Star Wars: How Anakin Will Return For The Rise Of Skywalker News

With The Rise Of Skywalker right around the corner I thought I’d dive into one of the big theories that are floating around the internet right now which is that Anakin Skywalker will return for Episode 9.

Anakin though not in the sequel trilogy at all up until this point has still played a pretty big role with a lot of Kylo Ren’s mindset being centered around the way that he believes Darth Vader was. Kylo even owned his grandfather’s helmet as a reminder that the dark side was rooted in his family.

But does that mean that the character will return and if so, how will he do it?

Well throughout this, we’re gonna be going over the major teases that show that Hayden Christensen will be returning as well as what the leaks say about the characters come back.

There will be heavy spoilers here, so if you don’t want to know anything about the movie then I highly suggest that you turn off now. I’ll leave the leaks till last as we don’t know how true that they are and I’d rather get into the cold hard facts first.

With that out the way I just wanna give a huge thank you for clicking this video, now let’s get into our breakdown of whether Anakin will return for Episode 9!

Will Anakin Return For The Rise Of Skywalker?

Ok so as I mentioned earlier in the video, Anakin Skywalker is a pretty big character in terms of Star Wars mythology and his shadow has loomed large over the new trilogy, pretty much dictating a lot of the actions that his grandson take from beyond the grave, whether it’s the way that he would have wanted things to go or not.

From all the marketing materials and interviews with people like JJ Abrahams and people that have worked on The Rise Of Skywalker, it’s clear that they are planning something special that ties the entire saga together. This has been stated numerous times by numerous people and because of it fans have speculated that Anakin Skywalker will indeed be making a return in one form or another.

Anakin was there from the beginning and he quickly became the main focus of the prequel trilogy before emerging as the big bad for the original films which spanned from a New Hope to Return Of The Jedi. The majority of the events in the saga have centered around him in one way or another with his son Luke Skywalker becoming a powerful Jedi and his daughter and grandson both making their mark across the universe. Thus there really isn’t a better character to have a cameo in The Rise Of Skywalker as a way to tie together the entire saga and to link this one with the prequel.

Hayden Christensen Is Back?

The upcoming movie titled Rise Of The Skywalker is clearly paying homage to just how important the lineage is so it makes sense to at least have the person that it all really started with making an appearance.

There’s also some evidence that Hayden Christensen is hinting at the fact that he might return as well with the actor posting recently that he visited Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland. The actor was seen posing in front of the Millennium Falcon and operating the controls of the ship before gifting a blue lightsaber to a fan. Now I’m not a complete idiot and noway do I believe that this confirms he’s back just because he visited a theme park for a film that he happened to work on, but Disney weirdly enough retweeted the post referring to Hayden as ‘The Chosen One’ before promptly deleting it, which is a bit suspect.

Again this doesn’t confirm anything, however, some fans believe that this was posted to remind finds that there is still the potential that Anakin could bring balance to the force as was prophecized and that he may indeed still have a big part to play.

FanX Convention

In addition to this Christensen was also supposed to appear alongside Ian McDiarmid back in August at the Fan X Convention in Salt Lake City, however, just before it was about to begin, Disney had the panel closed down, which of course prompted more speculation.

Now I’m gonna be getting into the leaks from this part of the video so if you don’t want to know about think about the ending of the movie or what could potentially happen then I highly suggest that you turn off now.

Star Wars Leaks

Ok, are you still here? Great, then the force is strong with you!

Ok so originally the leaks stated that at the end of the film, the ghost of Palpatine was going to possess one of the Knights Of Ren, played by none other than Matt Smith who would then take on the role of Palpatine and be the big bad. However, this was rumored to be unpopular in house at Disney and thus during the confirmed reshoots that we know happened this year, apparently Ian McDiarmid was put back in the film as the big bad, once more reprising his role as Palpatine. We know from the trailers and posters that The Emporer is back and those that have seen the leaked images of the ending know that the character is 100% returning.

