We Finally Know What Kylo Ren Said To Rey In Rise Of Skywalker
Another mystery of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has been solved.
Near the film's end, right after the triumph of Rey (Daisy Ridley) over Emperor Palpatine, she and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo (Adam Driver) appeared to exchange words before the latter vanished into the Force, although no dialogue was audible. Indeed, as it turns out, they did — and the flick's novelization lets us in on what they said to each other.
You'll recall that Rey, egged on by the voices in her head of Jedi Masters of the past, was able to seal Palps' destruction by deflecting his own hateful, nasty Force lightning back at him, apparently mortally wounding herself in the process. Ren, however — having decided to go ahead and turn back to the light to become Solo again — transferred his life force to her at the last minute. They had those mysterious words, shared a chaste kiss, and Solo was gone.
According to the novelization, those words were ones which viewers probably could have just made up themselves; indeed, if you happened to take a guess as to what was said, the chances are fairly good that you were right. The relevant passage in the book reads, "A voice came to her through the Force, clear and strong. 'I will always be with you,' Ben said. She smiled. Let the truth of it wash over her. 'No one's ever really gone,' she whispered" (via MovieWeb).
There you have it, folks; that clears that right up. The revelation is a fairly minor one among the rather shocking number of plot points that have only become known in the months following Rise of Skywalker's release, due to the fact that they weren't actually presented in the film.
A lot of Rise of Skywalker's story wasn't in the movie
This is because Rise of Skywalker has been accompanied by more supplemental materials than pretty much any other Star Wars movie — not to mention any non-Star Wars movie we can think of, and most Supreme Court cases. For starters, there's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary, released on the same day the film came out; that ginormous tome revealed such plot points as the fact that Jannah (as most suspected, but the film failed to make clear) is Lando Calrissian's long-lost daughter, that the planet Kylo visits in the film's opening is indeed the same one (Mustafar) where Anakin Skywalker lost his famous game of "The floor is lava" with Obi-Wan Kenobi, and that the vaunted Knights of the Old Republic RPG is freakin' canon.
More lost plot points will be laid out by the Rise of Skywalker five-issue limited comic series, to be published by Marvel in May 2020, while even more literally had to be explained by the movie's crew in various interviews. For example, the film's editor Maryann Brandon divulged in a conversation with Huffington Post why Rey was unable to simply kill Emperor Palpatine, and director J.J. Abrams himself revealed in a Twitter conversation what it was that Finn kept trying to tell Rey for the entire movie (via Slashfilm). Now we have the novelization, and if you're thinking that the substance of Rey and Solo's mysterious dialogue will be the only revelation revealed therein, we're thinking you've got another thing coming.
Could a director's cut of Rise of Skywalker fill in the gaps?
Depending on whom you ask, this all makes Rise of Skywalker a) a thematically rich, narratively dense work containing too much story to fit into its run time, or b) an incomplete film which asks its fans to shell out extra cash for supplemental materials to fill in its plot holes. All of the seemingly missing material raises an obvious question: will any of these holes eventually be filled by a director's cut of Rise of Skywalker?
The short answer is that while it's likely there was a ton of footage that ended up on the cutting room floor, there is no evidence that Abrams ever assembled his own cut of the film (although a detailed, anonymous post from a mysterious Redditor late last year suggested otherwise). This means that, even supposing that this additional footage could serve to fill in some of Rise of Skywalker's narrative gaps, Abrams would probably have to be enticed back to work on a new cut — and if that happens, you may want to look outside your window for flying pigs. The director has moved on to develop projects under the massive deal with Warner Bros. that he struck last summer, and as far as Disney and Lucasfilm are concerned, it wouldn't make much sense to spend a bunch of money on an alternate version of a film that's already grossed well over a billion dollars worldwide.
No, we're thinking that Rise of Skywalker's gaps will continue to be filled in the way they have thus far: through supplemental books and comics, the random revelations of various crew members, and perhaps some tie-in Laffy Taffy wrappers or what have you.
Rise of Skywalker will will hit digital platforms on March 17, and DVD/Blu-ray on March 31.