The epic final trailer for The Rise of Skywalker was released on Monday, and there’s a ton to unpack. If you’re looking for my breakdown of the complete trailer, head here, but I want to focus on the shot that was the biggest surprise of them all in the trailer.
It comes in the shot of the Resistance fleet arriving, led by the Millennium Falcon, and to the right of that iconic ship is another one that fans are no doubt familiar with: the Ghost!
Here’s a look at the shot, with the Ghost circled:
Of course, it should be at least mentioned that this could be a random VCX-100 fighter, but I think that’s pretty unlikely, for much the same reason they don’t just put a bunch of random YT-1300 ships all across Star Wars – fans instantly would think it’s the Falcon. So in this case, I can’t imagine Lucasfilm deciding just to put a random VCX-100 in this shot without intending it to be recognized as an easter egg.
Assuming that it is indeed the Ghost, then, that’s a pretty massive cameo in this film! For those who aren’t aware of what the Ghost is, it is the ship of Hera Syndulla in Star Wars Rebels that serves as the home of the Ghost crew, the show’s main characters. Hera is a skilled pilot, and her ship is as fast and as formidable as they come. It fought in many battles, including the Battle of Scarif in Rogue One!
That was a very cool cameo, and it also appeared one other time in the film (shown at the base on Yavin 4), while General Syndulla was called on the speaker at the base and her droid, Chopper, rolled by. That was such a joy, to see how inter-connected the storytelling was, and it was a thrill to know that Hera and the Ghost were a part of the Battle of Scarif as well, such a monumental moment in the Rebellion against the Empire.
But now, it looks like the Ghost may be a part of yet another major battle. And it raises plenty of questions – namely, who is flying the ship? Is it Hera, come to aid Leia’s Resistance? That would make perfect sense. But it could also be Jacen, the son of Hera Syndulla and Kanan Jarrus, who could be flying his mother’s ship by this point. And what (if anything) does all of this mean for the fates of Ezra, Sabine, Ahsoka, and Thrawn?
We don’t have any of those answers yet, and I highly doubt we’ll get any of them in the film. It wouldn’t make sense to introduce these new characters and expect the audience to care about them right away, since probably the majority of the people going to see the film in theaters won’t be immediately familiar with the characters of Rebels. But this is one of those things that is just such a reward for those of us who do dive in to all of the canon content, and I have no doubt that we’ll learn more backstory about the Ghost’s role in this battle in the future.
For now, I just think it’s a really awesome cameo that I was not expecting at all!
Star Wars Thoughts 