With the arrival of The Rise of Skywalker, our thoughts turn to the meaning behind the recently revealed title of the film. Back in 2015, when I still wrote for The Metro, I took a look at a magazine I was familiar with from my own childhood, Prevue magazine #52 from 1983.
The bulk of the magazine was an interview with Return of the Jedi director Richard Marquand, who had recently sat down with George Lucas who laid out the framework of the third trilogy.
‘If you follow the direction, and project into the final trilogy, you realise that you’re going to meet the supreme intellect, and you think how is it possible to create a man who has such profound cunning that he can not only control Darth Vader, but the fate of Luke Skywalker? Control the destiny of the whole galaxy? You’ll be amazed!’
With the news that George Lucas has had a hand in crafting the finale of the Skywalker saga, perhaps the answers have been out there all along. Could it refer to the character that became Snoke? Perhaps it refers to Palpatine? With Lucas having a say in the finale, will he harken back over 30 years to his notes from the time of the original trilogy, or help shape a new ending.
