Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Predicting The Plot In 10 Steps

In a single post that rapidly set the Internet ablaze, Disney and LucasFilm yesterday revealed that Star Wars: Episode VIII can now be referred to as Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

The news came by way of an article on StarWars.com, accompanied by a handful of official social media posts, and as you'd expect, speculation, gossip and excitement quickly began to flood the online space.

It's a title with many possible implications, from Rey herself to a brand-new character altogether, and each is as likely as the next. Star Wars titles usually paint a handful of possible pictures (even the bad ones!) and The Last Jedi is no different.

So, using a combination of yesterday's reveal, what we learnt in Episode VII and what we know about Episode VIII so far, here's how we think the plot of Star Wars: The Last Jedi will play out.

(Note: Obviously, we can't factor in every tiny plot detail; we'd need a hundred pages for that! These are the broad strokes).

The Last Jedi will be the first Star Wars movie in history to pick up right where the preceding episode ended, so the final few frames of The Force Awakens will lead into the first few frames here.

What that means for the opening crawl (which usually fills in the time gap between episodes) we don't know, but the likely bet is that it revolves around events away from Luke and Rey - Kylo Ren and Snoke, the Resistance, etc.

Back to the conversation - Luke will initially refuse his lightsaber, still haunted by the failure of his Jedi Academy and feeling burned (figuratively) by the Force, given that his own nephew turned to the dark side.

Rey will ask why he left, and we'll get a more detailed explanation, perhaps with a couple of flashbacks (director Rian Johnson likes jumping back and forth - just watch Looper).

And, perhaps crucially, Luke divulges some information on Rey's past and lineage. The final scene in the official script for The Force Awakens reads like this: "He [Luke] doesn't need to ask her who she is, or what she is doing here." In short, Luke has answers, and it makes sense that he'd give them here.