Star Wars: The Confusing Thing About Kylo Ren's New Sith Troopers

Aren't the Sith sort of over...?

Star Wars Sith Trooper
LucasFilm

As ever, Comic Con has delivered some interesting early reveals ahead of the next Star Wars film and it hasn't even officially kicked off yet.

Thanks to StarWars.com, we've got a reveal of the brand new First Order Stormtrooper variant - the Sith Trooper - which will debut in The Rise Of Skywalker in December. The variant shouldn't come as a surprise, because it's what modern Star Wars films do: Rogue One introduced the Death Troopers and we got the Executioners in The Last Jedi and there's some cynicism that they do it because it sells more toys. After all, it's not like the Troopers ever do much more than looking cool.

The most interesting thing for this new type, though, is that name designation. There are several possibilities for what it means, but the most likely is also the most confusing.

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Firstly, it could be that the Troopers are Sith themselves or at least powered by the Dark Side of the Force - which would mean they'd have to be the Knights Of Ren in new outfits - but that's fairly left-field. Then there's a chance they're aligned to Emperor Palpatine, since we know he's back and is an actual Sith. Again, that's complex, because he'd have to be already aligned to the First Order, which means he's been in hiding for the past two films with no hints of his existence at all. It's possible, of course, but it feels like a stretch.

The most likely is that the Troopers are linked closely to Kylo Ren and the Knights Of Ren - as per most rumours online - but even that has issues. Chiefly, Kylo is not a Sith and the films have been moving away from the past (killing it, if necessary) as a conscious story element - Kylo is as invested in destroying relics of the old ways as Luke Skywalker was.

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For him to suddenly go back on that simply because of the ending of The Last Jedi doesn't really make any sense. It would be a betrayal not just of the character's motivations, but of the entire arc of this trilogy. So it's a bit of a headscratcher to say the least.

Maybe it really IS just a cool name? Maybe it's a way to nod towards Knight Of The Old Republic? Or maybe Kylo Ren has named them in honour of his grandfather? He has previous with fetishising Darth Vader's mythology after all... then again, you'd think they'd be black...

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It's all very intriguing. What do you think?

Let's just hope they're given more to do than just being flashy cannon fodder. Star Wars' precedent for the likes of Boba Fett and Captain Phasma is for them to look good without following through (at least not in the movies) and it would be a shame if we were looking at that again.

Then again, you can't name something as important as this and then fail to deliver something of substance. This isn't a case of Snoke again...

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits cinemas on December 20th.

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