In one of his memorable last lines in The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker contradicted Kylo Ren to say “The Rebellion is reborn today” and “The war is just beginning.” John Boyega predicted that Episode IX would be about war as well, saying:
“I think Episode IX you know, regardless of where the story goes, and I haven’t read it by the way, is going to be all-out war …”
This grand vision is somewhat belied by the reality at the end of TLJ, however. The entire remainder of the Resistance fits on the Millennium Falcon, and its calls for help to its Outer Rim allies were evidently ignored. The main First Order fleet may also have taken a blow from Holdo’s suicide attack, but even just the ground forces portion of its remainder is considerable. We also know that it has troops elsewhere with which it is tightening its grip on the galaxy.
So how can there be all-out war between two such asymmetrical forces? One possibility is guerilla warfare, perhaps with the Resistance operating out of mobile headquarters since having a stationary one didn’t work out so well for them. They can harass the First Order, strike at its supply lines, rally support in the populace, conduct sabotage missions. This is how badly outnumbered and outgunned forces have fought for millennia, after all.
Guerilla warfare by itself is not enough, however, to be described as “all-out war.” It’s not enough to topple the First Order, either, and that is the Resistance’s goal especially if Luke, Holdo, Finn etc. are right and they are resurrecting the Rebellion. A rebellion as I understand it doesn’t just seek to weaken and undermine the enemy, it seeks to replace the enemy government. Nibbling around the edges of the First Order’s domination of the galaxy might be fine for Leia’s barely-sanctioned militia, but a full rebellion against the First Order needs to have the means to unseat it and defend territory from it. Leia implies that necessity herself in the Poe Dameron comic:
What are the sources of the troops and materiel the Resistance/Rebellion might have? Here are a few I can think of.
Resistance forces and allies elsewhere
It appears that the Resistance did not put all its eggs in one basket and there are others who were not in Leia’s fleet that ran from the First Order. Black Squadron, for instance, was on a mission to the Outer Rim to gain support from allies. The one mission that we know about from the partial transmission in the comic is a failure and the radio silence in response to the Resistance’s distress call implies they may have not met with resounding success, but there is a chance the Squadron itself survived.
Zay and Shriv from the Battleront II single-player DLC were similarly dispatched to the Outer Rim to contact the Resistance’s allies. They may well come back with allies of their own, though this did not come to pass at the end of TLJ. Have the Outer Rim allies really foresaken the Resistance, or was something else going on?
Lando Calrissian
Lando’s return in Episode IX may mean a significant boost in the Resistance’s forces, too. Lando was a General during the last war, the Administrator of a city, and the owner of Calrissian Enterprises, a huge droid manufacturer. His wealth and resources, coupled with his war experience and the security forces he himself must command, make his return a hopeful development for the Resistance/Rebellion. Since his base of Cloud City on Bespin is located in the Outer Rim, he may well have been one of the allies Leia dispatched people to contact.
A droid army
The droid manufacturing capacity of Calrissian Enterprises could additionally mean the manufacture of combat droids to augment the Resistance against The First Order. We saw droids fighting armored troopers before in the prequel movies and The Clone Wars. Could we be seeing a reprise, only this time we’re meant to root for the droids?
Droids aren’t just cannon fodder but also excellent sources of information, as C3PO’s plot in the Poe Dameron comics showed. C3PO had an extensive droid spy network, something that was on Leia’s to-do list to revive in The Last Jedi novelization. It remains to be seen whether droids will play a greater role in the war.
The New Republic
We know that the
New Republic is in shambles after the destruction of the Hosnia system,
but by the time of Episode IX they will have at least begun to regroup.
If the New Republic’s military were to join forces with the Resistance,
as seems likely, we will see a significant boost in the Resistance’s
numbers. They should also, in my opinion, be called not “Resistance” or “Rebellion” but Republic forces. Such a change also brings potential for cultural clashes and mutual
resentments, something that may have begun to be explored in TLJ
but didn’t really go anywhere.
If Leia plays a leadership role in the New Republic again because they come to their senses in the crisis and realizes they need her, then we’ll see her lead the charge on this end. This seems a likely path for her character to take, since the footage cut from TFA that will be used in Episode IX is likely to pertain to the New Republic’s political situation, like the deleted scene with her aide Korr Sella.
