Star Wars Episode IX spoilers: Poe Dameron, eat your heart out

The Resistance is in dire straits at the end of The Last Jedi. Could new set photos from Star Wars: Episode IX reveal how bad it really is?

Filming for Star Wars: Episode IX may have already wrapped, but that hasn’t stopped spoilers from emerging. Specifically, there are new set photos. Suffice it to say, this is going to be your only warning about it.

Star Wars News Net has picked up a report from Reddit that originally contained set photos of a T-65 X-Wing partially under cover at what’s believed to be Pinewood Studios. As it would only make sense that sets are being broken down, the covers don’t surprise us. Now, SWNN takes the angle that this could be either a flashback letting us see Luke Skywalker crashing his X-wing on Ahch-To, or just a general Luke flashback. It also cites a Making Star Wars report about Luke being together with an X-Wing, which also seems like it would have to be a flashback thanks to Luke being dead.

However, Star Wars traditionally doesn’t do much in the way of flashbacks, so that theory doesn’t really ring true. Callbacks, yes. Flashbacks? That’s something reminiscent of The Last Jedi. To be fair, J.J. Abrams can’t completely ignore the film, but what he can do is pick up a theme from the Battle of Crait: the Resistance using whatever it has on hand to fight back.

If that means breaking the T-65s out of retirement, then it means breaking the T-65s out of retirement. While it may be difficult to justify still using them even as it’s believed Episode IX will jump ahead in time, it’s not impossible. No one bats an eye at the Millennium Falcon, and it’s canonically … well, not “garbage” as Rey calls it, but it is not a young ship, either.

Moreover, this might be Poe’s chance to shine. He claims, “I can fly anything,” and what would be a greater challenge — or a better character moment for a second-generation Rebel — then the chance to sit in a T-65 X-Wing? It’s somewhat less distinctive than his own orange-and-black successor ship, and if he needs to go undercover, as set photos also seem to suggest, then what better way to look like he’s down on his luck than using a hunk of junk like a T-65? (It hurts to even type that, but it’s an old model.)

As is usually the case with Star Wars, though, there is another possible reason to connect Luke and the X-Wing. Could he be a Force ghost, appearing next to a ship he’s associated with, and speaking to Rey or someone else, in an echo of Obi-Wan’s voice speaking to him during the first Death Star run?