It's been four months since the Skywalker Saga came to an end with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker , and it's safe to say that the conclusion was not as treasured as Lucasfilm had hoped. While the film received very mixed reviews from fans and critics alike, the recent film novelization elaborates on missing details and information from the movie, such as expanding the master-padawan dynamic between Rey and Leia and clarifying that Palpatine was, in fact, a clone . Now, a new version of the novel adds a fitting synonpsis for all nine movies in the saga.
NEWS
Coming from the Reddit account u/Jones6192 on the channel r/StarWarsLeaks , the epilogue for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker 's junior novel encapsulates the major events from the saga films, starting from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace all the way to the sequel trilogy and Episode IX . The epilogue was intitally posted on the website Imgur , and brings a poetic flare to the Skywalker Saga that can be found below:
EPILOGUE
ONCE THERE WAS BOY who was good of heart. Enslaved as a child, the boy lived with his mother and had a talent for building things out of spare parts. He also had another gift, one he couldn't explain. His mother said he had special powers. The man who freed him said he had the Force. The boy studied and trained, and as a young man became a Jedi Knight of great renown. His teachers speculated he might be a figure of prophesy, a chosen one to bring balance to the Force. But the choice he made was not one they had foreseen. He betrayed his teachers, murdered his friends, and fell under the sway of a master crueler than any he had known.
The boy was called Anakin, the young man Darth Vader. Only Anakin was Skywalker by name, but both were Skywalkers by blood.
Once there were twins, a boy and a girl. Separated at birth, the boy was raised as a moisture farmer, the girl a princess. Both had a gift they couldn't explain. War brought them together when they were older, during which the girl became a commander of rebels, the boy the last of the Jedi. The two also discovered that they were siblings and that Darth Vader was their father. The boy redeemed his father from the darkness, while the girl righted her father's wrongs as a galactic leader for decades to come.
The twins were called Luke and Leia. Only Luke was Skywalker in name, but both were Skywalkers by blood.
Once there were twins, not of blood, but of the Force. This dyad was made up of a girl and a boy. The boy was raised by both parents in a loving home, the girl by herself in a desert scrapyard. Both had a gift they couldn't explain. War brought them together when they were older, during which the boy became the leader of a hostile military, while the girl became the symbol of resistance against him. Despite a consuming darkness, the girl returned the boy to the light.
The girl was called Rey, the boy Ben. Only Ben was a Skywalker by blood. Rey was a Skywalker by choice. She chose to take the family name of her teachers, Leia and Luke, after she buried their lightsabers near Luke's desert home. When she had first come to them, she was a nobody. But they had embraced her and helped shape her into a somebody. They were her family and she was theirs. The yellow-bladed lightsaber she had built would honor their legacy.
Once there was the Force, an energy field that surrounded and bound all living things. It had a dark side, and it had a light, and the tension between them maintained a balance. For a time the balance was upset and all seemed dark. But then came those who dared walk the skies to face the darkness and find a light.
The Force will be with them, always.
WHAT THIS MEANS
Whether you are a fan of the sequels, prequels, original trilogy, or all of them combined, this symbolic epilogue is a marvelous postscript, not just for this junior novel, but for the entire Skywalker story. It starts with Anakin as a young boy and continues through his fall as Darth Vader with his eventual redemption by his children, narrating the journey in the way George Lucas always meant for it to be told. The junior novel of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was a perfect place for this summary to fall because it reminds children and adults alike of the entire arc of the three trilogies. Many felt as if the sequel films, particularly the last one, didn't feel connected to the stories that came before, and that the writers "undid" the narrative that was set-up . This synopsis, however, does a great job in creating those links, or at least making them visible to the fans, and is the perfect way to introduce and close the nine Skywalker chapters.
