We've seen a lot of potential leaks and spoilers for Rise of Skywalker so far. There was the theory that Rey is Palpatine's granddaughter. The family reunion scene involving Vader and Kylo Ren. And of course, so, so much about Dark Rey. But folks, we've never quite seen a spoiler like this before. In fact, in the history of the franchise, to my knowledge, I don't think an ending scene has ever been leaked online – and this is happening almost two full months before the movie debuts in December. Insane.
Fair warning: going any further here could spoil the conclusion to the Skywalker saga for you. I can't stress this enough.
Two images from what seems to be the big final bout of Rise of Skywalker made their way onto Reddit on Wednesday. The images, which were then shared on the popular Youtube fan account "World of Geekdom," were hit with copyright complaints and removed from Reddit. Geekdom's video, too, was issued a copyright takedown by Disney, prompting many fans to believe that the leaked images were, in fact, real.
What the images depicted is something incredible. Emperor Palpatine, dressed in a red robe, sitting on his gigantic Sith throne, shooting lightning out of his hands. And, standing across from him, with blue lightsabers in their hands, Rey and Ben Solo, ready to face down Sidious and bring an end to the Dark Side once and for all.
You can see World of Geekdom's explanation about the whole copyright fiasco in his new video below.
It's a bit tough to find the source of these leaked screenshots. But I've been tracking these Star Wars leaks for a long time now. And, using my special force-sensitive capabilities, plumbing the depths of the internet's darkest corners, I have found a Twitter post that contains the two images in question.
Warning you again. Don't bombard the comments section with rage if this spoils the Rise of Skywalker for you. I'm just the messenger.
As Frank Costanza says in Seinfeld, HOOCHIE MAMA! These are some devastating screenshots. Sidious looks a little bit under-rendered, and his lightning bolts seem a bit low-res. The placement of Ben Solo's blue lightsaber, also, looks kinda wonky. Looking closer at the throne, I'm beginning to wonder if someone just whipped this all up in Photoshop using some primitive 3D warping tools.
The biggest thing holding me back from believing this leak is Sidious's red robe. In the final trailer for Rise of Skywalker, we saw a bit of his hood, and it was black. With J.J. Abrams at the helm, I would assume Palpatine would look more like he did in Lucas's Original Trilogy – not wearing the gaudy red garments that he donned in the Prequel Trilogy that so many of us have been trying to forget. Even in the mysterious poster for the film that we saw a few months ago, it looked like ol' Sheev was back in his black duds.
If this is real, Disney made a huge mistake. We've not seen a leak on a movie of this scale for a very long time. And the wildest part is, the Twitter user who uploaded the images posted a follow-up saying that there are more to come. Stay tuned.
Rise of Skywalker debuts on December 20, 2019.
Dom Nero is a staff video editor at Esquire, where he also writes about film, television, tech, and video games.
