So long as official details remain scant on Star Wars: Episode IX, you can bet that the most fervent corners of the internet will be abuzz with rumors and speculation.
Take this recent leak from 4LOM, an anonymous Reddit user and alleged acquaintance of someone working at Lucasfilm, for instance. Detailing a scene that features some of the few surviving rebels from the end of The Last Jedi – as well as the shifty codebreaker DJ – it likely goes without saying that all claims ought to be read with a degree of healthy skepticism.
Apparently, though, our heroes Finn, Poe Dameron and Rose Tico will meet up with the Hutt Cartel, now being run by Jabba the Hutt’s son, Rotta. DJ, as per his shady character, is somehow involved with the Hutts, and while Finn and Rose are naturally averse to any further associations with the man, Poe regards the slick hacker as a ‘necessary evil.’ The whole sequence is compared in the leak to the dining scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and ends with the First Order raiding the Hutt hideout, forcing the rebels to flee along with DJ.
4LOM’s ‘friend’ has also said that he’s proud of this particular scene, describing it as extremely ‘Star Warsian.’ But do we buy it? There are certainly reasons to be suspicious and the franchise a long history of fake leaks in the lead-up to each new installment. But at the very least, it’s a nice little idea for a set piece that brings the Original Trilogy’s notorious crime syndicate into the same room as one of the shadier criminals from the new films.
For the time being, you can expect most of the information we get from director J.J. Abrams and the cast of Star Wars: Episode IX to take the form of tantalizingly vague hints, but all will be revealed when the movie lands in theaters December 20th, 2019.