New ‘Rise of Skywalker’ Trailer Reveals More About Palpatine and Snoke's Roles [SPOILERS]

We're very close to the end of the Skywalker saga and Disney has released another trailer in preparation for the final showdown. In the most recent trailer for Star War: The Rise of Skywalker, we're taken back to a very old foe and learn about the tricks he's been playing all along. 

How is Emperor Palpatine going to play a role in Rise of Skywalker? The answer lies in the Sith temple.

In the most recent trailer, Kylo descends into a mysterious cave and a lightning flash reveals several statues in the darkness. It's a quick flash and slightly blurry, but eagle eyed fans have spotted that the statues bare a striking resemblance to Four Sages of Dwartii.

Rian Johnson promised that the final film would tie together all of the Star Wars films and that includes the prequels, in which the Four Sages were initially introduced. Palpatine kept bronze statues of the sages in his office. When he became Galactic Emperor, he took the statue of Sistros with him when he moved his base of operations to the former Jedi Temple. Sistros appears to be the statue most prominently featured in the foreground of the new trailer.

So who exactly is Sistros? In Star Wars canon, he was one of the ancient lawgivers from the dawn of the Galactic Republic, involved in the formation of the Republic's original constitution and he was greatly admired by Palpatine. But, according to the series' books that became "Legends", he was a controversial figure. He was accused of advocating lying to his people for selfish ends. He was known for being cold and unyielding.

Palpatine said he kept his statue for sentimental reasons and he also kept his lightsaber in the stature. Could Rian be setting up for Sistros's story to come full circle? 

Palpatine isn't the only Star Wars villain with ties and sentimentality for Dwartii. A reference to the sages was in plain sight all along. Snoke wore a ring with etchings of the Dwartii language. But what does that mean for the tie between Snoke and Palpatine? 

Fans have been theorizing about Snoke's background since he was introduced as a character in The Force Awakens but we still have yet to get a clear answer about where he's from. Although The Last Jedi novelization does provide a backstory as to how he rose to power, we're still left in the dark in regards to his origin. 

In the new trailer, we hear Palpatine tell Kylo that he's been the voice in his head all along and he then changes his voice to sound like Snoke and Darth Vader. Although who is pretending to be who? A popular theory is that Snoke is a force ghost projection by Palpatine, but, judging by Snoke's death scene, that doesn't seem possible anymore. 

But it might be possible that Snoke is older than we realize and might be a bigger orchestrator than we know. Could Snoke be one of the ancient Four Sages, namely Sistros?

 There seems to be no denying that Dwartii and its Four Sages will play a role in the final film, although we will have to wait and see just how. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is out in theaters on December 20.