There is a new international trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and it has a lot more footage than we’ve seen in previous trailers. The fellow with the funky-looking lightsaber is a character called Kylo Ren, the film’s main bad guy, who is hunting down Rey (she’s one of the good guys). Kylo Ren somehow has got his hands on the remains of Darth Vader’s helmet, and makes a promise: “I will fulfill our destiny. I will finish what you started.” The our has many Star Wars fans wondering if Kylo Ren is in fact Luke Skywalker, who might have finally succumbed to the Dark Side.
This fan theory gained traction recently when a video from several years ago emerged in which Mark Hamill and JJ Abrams discuss Luke’s character, and Hamill suggests that Luke was always headed to the Dark Side.“I just thought that’s the way it was going from when we finished [Empire Strikes Back]. I figured that’s what will be the pivotal moment. I’ll have to come back, but it will be Han Solo in my crosshairs and I’ll be about to kill him or about to kill the Princess or about to kill somebody that we care about.” The theory that Luke is now Ren is also supported (maybe) by Luke’s absence from the film’s poster, plus the fact that we haven’t actually seen him in any of the trailers (or have we?).