This is not clickbait either like I initially thought. One of the actors who played one of the Knights of Ren confirmed today that the version of The Rise of Skywalker that he saw was NOT the one released to audiences. He said that the “rumour” about Ben living and rising to be the Skywalker in the title of the film was a thing and Daisy Ridley’s character dies instead of Ben!

This is huge news but probably a little too late to make any of the fans I know feel better about it. I mean, let’s analyse this for a second. Ben living is a huge thing, something most of the fandom wanted (lookup #savebensolo or #bringbensoloback) instead of what we received as the ending of TRoS. But is it a better ending? Really, though? Think about it. Ben lives, Rey dies. They’re still not together, and Ben would probably spend the rest of life trying to run from the Resistance who probably want him dead for the war crimes he committed as Kylo Ren. Then there’s the fact that Ben would never be able to fully atone for everything he did so he’d probably spend the rest of his life miserable, alone and haunted by the people he lost; the murder of his father and the loss of both Leia and Rey to the war he helped create.

I am all for second chances, but I don’t see Ben getting anything useful from surviving the war. In fact, I think the best thing that could have happened was they both died there in Exegol after killing Darth Sidious. But of course, they couldn’t do that because the movie wouldn’t make any sense. It’s called The Rise of Skywalker after all, and if they both died, there’d be nobody to actually, well, “rise”.

Here’s the clip if you’re interested in checking it out: