The Rise of Skywalker’: How Did Ben Solo Survive That Fall?
The Star Wars saga has a history that extends far beyond the corners of the movie screen. Since Lucas first gave audiences his space opera, hundreds of books, video games, specials, cartoons, and other forms of media have expanded on his core idea.
This continues to this day. While Disney threw out much of the extended canon with their acquisition, they’ve started creating their own version of it. A comic recently showed a missing link to explain why Ben Solo survived a fall that the movie did not show.
The ‘Star Wars’ canon
Star Wars always seemed more significant than the things we saw on camera. Part of its immediate appeal in the 1970s was the fact that the galaxy far away seemed so lived in and full of folklore.
Like JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Lucas made something that seemed like a continuation of a world that never actually existed before his creation.
With every passing year, however, new creators were brought in to expand on this. The Star Wars canon provided backstory on individual characters, a context for one-off mentions, and independent stories merely set in the same universe as the most popular film franchise in history.
While many fans were content with the movie and occasional video games, die-hards ate up every piece of media they could.
However, Disney threw this all away when they decided to start the franchise based solely on what happened on screen. Hundreds of books and other media were quickly voided as the people at Disney decided to give themselves a little bit more freedom with their version of the universe.
However, fans who like the canon were not entirely left in the dust. Disney began creating its own canon. Among the most successful versions of this was the comic series.
‘The Rise of Skywalker’
Despite being the ninth, and thus far, the last chapter in the Skywalker Saga, The Rise of Skywalker was a polarizing movie among Star Wars fans. Although the film featured many references to the expanded Star Wars universe, many saw it as a mish-mash of references without a story that made sense within the foundation laid by eight other films.
By bringing back Palpatine and making him the villain, many saw JJ Abrams and company as coddling with the fans who want more of the same while ignoring those who admired the different directions that the previous movie took.
One of the critical moments, in which Ben Solo and Rey finally band together once and for all, saw Solo fall, much like Palpatine had in Return of the Jedi.
However, while Palpatine was presumed dead until Episode IX, Solo returned for one last fight before passing away. Fans on Reddit noted, however, that the fall he took was explained in the comics.
Why did Solo survive the fall?
One aspect of the canon goes beyond entertainment and into a debate. Even when the old canon was still in play, it was so long and convoluted that it inevitably contradicted itself.
A Reddit thread about Solo’s fall showed this sort of discourse. A screenshot of a comic showing Snoke teaching Ben Solo pointed out how similar it was to his eventual fall in the film.
The shot showed Solo using the force to catch himself. Perhaps, this is how he survived his fall in the film, too. Some fans disagreed, claiming that Abrams and company purposely avoided those types of references. However, the argument spread to greater lengths.
Either way, this fan theory posits something truly interesting about Star Wars fandom.
Whether or not it answers the question shows why Star Wars operates differently from your average hit film franchise. However, with every new movie, book, comic, and game, arguments like this will persist.