People around the galaxy
Finn’s conviction that people around the galaxy would rise up against the First Order may not have been borne out on Crait, but was validated by the final scene of The Last Jedi when it was shown that people throughout the galaxy are sharing and taking heart in the story of the Resistance and the Jedi. Over time this hope may become a groundswell of support for the Resistance.
Stormtroopers Insurgent Free Troopers
This is my personal fondest hope of all, that Finn inspire other kidnapped and brainwashed Stormtroopers to rise up as he did. He has already gone twice into the heart of the First Order and escaped, showing that this group not invincible–they’re kind of pathetic, in fact.
Speaking of pathetic, the new Supreme Leader of the First Order is this dude:
Kylo Ren, a man who has a lot of raw power but zero self-restraint or dignity, who is skeptical of the entire Stormtrooper program (but not of slavery itself–he brought up clone troopers in TFA), and who very publicly made a fool of himself on Crait in front of his army.
It seems likely that Finn’s exploits, together with disappointment in Kylo Ren and his leadership, will lead at least some Stormtroopers to be disillusioned with the First Order. They could fill out the Resistance’s ranks or at least drop out of the fighting altogether, making the numerical disadvantage less overwhelming.
As one anon has pointed out (link), combined with the droid army idea above, it’s possible that we could see Free Troopers and droids working together in another inversion of the prequel trilogy/The Clone Wars dynamics when they were pitted against each other.
Such cooperation would be all the more poignant because, with the recent canon incorporating a droid liberation plotline, the Free Troopers and the droids would share a liberation narrative. And if the new Star Wars canon gives a liberation plot to the droids but ignores the Stormtroopers then man, fuck Star Wars.
In conclusion
Though the ending of TLJ is very bleak in terms of its prospects for the fight against the First Order, the Resistance has a lot of untapped resources. Episode IX could show these allies coming together to destroy the First Order and, eventually, start the hard work of rebuilding.
@rebelspies I would LOVE to see Mandalorians as a political and military force on the big screen at last. I just can’t think of how to bring them in when they weren’t shown so far, unless Finn turns out to be one in which case I will die of joy right in the theater.
Wasn’t there a joke post going around that Episode IX was going to be titled “From A Nap?” I mean arguably that was Luke’s plot in Episode VIII lol. The problem with forming a sentence with the three titles is that it’s very limiting for the third movie. The title will have to start with “from” or “to” in order to be grammatically correct, and just about the only options I can imagine are things like “From The Ashes” or “To a New Day.” Which aren’t bad, I guess, just not very Stat Wars-y and also a bit too on the nose.
We also have precedence for a sentence title with “The Empire Strikes Back” and the next title didn’t follow up on that, so I doubt the three-title sentence is happening. Nevertheless, “A New Order” is still terrible.
So my own personal pocket theory on the ST have always been that JJ meant for it to be about the Force in a wider sense and not just the Jedi. So with that in mind I would suggest Advent of the Force, or Dawning of the Force. Both suggest the beginning of something new, where the title of VI suggested the return to the old ways in Return of the Jedi, i.e. we go back to what was before (which might not have been the brightest move given how broken that was but I digress).
Wow…I can’t believe such an original title. This leak had to be true…
It can’t be that fans have been just guessing this title since 2017…
It’s too early for posters to even be a twinkle in JJ’s eye. I smell bull shit
And even if it was, Order can mean anything from a new First Order to a New Jedi Order.
So Kylo is going to somehow become good in 140 minutes and create a new Jedi Order? Oh come on, can they just stop this nonsense…
If it’s a New Order it will be a New Jedi Order and guess who will start it? The bitch who had the blue lightsaber already and who has the Jedi books…
It’s pretty sexist and racist that even after 4 years people still can’t accept a black man and a white woman are the heroes of this trilogy.
Even if I hate TLJ, even that movie firmly established that Finn and Rey were the heroes and Kylo was the villain.
Love or hate Johnson, which I hate, mr. potato head went out of his way to make Kylo Ren the big bad of the sequel movies.
Seriously, just look at their screen times per imdb (both movies): Rey: 74 minutes Finn: 49 minutes Kylo: 34 minutes
Rey & Finn had more screentime in TFA than in TLJ, so with JJ back, both will likely get more screen time.
