Episode 8 is sure to ignite fan debate for the next two years until the final movie in the Skywalker saga arrives.
Apart from the furious row raging on social media about whether The Last Jedi is “the worst Star Wars movie ever” there are two key moments in the ending.
One is a chilling foreshadowing of what is still to come, the other is a powerful and poignant Easter Egg for devoted fans.
It seems Han Solo made it into the movie after all…
WARNING: MAJOR THE LAST JEDI SPOILERS.
One of the biggest shocks in the movie is when Luke strolls into the Resistance bunker on Crait.
Fans had feared we would never see a Skywalker reunion now that Carrie Fisher is gone. Instead, the twins share an emotional scene that is one of the few truly moving moments of Episode 8.
As a parting gift, Luke presses a set of golden dice into his sister’s hands.
What are they? What do they mean?
Fans will now that these are the dice that have always hung over the cockpit of the Milennium Falcon. Star Wars lore has it that Han Solo won his beloved ship from Lando Calrissian in a high stakes game, using these dice.
Star Wars expert Mike Zeroh points out that the dice are also a reference back to the skull Harrison Ford’s character has hanging over the dashboard of his car in American Graffiti (also directed by George Lucas).
The dice were first seen in A New Hope and Luke returns them to his sister as a gesture of love and compassion over the loss of her husband.
It is fitting that they should be a final way to bid farewell to Han and, it turns out, Luke.
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After the dramatic showdown between Luke and Kylo Ren reveals that the Jedi master was a Force projection all along, his furious nephew storms into the bunker.
He is shown picking the dice up from the floor before they fade away. Kylo will also have painful memories of being on his father’s ship as a boy.
What happens next is hugely important for Episode 9. Kylo looks up and sees Rey. This is the shocking proof that Snoke may be dead but his legacy lives on.
Snoke had bragged that he had forged the mysterious link between Rey and Kylo Ren that enabled them to commune across the galaxy.
Clearly his shocking demise did not break the link.
This is a clear foreshadowing that the final movie will feature more push and pull between the two young characters as Kylo assumes leadership of the First Order and the galaxy while Rey becomes the symbolic figurehead of the esistance.
Of course, some fans are already speculating that the unbroken link may be proof that they are related after all…
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