As most of you, I was surprised at how quickly Disney released the D23 footage of The Rise of Skywalker.

It showed some interesting new footage and offered a few possible hints as to some of the film’s plot points. I’m going to make some potentially SPOILER-y guesses ahead. Continue at your own risk.

Before we begin, let’s all make sure we’ve seen this:

There are two specific threads that I want to follow: The first involves Rey and the second involves Finn.

There’s a persistent theory that Rey is somehow a clone of Palpatine. Well, remember this scene from The Last Jedi?

What if that scene was literally true, and there are thousands of Reys, because she’s a clone.

So then, is this person our Rey?

Or is she someone else? When we see Rey in the forest, throwing her sabre, there’s a red ribbon around her hand.

It doesn’t look like a bandage or restrain. Could it be a way of telling two Reys apart (our Rey is wearing a red ribbon, don’t shoot her)?

That’s all I have for this, except one final thought. If there are multiple Reys then we never know whether the one on-screen is ours. Who is Kylo fighting in the last frames? Probably our Rey, but it could be a twist that he defeats her and then it’s not our Rey.

* * *

Finn … Finn, Finn, Finn.

We get the stunning image of a bunch of Resistance ships popping out of hyperspace and a cross-cut to a large First Order Fleet — or is it?

It doesn’t look like the First Order, and it doesn’t look like a fleet. It looks like a mothball yard of Imperial star destroyers.

For one, this isn’t a combat formation, where each ship’s engines blasts the ship behind it. For two, there aren’t even running lights. Look here:

It looks like there are a few lights on each tower, perhaps maintenance crews, but nothing more.

After the Resistance was almost wiped out in The Last Jedi, maybe they’re going to get a new cache of ships and weapons by finding a hidden parking space of mothballed warships.

* * *

I don’t have any real ideas beyond these two about the plot, and both of these are theories, not knowledge.

There’s a lot of talk about how Palpatine comes back, and it worries me, because any theory that allows his return seems to allow for anyone to come back – Anakin, Mace, Yoda, Qui Gon-Jinn, Darth Jar Jar …

… anyway, we’ll know soon enough. See you all in December!