Kylo is not the main character, these are not his movies, he’s the villain. His screen time won’t change dramatically in IX, they can’t pull an convincing redemption arc in 15 minutes or make a comic relief character like Hux, with 8 minutes screen time over 2 movies, the main villain, let alone introduce a new one.
Idk remember how TLJ was supposed to have the most SHOCKING twist of all time, and the only shock was how weird and boring it was? They always say that and it almost always falls short.
Also the white guy being the protagonist, getting a pat on the ass for his crimes, and ending up with the white girl while characters of color cheer from the sidelines isn’t surprising, It’s cliché and boring as hell. I also really wonder if John would be so excited about IX if that’s how the story is going.
In one of his memorable last lines in The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker contradicted Kylo Ren to say “The Rebellion is reborn today” and “The war is just beginning.” John Boyega predicted that Episode IX would be about war as well, saying:
“I think Episode IX you know, regardless of where the story goes, and I haven’t read it by the way, is going to be all-out war …”
This grand vision is somewhat belied by the reality at the end of TLJ, however. The entire remainder of the Resistance fits on the Millennium Falcon, and its calls for help to its Outer Rim allies were evidently ignored. The main First Order fleet may also have taken a blow from Holdo’s suicide attack, but even just the ground forces portion of its remainder is considerable. We also know that it has troops elsewhere with which it is tightening its grip on the galaxy.
So how can there be all-out war between two such asymmetrical forces? One possibility is guerilla warfare, perhaps with the Resistance operating out of mobile headquarters since having a stationary one didn’t work out so well for them. They can harass the First Order, strike at its supply lines, rally support in the populace, conduct sabotage missions. This is how badly outnumbered and outgunned forces have fought for millennia, after all.
Guerilla warfare by itself is not enough, however, to be described as “all-out war.” It’s not enough to topple the First Order, either, and that is the Resistance’s goal especially if Luke, Holdo, Finn etc. are right and they are resurrecting the Rebellion. A rebellion as I understand it doesn’t just seek to weaken and undermine the enemy, it seeks to replace the enemy government. Nibbling around the edges of the First Order’s domination of the galaxy might be fine for Leia’s barely-sanctioned militia, but a full rebellion against the First Order needs to have the means to unseat it and defend territory from it. Leia implies that necessity herself in the Poe Dameron comic:
What are the sources of the troops and materiel the Resistance/Rebellion might have? Here are a few I can think of.
Resistance forces and allies elsewhere
It appears that the Resistance did not put all its eggs in one basket and there are others who were not in Leia’s fleet that ran from the First Order. Black Squadron, for instance, was on a mission to the Outer Rim to gain support from allies. The one mission that we know about from the partial transmission in the comic is a failure and the radio silence in response to the Resistance’s distress call implies they may have not met with resounding success, but there is a chance the Squadron itself survived.
Zay and Shriv from the Battleront II single-player DLC were similarly dispatched to the Outer Rim to contact the Resistance’s allies. They may well come back with allies of their own, though this did not come to pass at the end of TLJ. Have the Outer Rim allies really foresaken the Resistance, or was something else going on?
Lando Calrissian
Lando’s return in Episode IX may mean a significant boost in the Resistance’s forces, too. Lando was a General during the last war, the Administrator of a city, and the owner of Calrissian Enterprises, a huge droid manufacturer. His wealth and resources, coupled with his war experience and the security forces he himself must command, make his return a hopeful development for the Resistance/Rebellion. Since his base of Cloud City on Bespin is located in the Outer Rim, he may well have been one of the allies Leia dispatched people to contact.
A droid army
The droid manufacturing capacity of Calrissian Enterprises could additionally mean the manufacture of combat droids to augment the Resistance against The First Order. We saw droids fighting armored troopers before in the prequel movies and The Clone Wars. Could we be seeing a reprise, only this time we’re meant to root for the droids?
Droids aren’t just cannon fodder but also excellent sources of information, as C3PO’s plot in the Poe Dameron comics showed. C3PO had an extensive droid spy network, something that was on Leia’s to-do list to revive in The Last Jedi novelization. It remains to be seen whether droids will play a greater role in the war.
The New Republic
We know that the
New Republic is in shambles after the destruction of the Hosnia system,
but by the time of Episode IX they will have at least begun to regroup.
