Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Will Feature Final Conflict Between Jedi and Sith

From early on in the development of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Lucasfilm was quite clear with fans that the film would serve as the final entry in the Skywalker Saga. After nine installments in the franchise, exploring Anakin Skywalker, his children, and his grandchildren, Lucasfilm regularly confirmed that any new films would either focus on completely unrelated events or explore unseen chapters in iconic characters' lives. What could potentially be even more exciting for fans is that, in addition to concluding the journey of the Skywalker lineage, the new film will reportedly depict the final confrontation between the Jedi and the Sith.

Journalist Lev Grossman recently published a massive piece for Vanity Fair about The Rise of Skywalker, which included multiple interviews with the cast and crew. While many of the comments included in the report are lifted directly from the source, the writer also made some inferences into what we'll see in the new film.

"In the new movie, it will provide the climax to the literally millennia-long conflict between the Jedi Order, on the one hand, and the Sith, on the other," Grossman shared in the above video for the outlet.

With these comments merely being the reporter's deductions about the film, it's possible that things won't entirely play out this way, though with the film having to conclude a journey that started back in 1977's Star Wars: A New Hope, it seems likely that it will have to give audiences some definitive answers. Neither the Jedi Order nor the Sith exist in any major numbers, so we shouldn't expect to see an all-out war in the new film, instead, we'll more likely witness a symbolic conflict that could see the eradication of one faction, if not both.

The next Star Wars film to hit theaters after The Rise of Skywalker will be in December of 2022, yet fans don't know what that film will focus on. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy teased in the Vanity Fair piece that we shouldn't expect to see spinoff films that focus on isolated characters or events.

"I think that Disney is very respectful of what this is, and right from the beginning we talked about the fragility of this form of storytelling," Kennedy revealed. "Because it's something that means so much to fans that you can't turn this into some kind of factory approach. You can't even do what Marvel does, necessarily, where you pick characters and build new franchises around those characters. This needs to evolve differently."

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker lands in theaters on December 20th.

Do you think the new film will settle the conflict for good? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!