anakin in Episode 3. Who sent Yoda on the force vision thingy? Qui-Gon’s ghost. Boom. Palpatine had been following Anakin for his entire life, (YES, HIS ENTIRE LIFE, PLEASE HOLD) and would have known that Qui-Gon put the belief in MC in Anakin’s mind when he was very young. It was yet another way for Palpy to invade Anakin’s sensibilities and make himself seem like a friend and an ally.

My 2nd revelation was that there was never a chosen one. The prophecy was false, it was hot air. Bringing balance to the force is a meaningless concept. The council, Obi-Wan, Padme, and Anakin himself put a lot of pressure on him telling him this his whole life and this pressure only contributed to his downfall. It weighed down on him for so long and that was just one more of many many catalysts that turned him to the Sith. Nice going, everybody.

If you *hate* that idea, and the chosen one to bring balance to the force *needs* to exist to you, then it was Rey. Full stop. Her fight was the ultimate battle of all the Jedi vs. all the Sith and then after cancelling the two sides out turning away from the concept of Jedi/Sith altogether and going her own way. BUT, I do not even go that far.

Anyhoooooo, Star Wars is about two things: The first is a stark, open, unapologetic conflict between good and evil. Palpatine and The Empire, evil. Rebels and people who fight Palpatine and other Sith, good. The Skywalker saga is a story where I am 100% A-OK with a villain who is just hilariously, ridiculously evil just for the fuck of it. That is fine to exist sometimes, and in this case it is Palpatine. It creates a backdrop of comparison for the main characters to explore their own nuance, for them to be like “I am not going to be THAT fucking guy, let me figure out how not to be.” and all of the variations of that thereof. For all of the major, glaring, frustrating flaws with Rise of Skywalker, having Palaptine revealed as the big bad once again did not really bother me. The trilogy should have been planned out much better, yes, there should have been more buildup to his return, yes, but conceptually I am not only okay with it, but Palpatine being the big bad daddy over nine movies I find to be fitting, thematic, and coherent.

The second thing Star Wars is about is family. There is a whole lot of mumbo jumbo we could go into here, but for my purposes I am specifically talking about as it relates to force sensitivity. Now, the only evidence we have of force sensitivity passing from person to person is through the Skywalker line. Other than that it just seems random, or accidental, or whatever. However, Anakin was a powerful force user, then Luke and (fucking apparently) Leia was, then Ben Solo was.

Now, so far all of this could potentially align with canon. This could all make sense within the context of the movies. What I am about to say is what DID NOT happen. This is my version of what should have been. This is the script I would have written. Buckle up because this is about to get abso-fucking-lutely absurd and I can already vividly imagine future show producers wanting to scout me for screenwriting only to read this BS and move onto the next person.

Let me make this perfectly clear: I did not come up with the original idea for this.

In an article I read in the months leading up to The Rise of Skywalker, there was a theory that completely blew my mind in how perfect it was. Everything made sense to me. Everything fit into place.

Rey is Shmi Skywalker. Palpatine force-impregnates her with Anakin and sends her back in time to ten years before Episode 1.

STOP. THINK. Think about how much this explains.

Star Wars Episode 9 could go on however it did up until the showdown on Exogol. Sure, whatever. Uncountable flaws with it abound, but I can take it. Rey walks in, Palpatine says shit about waiting for this for a long time, blah blah, I’m not going to write the whole scene right now (MAYBE SOMEDAY).

Plpatine reveals that he detected how powerful Rey is with the force while she was a child. Remove ALL the shit about her being Palpy’s granddaughter, remove everything about her parents. Her parents were nobodies, just like Kylo said in Last Jedi. Rian Jiohnson fans rejoice in raucous applause. Palpy reveals he finds her on Jakku when she is an adult and starts a fucking time loop using the force, naming her the first Skywalker. She wakes up with major amnesia, thinks her name is Skywalker because that’s the last thing she heard before being sent back and Palpy kept that in her head. She soon after gives birth to Anakin, and everything goes how it goes. Rey is Kylo’s great grandmother.