If the New Republic’s military were to join forces with the Resistance,
as seems likely, we will see a significant boost in the Resistance’s
numbers. They should also, in my opinion, be called not “Resistance” or “Rebellion” but Republic forces. Such a change also brings potential for cultural clashes and mutual
resentments, something that may have begun to be explored in TLJ
but didn’t really go anywhere.
If Leia plays a leadership role in the New Republic again because they come to their senses in the crisis and realizes they need her, then we’ll see her lead the charge on this end. This seems a likely path for her character to take, since the footage cut from TFA that will be used in Episode IX is likely to pertain to the New Republic’s political situation, like the deleted scene with her aide Korr Sella.
People around the galaxy
Finn’s conviction that people around the galaxy would rise up against the First Order may not have been borne out on Crait, but was validated by the final scene of The Last Jedi when it was shown that people throughout the galaxy are sharing and taking heart in the story of the Resistance and the Jedi. Over time this hope may become a groundswell of support for the Resistance.
Stormtroopers Insurgent Free Troopers
This is my personal fondest hope of all, that Finn inspire other kidnapped and brainwashed Stormtroopers to rise up as he did. He has already gone twice into the heart of the First Order and escaped, showing that this group not invincible–they’re kind of pathetic, in fact.
Speaking of pathetic, the new Supreme Leader of the First Order is this dude:
Kylo Ren, a man who has a lot of raw power but zero self-restraint or dignity, who is skeptical of the entire Stormtrooper program (but not of slavery itself–he brought up clone troopers in TFA), and who very publicly made a fool of himself on Crait in front of his army.
It seems likely that Finn’s exploits, together with disappointment in Kylo Ren and his leadership, will lead at least some Stormtroopers to be disillusioned with the First Order. They could fill out the Resistance’s ranks or at least drop out of the fighting altogether, making the numerical disadvantage less overwhelming.
As one anon has pointed out (link), combined with the droid army idea above, it’s possible that we could see Free Troopers and droids working together in another inversion of the prequel trilogy/The Clone Wars dynamics when they were pitted against each other.
Such cooperation would be all the more poignant because, with the recent canon incorporating a droid liberation plotline, the Free Troopers and the droids would share a liberation narrative. And if the new Star Wars canon gives a liberation plot to the droids but ignores the Stormtroopers then man, fuck Star Wars.
In conclusion
Though the ending of TLJ is very bleak in terms of its prospects for the fight against the First Order, the Resistance has a lot of untapped resources. Episode IX could show these allies coming together to destroy the First Order and, eventually, start the hard work of rebuilding.
This is a line Maz says in one of the TFA trailers and it has got me thinking.
Obviously there was lines recorded for the trailers that was not in the movies and never was intended to be there, but this line is odd. We have nothing in that trailer, any trailer, that indicates that hope should in any way be lost.
But one thing that has bothered me about TFA is that we’re never allowed to see Leia have much in the way of a reaction to Han being murdered and none at all to the fact her son has just embraced the Dark Side with a certain finality. While JJ is far from perfect as a storyteller it felt incredibly sloppy given that Han’s murder and Kylo’s confirmation of his turn was a pretty major plot point.
So why nothing?
Maybe because Rian claimed he was going to deal with it and JJ cut it out. (He didn’t at all for Han’s death and only in a minor way about Leia accepting Kylo’s turn, but that’s neither here nor there for this.)
But what if Leia did have such a scene? What if she had a conversation with someone about what had happened and that her hope now seemed in vain with Han dead – and only because she asked him to bring Ben back home – and her son firmly ensconced in the Dark Side?
What if that person was Maz?
We know that Leia and Maz had at least one scene together as we see it in the trailer, where Maz hands over Anakin’s old lightsaber to Leia, but it never appeared in the movie.
In such a scene, with that context, Maz’s line suddenly makes a shit ton of sense if she tells it to Leia. That hope has not been lost just because Leia’s son has decided he wants power more than he wants love. No, it is found.
In our heroes.
In the young man who defied all odds to escape the First Order and then defied them again to save the young woman he had come to care for. In that same young woman who found the courage to take a stand because she’d finally found someone who cared for her after a life time worth of loneliness.
It would cement that Leia’s hope no longer lies with her biological son, but with Finn and Rey. That the two of them, along with Poe, is where she will put her hope.
