Star Wars: The Force Awakens Opening Crawl Could Hint At A Surprise For Skywalker Family

Spoilers ahead for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Let's file this under stuff that people are probably way, way overthinking. But lot of fans have mentioned it to us, so we wanted to make sure to at least give it some thought.

Some fans, and millennial-focused news site Mic.com, have analyzed the opening crawl from Star Wars: The Force Awakens and think that it could suggest there's another Skywalker out there someplace.

No, not like "Rey is Luke's daughter" theories. More like "Luke and Leia have another sibling."

The thinking is this: In the crawl, there are no offset commas around Luke's name in the following block of text:

Mic.com says that, by definition, those commas should be there unless "Luke" is essential to the meaning of the sentence. As Leia is only known to have one brother, they say, that shouldn't be true. So the absence of the commas, they reason, could mean that Leia has another brother we don't know about.

Most people look at this and see a punctuation error, but as with anything in Star Wars, especially anything having to do with the Skywaker family, some fans believe -- or want to believe -- there's more to it than that.

I would suggest an alternative answer: Perhaps the reason Luke's name feels "essential" here is that the film was made 30 years after Return of the Jedi and Leia does not share Luke's last name. That they are siblings may have escaped the attention of new or casual viewers, so mentioning that Luke -- a figure key to the success of Leia's resistance -- is her brother is important information to impart.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, directed by J.J. Abrams from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan & Abrams, features a cast including actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o, Gwendoline Christie, Crystal Clarke, Pip Andersen, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow. They will join the original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit theaters December 18, 2015, kicking off a new trilogy of Saga films as Episodes VIII and IX are already scheduled. The film garnered a record $247 million at the domestic box office and $529 million globally in its opening weekend.