Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has its work cut out in wrapping up all the loose threads of the Sequel Trilogy so far and one of the biggest is just who exactly are the Knights of Ren? Kylo’s stooges have been referenced and glimpsed in flashback before now, but both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi failed to clarify much about this mysterious dark order. From what we know though, it sounds like the Knights are a big part of Episode IX and this new promo art for the movie gives us our clearest look at them yet.
The cover to the upcoming book, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – The Visual Dictionary, has been released, revealing that it side-steps highlighting any of the main cast and instead has one of the Knights as its cover star. As you can see in the gallery below, the Knights sport a very similar helmet to their boss Kylo except with their faces completely obscured. Also note the warrior’s scythe-like weapon.
The Knights are the focus of a lot of fan theories in the run-up to Rise, with rumors pointing to them being the main villains of the piece and possibly becoming enemies of Kylo Ren. After all, the villains always seem turn on each other in this franchise so that could certainly end up being the case. But how exactly do they fit in with Emperor Palpatine’s apparent resurrection? So many questions.
They might be a mystery right now, but in a few months’ time, we should have everything we need to know about the Knights of Ren at our disposal. As well as their movie appearance, Marvel Comics has announced that Charles Soule (Darth Vader) is writing a Rise of Skywalker tie-in comic all about them. That’ll definitely shed more light on things but either way, everything will become clear when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters on December 20th.