Star Wars: Dark Rey in The Rise of Skywalker Explained

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is officially in theaters, and it's providing fans with answers to some long-running questions regarding a galaxy far, far away. The film's trailers and marketing campaign certainly fueled a lot of speculation, particularly with regards to the sequel trilogy's main protagonist, Rey (Daisy Ridley). The second trailer for The Rise of Skywalker appeared to hint at a dark turn for Rey, showing her wearing a black cloak and carrying a double-ended lightsaber. The short sequence set the Internet ablaze earlier this year, and now we finally have our answer about what exactly is up with "Dark Rey". Major spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker below! Only look if you want to know!

The film opens with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Rey (Daisy Ridley) separately learning of the return of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), who has somehow remained alive years after seemingly being killed in Return of the Jedi. Rey, who is undergoing Jedi training from Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), begins to question the pulls from the light and the dark side, culminating in her seeing a vision of a dark version of herself sitting on Palpatine's throne.

Rey and the Resistance quickly focus on finding a rare device that is needed to travel to Palpatine's location, which leads her to the ruins of the Death Star II. While searching for the device, Rey enters a derelict room in the Death Star II -- and comes face-to-face with Dark Rey. The pair then engage in a brief fight, before Rey realizes that it's nothing more than a vision of who she could become.

While Rey initially thinks that "Dark Rey" is who she would be if she made an alliance with Kylo, we later learn that it is essentially Palpatine's idealized version of her potential. Without getting too heavily into spoilers, we can safely say that "Dark Rey" as we see her in the trailers doesn't extend too much more beyond these few scenes.

It will certainly be interesting to see how "Dark Rey" fans respond to this reveal, as the idea of Rey potentially falling completely to the dark side - and adding more women to the world of the Sith - definitely intrigued some.

"That's 'Dark Rey'... I honestly felt like I know know what a viral sensation is - because I was one," Ridley said during a TV appearance earlier this year. "It was really exciting because it dropped at a convention, and then the trailer didn't come out for three days. So my mom was texting me, being like, 'What is this I've seen on Twitter? Do you go dark?' And I was like 'We'll have to wait and see!'"

What do you think of how "Dark Rey" was used in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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