Star Wars 9 leak: Rise of Skywalker opening scenes focus on Anakin Skywalker? Latest claim

Anakin’s journey into becoming the iconic supervillain was explored in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and fans have been keen for him to factor into the upcoming saga finale in some way.

Now, in claims that should be taken with a big pinch of salt for the time being, a Star Wars YouTuber claims to have seen “concept art and scene descriptions” that indicate he will be integral to the opening act of The Rise of Skywalker.

Mike Zeroh, who has 174,000 subscribers, has made several other allegations about how Anakin/Vader will be referenced, so it’s unclear if this latest purported leak is in addition to, or in conflict of, those.

But as part of the speculative fun, it’s exciting to see what could be in store.

Zeroh says in a new video that the descriptions he has seen describe “Kylo Ren inside of his chambers where he’s training himself through the ways of the Dark Side, holding Darth Vader’s helmet.

“As he focusses his mind on the dark energy associated with the helmet, he begins to hear the voices of Anakin Skywalker and Darth Sidious from scenes taken from Episode III: Revenge of the Sith; modified for a dream-like feel.”

He added: “Kylo is trying to learn more about his grandfather and the other side of him as Anakin Skywalker, and learning new truths about how Palpatine was able to train Vader.”

That’s not the only callback to Anakin that is alleged to be in the opening act.

Zeroh continued: “One of the other sequences in the first act involves a moment in which Kylo places a Vader helmet on a shelf and walks into his own vault; just like how Palpatine, Snoke and Vader had their own.

“Kylo has one full of artefacts that belonged to Vader and even Palpatine. He is learning new things about his grandfather.”

If this proves to be true, and the earlier Anakin rumours are false, this would likely mean that Anakin star Hayden Christensen has not been directly involved with this new film, but his previous footage has been recycled.

The validity of this leak could actually be backed up the Rise of Skywalker trailer, in which we heard Palpatine’s laugh.

Palpatine – who was also Darth Sidious – can be heard cackling at the end, but Ian McDiarmid has said that he did not record anything new for that moment, and that it was an old laugh that was being used.

Could that use of an old laugh be from the scene mentioned here? Or is it to do with something else entirely?

We still have a little while left to find out what is actually in Rise of Skywalker: the movie is out in December.

After that, the Skywalker Saga will be over – and David Benioff and DB Weiss will properly commence work on an all-new trilogy of films set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.