WARNING: There may be some information in this article that could spoil something fo you when you watch The Rise of Skywalker.
I hope by now you have seen the new Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker Teaser Trailer.
In that trailer, we were introduced to BB-8’s new friend. A cute little droid that mimics BB-8’s movements and seems to always be by his side.
DO? D-O? Dio? We don’t know yet, but we’re already in love with this little droid!#icollectatee #EpisodeIX #Episode9 #TheRiseofSkywalker #StarWarsCelelbration pic.twitter.com/m22aV8VyQn
— Entertainment Earth (@EntEarth) April 12, 2019
But there is a droid that is suspiciously missing from the new trailer. Where the heck is our favorite droid R2-D2?
He is also missing from the may or may not be real leaked poster…
Here is our theory.
The Rise of Skywalker, according to Oscar Issac, “…is the end of the entire Skywalker saga,”
But how can that be true if Skywalker rises? Will all conflicts be resolved? Does “Rise” mean move on to that eternal unknown plain called death where ghost Yoda keeps coming back from? There are so many characters and conflicts in the current JJ/RJ trilogy to create stories until the end of time. It is not possible to wrap it all up.
Maybe the end of the Skywalker saga will mean the death of all Skywalkers? However, the way the current teaser trailer builds up, Rey is taking on thousands of generations of conflict and tackling her own specific part of it. This is narrated by Luke. To end this saga for good, Rey would need to retire, be retired or end up in a serious place of balance. If there are no loose ends, the story can continue, at the very least she is some sort of honorary Skywalker, Han practically adopted her, Luke mentored her and she and Leia cry on each other’s shoulders.
How can we end that story? Consider the following quote from Geoge Lucas.
In the book How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, Chris TaylorTaylor quotes Lucas:
“The entire story of Star Wars is actually being recounted to the keeper of the Journal of the Whills—remember that?—a hundred years after the events of Return of the Jedi by none other than R2-D2.”
If R2-D2 is narrating all of this, then for the story to end, R2-D2 needs to stop talking/ or writing in the Whills’ journal or projecting a cinematic hologram for us that Lucas found in a crashed ship in 1974. If something happens to R2-D2, the story will have to end. No more narrator, no more information, no more story.
Basically, if R2-D2 stops tracking this story, then he cannot tell what happens next. Therefore, maybe the reason R2-D2 is suspiciously missing from both the new teaser trailer and the leaked poster is because something very dramatic happens to him.
Well what could the possibilities be?
Maybe R2 is zapped to the land of the Whills, gone forever and suspected to be demolished. This would cause C3P0 to go insane, pick up a bowcaster (as seen in the leaked poster) and go to town on some very main characters.
Maybe R2-D2 crosses the void between Skywalker and droid, bridging an impossible gap that turns him into a jedi, taking on the Skywalker mantle. R2-Skywalker would then go about cleaning up the galaxy, but in the end do a Jedi ghost vanish ala Obi-Wan/Yoda/Luke. This would probably also cause C3P0 to go insane, pick up a bowcaster (as seen in the leaked poster) and go to town on the remaining main characters.
We have no idea. No one will tell us anything. We will have to wait and see.
We will be very interested to find out where the little astromech went.