Star Wars Fan Points Out Walmart Might be the Empire After All

As every Star Wars fan knows, the epic saga takes place “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” — the opening crawl literally tells us so, after all — but as it turns out we might be a little closer to that distant world than we thought. That’s the impression we’re getting thanks to one humorous Star Wars fan who has spotted a striking piece of “evidence” that Walmart? Well, it might be the Empire after all.

Over in Reddit‘s r/OTmemes Star Wars community fan “u/Radish00” shared an image that compares the Walmart logo to that of the Empire and as you can see in the post below, that circular-style star symbol for Walmart would fit very neatly into the Empire’s logo. Once you see it, you won’t be able to un-see it so check it out for yourself.

Now, how to interpret this is clearly a bit up for discussion if you look at the comments to the Reddit post. Some think that this is proof that Walmart and the Galactic Empire are one and the same while others think that Walmart is the key to the Empire. Others joke that the Empire itself isn’t that evil, at least not as compared to the big box retail giant. No matter your stance, it’s a pretty clever and humorous observation but when it comes to great Star Wars-related memes and art since the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, fans on Reddit have pretty much been crushing it. Need proof? Just a few days ago there was a clever reimagining of The Rise of Skywalker poster with ever character on that poster being replaced with images of Emperor Palpatine, the young version as seen in the Prequel Trilogy during his rise to power. Of course, that bit of art has a particularly chilling implication once you’ve seen how the OG bad guy factors into The Rise of Skywalker and how it all ends.

Filmmaker J.J. Abrams recently appeared on the podcast Popcorn With Peter Travers to discuss his ending of the saga, revealing that he wanted to leave some mysteries open to the audience for interpretation.

“We knew going in that we had to make this feel conclusive. It had to come to an end,” Abrams explained. “And yet, there are certain things that I feel… here’s the way I feel about Star Wars. It’s the reason that I loved the original trilogy so much — and the reason I loved the original trilogy more than the prequel trilogy, for me — which was that the original trilogy posed great questions and allowed you to infer the answer. It allowed you to do the math on your own.”

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now playing in theaters.