Star Wars is all about secrecy. The marketing for the two latest episodes in the saga has been pretty minimal, considering how only three trailers were released for The Force Awakens and two were released for The Last Jedi. By modern blockbuster standards, this is pretty low.
Both the teaser and official trailer for The Last Jedi don’t seem to reveal any major plot points, and when compared to the trailer for some other Star Wars films, that’s notable.
While the trailer we saw in October doesn’t seem to spoil anything major, it does attempt to mess with our heads. There was the implication that Kylo Ren may kill his mother, but that would be a pretty big spoiler to include in the trailer, so it probably isn’t happening like that. The money shot at the end that shows Rey potentially teaming up with Kylo Ren also might just be clever editing, but it’s an intriguing possibility.
Some of the latest promotional images for the film have also hinted at Rey’s turn to the dark side, with the Star Wars Instagram page posting the following pictures earlier this week:
The first in the series of blue and red split pictures featured Rey, showing her reflected in both the light and dark sides of the Force. The same was done for Kylo Ren, a character that fans have speculated may turn back to the light.
However, images in the same style have now been released for Finn and Captain Phasma, two characters that are less likely to switch allegiances—and in the case of Finn, switch allegiances again. This makes the idea that fans in the Instagram comment section have been running with a bit less likely. If the same kind of image is released showing BB-8, then we’ll know for sure that the marketing department is trolling us.
This wouldn't be anything new, as the stars of the film have been toying with our emotions all year, trying to make us believe one thing or another.
Even still, these pictures could be pretty significant. A new TV spot shows Rey doing something pretty unexpected, leading some to believe that a twist is inevitable. With so many teases, TV spots and fan theories being passed around the internet leading up to the film's release, it's hard to tell what is legitimate and what is designed to mislead us.
Fortunately, we only have one week to wait before the speculation ends, and the theories about Episode IX begin.