Disclaimers:

1. Due to the fact that The Rise of Skywalker is currently going through a round of additional photography and the basic nature of leaked information in general, I cannot guarantee that everything you read here will make it to the final cut of the film just as I describe, but I feel highly confident in the accuracy of my information at this point in time based on the current state of the film.

• I already know that there are going to have to be addendums and corrections to this 3 part series due to reshoots, editing and a general evolution of understanding of this film. Even as I was writing this last part, little details about many things that I had written about in each act have come back to me as having changed or been deleted. As I learn more I'll be gathering these details together and releasing them periodically in reshoot/edit update posts so be on the watch for these in the coming weeks and months.

1. I will also tell you that due to increased activity of other leakers such as Making Star Wars or Bespin Bulletin, not all of what you will read here will be new information, but I will tell you that my plot summaries are assembled exclusively from my own sources, so any similar/identical information to other reports can (and in my opinion, should) be used as corroboration of the validity of both sources.

2. These are not official act breaks, this is just how I would break the film up into 3 parts.

SPOILER WARNING!

If you do not want to know what happens in IX, read no farther.

For anyone who missed it, here are Act I and Act II as well as my initial story outline for comparison purposes.

ACT III

[Ahch-To]

Following her experience on the Death Star, Rey returns to the island on Ahch-to. Throughout the course of the film she has given in to her aggression, nearly killed her friend by unleashing a stream of lightning on a ship, learned that she is the descendant of the Sith Lord who reduced the Jedi to numbers that they have yet to recover from even half a century later, saw a vision of herself as a servant of darkness and stabbed her enemy through the chest in anger. Her most recent encounter with Kylo was the last straw and Rey has now made the decision to follow the example set by Luke and exile herself on the island where the Jedi began. Rey scuttles the ship she stole from Kylo and throws the repaired lightsaber originally constructed by Anakin Skywalker in after it. A ghostly hand snatches the lightsaber out of thin air as it's being thrown. It's Luke Skywalker. Luke’s conversation with Rey is said to be encouraging yet realistically grim in tone. Luke knows first hand what it’s like to face Palpatine and that it’s not an easy task. Rey must confront Palpatine in the same way that Luke once had to confront Vader. Luke encourages Rey by telling her of the faith Leia had in her. She saw the potential within her and hoped that Rey would be able to restore balance to the Force once more just as Anakin once did. Rey supposedly asks to speak to Leia at one point, but Luke responds by telling her that Leia has not yet completed her training and he can not yet feel her distinctive consciousness within the Force. By the end of their conversation, Rey is reenergized for the seemingly insurmountable task that lies ahead of her and agrees to leave the island. Having destroyed the ship she used to come to Ahch-to, Luke raises his own X-wing (previously seen submerged in the coves of the island) to allow Rey to face Palpatine. In addition to the starfighter, Luke gifts Rey with a lightsaber that once belonged to Leia. He tells her how Leia left her saber with Luke when she stopped training and Luke kept it on him. He then points Rey to where he kept it safe in his hut. Rey boards the X-wing, armed with the coordinates for Palpatine’s location obtained from Vader’s wayfinder and leaves the planet.

[The Resistance’s Jungle Base]

After returning to the jungle base, several things happen. After seeing the sacrifice made by 3PO, R2 reveals that he has a backup of C-3PO’s memories in his archives and is able to restore the droid to a mostly whole state. My sources believe this backup memory to have been created sometime around the time of The Force Awakens. It’s an older C-3PO, but it’s better than no 3PO at all. Lando reenters the story, having changed his mind, coming to the Jungle Base and wanting to help however he can. It is at this time that Rey begins transmitting coordinates into the Unknown Regions obtained from the wayfinder to the Resistance. The Resistance mobilizes, readying themselves for the impending conflict.

[The Unknown Regions- Exogol]

Rey follows the coordinates found in the wayfinder to the same spot Kylo did earlier in the film. Rey lands outside the giant cube floating above the ground and makes her way through the same underground passages. The cube, composed of black rock, floats several meters above the ground and is so massive that one corner can not be seen in frame when the camera is at another. As Rey travels down into the depths of the planet, giant Sith statues can be seen. Where Rey and Kylo’s experiences begin to differ come in with where Rey discovers Palpatine. Palpatine is not in the same chamber that Kylo discovered him in, but in a huge arena, surrounded by Sith loyalists in dark cloaks in the grandstands. Palpatine is being supported by some kind of mechanical arm, possibly connecting him to life support machinery. Rey begins to confront Palpatine. During this conversation Sideous reportedly confirms Rey’s lineage and goads her on to take up a lightsaber and strike him down (very much like how he encouraged Luke to do the same thing 30 years prior), telling her that only in killing him will she gain the power needed to save her friends. Palpatine also apparently makes statements alluding to the belief that Vader could not betray Luke due to their familial bond and that same kind of bond would ultimately cause Rey to do what the Emperor wishes. During his taunts, the sickly Sith opens the roof of the stadium chamber revealing that the sky above is filled with Star Destroyers soon to be embroiled in conflict with the approaching Resistance. As the battle between the First Order/Empire and the Resistance begins to rage in the skies above them, Rey gives into the Emperor’s commands and decides to strike him down.