It is possible that these reshoots happened around the time of the Fan X convention and thus Disney canceled the panel just in case any leaks dropped about the pair.

Now in the film itself, there is rumored to be a moment in which Luke and Rey are meditating in the Jedi Temple with one another during Rey’s training. Luke apparently tells Rey of a story that retroactively changes a certain element of The Last Jedi and the Force Awakens. That is during the scene in which Luke was about to kill Ben Solo and apparently Luke says that before carrying out the attack that would see him murder his nephew, Anakin voice sounded off in his head and reminded him that it is not the Jedi way to strike people down.

Not The Way Of The Jedi

Luke then goes on to say that this saved him from too turning to the dark side and that during a lot of his training, Luke has been guided by his father’s voice because he does not want him to go down a dark path. We know from the end of Return Of The Jedi that Luke can indeed see Anakin and there is a possibility that he could still be in contact with him through the force.

Luke says that whilst he was on the island which we saw the character living in self-imposed exile, that he too, like Rey was often pulled to the cave and the Dark Side of it but that his father’s guidance always pulled him out of it. In the end, he decided to close himself off from the Force due to the worry that he would always be pulled toward this and thus he shut things off.

The leaks also say that later in the movie when Rey goes to take down Palpatine that she finds herself quickly outmatched by the villain. Now we do know from leaked images that during this she teams up with Kylo. These are floating about on Google and they basically show the two together standing side by side with blue lightsabres. One of them is Lukes and we can guess that the others are Anakin’s as that is one of the major blue lightsabres in the saga.

Star Wars Leaks Ending Explained

Both are still quite easily bested by the extremely powerful Sith and in order to beat him, Rey has to tap into the force which involves reaching out to Anakin, Luke, Yoda, Obi-Wan and lots of Jedi over the saga who all channel their energy and help her to eventually take down the Sith Lord.

Originally we were meant to see these character but the most recent leaks said that the reshoots removed these in place of just having their voices, similar to how Rey heard them in The Force Awakens when retrieving Luke’s lightsabre.

However, that isn’t the end of the movie and we have seen more leaked images that show Kylo Ren on Tattooine at the end of the movie and this supports the ending of the film leak which states that Rey and the gang return to Tattooine and we see that she has dismantled Luke and Anakin’s lightsabre in order to create a new one with a yellow blade. At the foot of Luke’s old home, she buries the remaining parts and then apparently the current occupiers of the house step out and ask who she is.

She then introduces herself as Mary Sue, sorry Rey Skywalker which means that she has adopted the moniker of her mentor and is now taking this forward, carrying the mantle. She then goes to the hill and stares out at the twin sunset which is when the camera pans and similar to the ending of Return Of The Jedi we see many of the force ghosts that were teased earlier watching her. This is apparently where the appearance of Hayden Christensen as Anakin appears and with Obi-Wan, Yoda and Luke they stand and smile as Rey looks out over a Galaxy new embodied with hope.

My Thoughts

And that’s what the leaks say happen. Though all leaks like this should be taken with a pinch of salt I actually think they make a lot of sense going off the images that we have seen. Disney is definitely going to try and Endgame this and it makes sense for them to bring back a pivotal character for the final film in the Skywalker Saga.

Though I can’t say with complete certainty that this is going to be the way that the film goes and that Anakin is definitely returning I think the way that Disney has been acting, coupled with Hayden Christensen’s schedule and the leaks, makes it seem like there is a really good chance that he will be back.

JJ is trying to write a lot of the wrongs of The Last Jedi and the Luke scene that I mentioned earlier as well as the send-off of the series definitely seems like a great way to close everything with a satisfying ending.

How it plays out we will see but it has got me slightly more enthusiastic about the movie as I think it would be the cherry on top to see Anakin come back even if it’s just for a cameo.

If you’re watching this from the future and have already seen the movie then you know what you need to do. Tell us in the comments below because we all wanna know.