Rumour – STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII’s title and crazy script details have leaked online

I hope you’ve been eating healthy, because your diet is about to have a huge increase in sodium chloride. Star Wars: The Force Awakens left us with a whole lot of nagging questions – questions we would have to wait until December 2017 to get answered when Rian Johnson’s still untitled Episode VIII gets released.

But over the weekend a Reddit user popped up claiming to have read the highly anticipated film’s script (he doesn’t say how), and he’s dumped all the details online for everybody to see.

Now while I will issue the mandatory SPOILER WARNING, there’s simply no evidence backing up any of these claims, hence my opening sentence that you’re going to have to take this with way, waaaaaaaay more than just a pinch of salt. Especially since, if true, it means that Johnson has stepped straight into silly Bonkersville with his script.

This is your last chance to turn back now, just in case these SPOILERS turn out to be correct – which I honestly don’t think they are. If you’re fine with them then scroll past the pic below.

The Redditor, named LouEvilOne, starts off their claims simple enough: Episode VIII‘s working title is reportedly Star Wars: Echoes of the Dark Side. You may recall that several working titles for The Force Awakens also “leaked” on sites like Reddit and 4Chan, although none of them turned out to be true though.

Another “leak” is more just sensible logic than grand revelation as LouEvilOne claims that Episode VIII will have three intertwining story branches focusing respectively on Rey, Finn and Kylo Ren, with the three converging in the final act. With the trio being the three major new characters, this would be expected.

It’s also been well documented that The Force Awakens intentionally copied the narrative structure of A New Hopequite closely, and while LouEvilOne claims that Episode VIII won’t be borrowing as much from its respective Original Trilogy counterpart, The Empire Strike Back, there will still be some similarities between them.

All of these things are pretty reasonable, really, but it’s LouEvilOne’s revelations about The Force Awakens’ biggest mystery – who is Rey? – that’s the real humdinger. You may need to be sitting down for this one.

The backstory to Luke and his Jedi being wiped out is that Snoke seduced Kylo and a few of the other students to the dark side and tasked them with killing everyone. Luke and a few others survived, including a young Rey who was subsequently dumped on Jakku by Luke.

Rey’s mom died in the attack.

Rey is pissed at Luke because she guesses that he was her father and is angry at him for abandoning her. Luke turns to her and says “No, you are my father”.

Yes, really.

Rey is the reincarnation of Anakin Skywalker. Luke went to the first Jedi temple to better understand how the process works. He learned that the spirit of the chosen one is reincarnated by the Force every time the universe is thrown out of balance, which apparently happens on a semi-regular basis (Anakin was hardly the first time the chosen one reincarnated). This is why she’s so crazy powerful with the Force (remember that Anakin blew up the Trade Federation donut ship by himself when he was like 8 years old).

Rey was the product of a virgin birth, but midichlorians aren’t mentioned (Luke says “you are a child of the Force”).

Luke is hesitant to train her because, according to Jedi history, the chosen one always struggles with staying on the light side of the Force because of the chaotic power running through them. He’s afraid that she could become Vader 2.0. If he trains her to fight Kylo, and she turns dark, she would do way more damage to the galaxy than Kylo could ever dream of doing.

He ultimately trains her anyway and leaves everything up to the Force. He makes this decision in a scene where he confers with the ghosts of Obi-Wan and Yoda (Ewan MacGregor and Frank Oz come back).

Rey learns lightsaber skills, Force skills, and has a vision quest thing where she talks with Maz Kanata (unsure if it’s telepathy or just a dream) and Hayden Christenson. The latter tells her that she is him, but different, and there’s a quick scene where we see hundreds of other Force ghosts who are implied to be past chosen ones.

Okay, let me just come straight out and say it: I’m calling bantha poodoo on this. The whole “Rey is Anakin reincarnated” theory is an extremely silly bit of fanboy postulation that had made the rounds on the net for a while now already, borne mostly from the fact that somebody noticed that there’s a decent resemblance between Daisy Ridley’s Rey and Anakin’s mother Shmi Skywalker.

And just because it’s now preceded by claims – completely unsubstantiated, I remind you – that it’s actually from the official script doesn’t suddenly make it any less ridiculous. This is straight up “Prequel Trilogy era George Lucas drinking his own Kool-Aid” levels of dumb.

Irrespective of what you may think of JJ Abrams’ missteps with The Force Awakens – the over-familiarity of the plot, the constant deus ex machina, etc – you can’t accuse him of doing anything this silly, and I highly doubt that Rian Johnson would follow suit.

If they did though, then you can be damned sure that Lucasfilm and Disney would feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of fans’ voices suddenly cried out “WHAT THE F$%K?! THIS IS STAR WARS, NOT AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER!!”.

You can read the rest of the post HERE, which also claims to reveal details on Benicio Del Toro’s character Lord Vikram, how he fits into Leia’s story, what the fallout of the destruction of Starkiller Base is and gives a beat by beat breakdown of the rest of the story, including what Poe Dameron and Finn are getting up to.

You may recall that there were several leaks on The Force Awakens as well, but virtually all of them ended up being people hearing only snippets of certain facts and drawing their own, ultimately incorrect conclusions. I don’t even think this has that level of validity. So it’s up to you whether you want to get all worked up about these leaks, but for now I’m just going to regard them as the fan-fiction I think they are.

Star Wars: Episode VIII is currently being shot at Pinewood Studios in London, and is scheduled for release on 15 December 2017.