That makes sense to me, since I think the only thing that’s really dire enough in TFA for anyone to consider hope to be lost is Kylo Ren killing Han Solo. This would simply have been confirmation for what’s been going on the whole movie, with Han’s death striking the final blow: the descendant of the Skywalkers has turned against everything Luke, Leia, and Han stood for, while these two kids who came from nowhere are continuing their legacy. JJ did say it’s very intentional that neither Finn nor Rey has a last name, maybe this was what he meant.
Remember that time Ren called Finn a traitor? And how fandom gleefully echoes it?
I want Finn to throw that back in his face the next time they meet in battle. Only it wouldn’t be screamed like a tantrum in the midst of his own self-doubt and projection, but calm and matter-of-fact with the weight of truth and conviction.
“Let’s go… traitor.”
Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, a base traitor to his family name, to the New Republic, to the Jedi, to Han, to Leia, to Luke, to Lando, to Poe, even to Rey, to everyone who ever loved him and believed in him and gave him second and third chances long after he had ceased to deserve them. He had the gall to try and stick Finn with that epithet. Well, let Finn pay it back with interest.
Let Kylo Ren be brought down for his treachery and go down for all time in infamy. Let Finn be the one to label him correctly and remove his threat to the galaxy.
I hope so! I mean a corporation (The Trade Federation) started the events that caused the Empire to rise, so it would be a poetic reversal for another corporation to play a big role in the FO’s downfall. Plus CE’s droid manufacturing capabilities should be a huge strategic edge. Will we perhaps see droid fighter on the good guys’ side and armored humans on the bad guys’ in a reversal of the PT and TCW?
You know what, I was going to say Lando was a general in his youth and had (has?) his own city, and he probably has a militia and military ships of his own for defense of his territory and assets–but the idea of him showing up on, and the Resistance getting to use, a fully-equipped cruiser with a bath, a wine fountain, a swimming pool, and its own casino is so entertaining that I’m just going to nod enthusiastically. Finn can enjoy himself as much as he likes and they could probably convince even Rose to play a few games.
The Starship (Calrissian) Enterprise, of course! 😂
Talking and laughing would be good enough for me for a start. Establishing them as friends for a while now, especially since there’s been a time skip and they’ll have gone through some shit together offscreen.
I want Poe wingmanning for Finn and Rey, poking at Rey to talk to Finn about her feelings. She swats at Poe, too nervous to talk to her own best friend.
I want Finn and Rey doing the same for Poe, encouraging him to ask out Lando’s super-cute aide (who also happens to be Lando’s son and is played by Chadwick Boseman i can dream ok) and, when Poe insists the guy is out of his league, take matters into their own hands by trapping Poe into talking to him alone.
I want them to have real drama together, like Finn wants to help the Stormtrooper uprising and Rey, still upset about his attempted self-sacrifice at Crait, is strongly against his taking such a risk. Poe tries to mediate and strategize, but his worry for Finn still shines through. And, of course, they’re coming with him and won’t hear his objections.
I want them in ACTION together, Poe in sniper mode again and Finn and Rey cutting a swathe through the enemy with Poe watching their back.
I would love it if they confronted Kylo Ren together, the three people he tortured, wounded, and manipulated facing him off side by side, the true successors to the heroic trio he would have all butchered if he weren’t such a flop.
I want to see them celebrating together, hugging and kissing. I want to see Finn spin Rose around in the air, I want to see Rey squeeze Poe until he begs for mercy, I want Finn and Rey to share an epic victory kiss (and Rey would be the one to dip him, of course). I want them to revel in the joy of victory and of being alive with each other in a galaxy that is once again free from terror.
I loved everything about this list!
Side note: In the TFA visual guide it says Poe has his mother’s ring as a necklace that he intends to give to his partner one day.
Imagine if we see one of Lando’s kids wearing Poe’s mother’s ring and we don’t find out till a little bit in the film that Poe got married to him and the baby casting notice is a refugee baby Poe and his husband adopted
It’s a tinfoil hat theory, but I think it’s sweet.
*dies from sweetness overload* Also it would be a way to overcome Disney’s homophobia by having nothing too overt on screen while also making it BLINDINGLY clear.
L.J.'s Obsessions 