Okay, let’s see if we can’t puzzle our way through this one. Strap in, it’s weird.
So…the Star Wars sequel trilogy came to an end this past December with The Rise of Skywalker. Both Rise and its predecessor, The Last Jedi, were incredibly divisive among fans, with review bombs and internet whinging aplenty.
Enter YouTuber Overlord DVD, who previously got ahold of some accurate Rise of Skywalker spoilers. In a new video, he claims that Disney is going to scrub the sequel trilogy from canon, cordoning it off in its own alternate universe. According to Overlord DVD’s sources, “LucasFilm realizes they have a massive problem on their hands, that the Star Wars franchise is all but dead,” so a big change it needed.
Now, before we go any further, this sounds pretty ridiculous from the jump. The Star Wars franchise is “all but dead”? This is the same franchise that has, like, 30 shows airing on or coming to Disney+, from The Mandalorian to the Obi-Wan Kenobi show to the Cassian Andor show and probably more? The franchise where Taika Waititi is directing a new Star Wars movie? The one that sells several aircraft carriers worth of merch every day? Look, I know that the final two sequel movies got a lot of backlash but they both made over $1 billion at the box office. I dunno if this is a franchise in desperate change of change.
Anyway, according to Overlord DVD, the series will undergo “a massive reset.” Plot-wise, Overlord DVD reckons this could be achieved by making use of a concept introduced in the animated spinoff series Star Wars Rebels: the Veil of The Force, “a mystical dimension of The Force that connects all time and space.”
I’ll let Overlord DVD explain:
"Emperor Palpatine had a room on the second Death Star called The Room of Mirrors. The mirrors were created by The Emperor prior to the Death Star through the Dark Side using ancient Sith rituals. These mirrors linked to the Veil of The Force served many purposes. Using them, Palpatine could manipulate The Force in many ways to further his aims. For example, the use of the mirrors allowed Palpatine to cloud the Jedi Council to conceal himself and his dark apprentices from the Jedi and from Force-sensitives that followed their fall.Using the mirrors allowed Palpatine to access the awesome powers of the Veil of The Force. They were indispensable tools that allowed him to rise to the pinnacle of ultimate power. It is this conceit that explains how Palpatine survived Darth Vader throwing him down the shaft in the throne room of the Death Star. In desperation as he fell, Palpatine opened a portal to the Veil of The Force and entered it. This explains why Palpatine is in such a damaged state in the Rise of Skywalker, as transporting himself into the Veil without the aid of the mirrors drained him and damaged him severely."
And then, if I’m understanding this right, the Emperor created a second set of mirrors on the Sith planet of Exegol. To stop it, someone could enter the “Veil of Mirrors” and wait for Palpatine to arrive, the Veil being “a mystical dimension where in all times collide.” This, somehow, means the Star Wars sequel trilogy will be “consign to its own alternate timeline forever” as “Palpatine enters the Veil and never gets back to Exegol… is prevented from using the mirrors to return, he dies as he was intended to , and ‘Bob’s your uncle’ and all our problems are solved.”
Now, if you read that and think it makes no sense, then you and I have something in common. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Disney obliterated the Star Wars sequel trilogy, which fans criticized for featuring muddled storylines, with a plot turn more muddled than anything that had come before?
Anyway, as proof of the idea, Overlord DVD cites a scene from The Rise of Skywalker where Rey confronts her dark self in a room where there may also be a mirror. So…checkmate?
“Well, my friends, this is your glimpse into the Veil of The Force,” Overlord DVD continues. “Literally anything is possible here as branching alternate realities converge and diverge in that mystical dimension. What is glimpsed in those mirrors is an alternate version of Rey, and lurking within the Veil are alternate versions of Palpatine, alternate versions of Luke, alternate versions of Han. Somewhere in the multiverse may even lie a version of the Disney sequels that didn’t suck and didn’t outrage and alienate a huge section of the Star Wars fandom, but for now the best we can hope for is using the Veil of The Force to obliterate the Disney sequels banishing them to their own little funhouse mirror in the vast hall of mirrors Multiverse to be forgotten as the substandard garbage they are.”
If you can’t tell from the way I’ve written this article, I’m heartily suspicious of all of this. It seems less like a news report and more like fan wishes born of rage. It’s worth noting that, in his video, Overlord DVD uses an image of Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, largely seen as the architect of the sequel trilogy, made to look like Emperor Palpatine, so it’s pretty clear where his biases lie.
Anyway, expect Star Wars: Episode VIII.V – Chaos in the Veil of Mirrors sometime in 2024.
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h/t Comic Book News