Palpatine tells her and Kylo, because he shows up, that he has no problem exposing this to them because he has done it millions of times.

Why, though? Why does Palpatine do this? Because he took the idea of MC and CREATED them, although in a different form. Instead of being a gene that passes down or wears on over time, he crafted them to GROW in each generation. Anakin had more Palpy MC’s than Shmi/Rey, Leia more than Anakin, and they reached peak form in Kylo Ren. The artificial dark side MCs also aided in clouding the council about Palpy’s plans due to dark side magic and whatever shit.

So what does he do? He sucks out the three generations of built-up artificial MC energy from Kylo, which if sounds ridiculous, remember that was more or less what he was doing in Rise of Skywalker anyways, but now there is actually a reason for it. He simultaneously rips the power out of Kylo, killing him, and implanting Anakin in Rey/Shmi’s body and sending her and his own memories back in time.

Every single time in the loop, the exact same thing happens. There could be a trippy-ass scene with clips from all of the movies, quick cuts, overviews, summaries, characters, whatever. It would be dope as fuck. Millions of times, Palpatine has caused this moment to happen so he can build his power in the Skywalker line so he can absorb it and reach an ascended, powerful form unlike anything that has ever been seen before.

I will quickly remind you, that THIS BASICALLY HAPPENS IN THE MOVIE, but now there is a catalyst and reason for it, both mechanically and narratively.

However, this is not the story the audience will come to know. We did not come here to see Palpatine win. Rey breaks the cycle somehow. How? By doing something she has never done before in the time loop.

What is that? I don’t know. Current ideas would be she kills Kylo just in time before Palpatine can finish his plan, she finds an inner strength somehow and stops it, maybe she rips the energy from Kylo first and uses it to kill Palpy, I am having trouble thinking of something she wouldn’t have already tried before in the countless other time loops. If there is a hole in my narrative, it is here.

Regardless, Rey somehow stops the endless loop from happening, kills Palpy, and the galaxy is saved. The last scene would ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE now, because as Shmi she is from Tatooine, so burying the lightsabers there has meaning for her instead of Luke and Leia. She could still confidently call herself Rey Skywalker, and Rise of Skywalker as a name has SO MUCH MORE MEANING AS A TITLE.

Some of you could bring up the bootstrap paradox, but I have never considered that much of a problem. The loop itself was specifically planted and created. Also, it may seem cheap that all of the other movies were just a pointless loop that meant nothing. EXCEPT, that would be the point. Those events that we see in the movies were the last loop. The loop ends with Rey in Episode 9. Episodes 1-9 do happen as they do, and the cycle of power creation for Palpy that it was supposed to be becomes subverted by Rey instead.

LET ME SUBMIT TO YOU that Shmi in the prequels and Rey look similar. You can’t change my mind, I see it. She lost the british accent, but I could chalk that up to the amnesia. He might have needed to restart the loop a couple times to make sure that Padme’s ship’s hyperdrive gets damaged in Episode 1 so that they need to veer towards Tatooine, but other than that everything else is controllable through his plotting once Qui-Gon finds Anakin. Fuck, maybe he could have plotted someone sabotage the hyperdrive generator before they even try to escape, thus still forcing them to go to Tatooine to find Anakin.

What else does this explain? The weird-ass mirror scene in Last Jedi, and all of those copies of Rey are just her in the simultaneous timelines. It obviously explains Anakin’s mysterious birth. It gives a whole new meaning to the theme of destiny in the OT. There’s other things that fit in with this idea perfectly that I am not remembering right now.

Anyways, this is my story and I’m sticking to it. There is definitely a lot more in my head regarding this that makes it make more sense and I did not exactly plan this diatribe out. All I am saying is think about it.

If some of you never speak to me again because of this that’s pretty fair.