Through means that are still a bit foggy to me, Ben Solo was able to leave the wreckage of the Death Star and his former persona behind and travel to Exogol with the purpose of joining Rey to help her face down Sidious. Before leaving the Death Star wreckage, Ben abandoned Kylo’s lightsaber so now he’s walking into a warzone with no weapon. When he arrives on the planet, he encounters the Knights of Ren who are guarding the entrance to the arena where Rey and Sidious are. Ben reportedly dispatches each of them using only the Force. After doing this he enters the arena as Rey is about strike the Emperor using Leia’s blade. Ben grabs Anakin’s lightsaber and warns Rey to reconsider what she is about to do, to not kill the Emperor in anger. Seeing Ben arrive pleases Sideous. He then uses his power to bond them together and begins to syphon power from that bond and direct it into himself. As the power flows into him, the once silky and decrepit Palpatine stands tall and strong once again, restoring himself to a much younger, healthier state.

[The Skies over Exogol]

While all this action is happening on the ground, much more explosive events are happening in the sky. The Resistance and the First Order are locked in battle. The details I have on what happens during this branch of the plot are a bit sparse at the moment, but here’s what I have been told. The Resistance arrives and they are confronted with hundreds of Palpatine’s Sith Star Destroyers. Their goal is to take out the flagship of the destroyers, where General Pryde is located. Taking out the flagship will supposedly sever communications with the rest of the fleet and prevent them from being able to navigate the perils of the Unknown Regions. At one point during the battle Finn and Jannah (joined by others, but exactly who is not clear to me right now) land on Pryde’s flagship to destroy it. They recognize this as essentially a suicide mission but Finn and Jannah in particular see the price they may have to pay as wort it to prevent more children from being abducted like they once were. One of my sources described it to me like a D-Day type mission for the Resistence where they attempt to land on to a moving Star Destroyer amidst the battle scene.

Having returned to full strength, Palpatine then shoots lightning into Ben, forcing him to fall into a bottomless abyss, never to be seen again. Sideous then shoots lightning into the sky at Resistance ships. He reportedly continues to make statements about how Rey will join him. In defiance of this, Rey grabs both Anakin’s and Leia’s lightsabers and Palpatine turns his wrath on her. It’s lightsaber vs. lightning at this point and when it seems like all hope is lost for Rey, the spectors of Luke and Leia come to her aid. They jointly work toward overpowering the Emperor, deflecting his lightning back toward himself, killing him and unleashing an explosion powerful enough to make the arena start to crumble around them. Darth Sideous, the last of the Sith Lords, is finally dead. At this same time Finn and Jannah complete their mission and succeed in destroying Pryde’s flagship. The two are prepared to go down with the ship, but are rescued at the last second by the Falcon. Rey escapes the crumbling arena.

[The Resistance’s Jungle Base]

Having won the day, the survivors of the battle regroup at the jungle base and celebrate. What follows is apparently celebration across the galaxy, once again mirroring what is seen at the end of Return of the Jedi.

[Tatooine]

For the end of the film, the heroes then travel to where everything began. The desolate, sandswept planet of Tatooine. Between defeating Sidious and this moment, Rey has disassembled Anakin and Leia’s lightsabers and used their components to construct one of her own that I’m told contains a golden/yellow blade. Rey buries the leftover pieces beneath the Tatooine sands at the site of the Lars homestead. As Rey turns to join Finn, Poe, Jannah, Chewie, R2, 3PO, BB-8 and D-0, a stranger calls out to her. The stranger apparently speaks of how nobody has been seen around this land for a very long time and asks Rey for her name. This is the second time in the film that this question has been posed to her, but unlike her response on Pasaana, Rey has decided who she is. She gives the name Rey Skywalker to the stranger, adopting the name of her masters and revealing the primary meaning of the title of the film. As Rey begins to rejoin her friends, she catches a glimpse of some familiar glowing figures, watching over her. The assembly of heroes look off into the distance at the horizon of the desert planet and watch twin suns set on a universe filled with hope.

The End.

So there you have it. As a reminder, be on the lookout for a reshoot changes and corrections post in the not too distant future.