It’s been a wild few days for fans of Star Wars, and with the release of the saga’s next instalment, The Rise Of Skywalker edging loser, things will probably only get more wild from here on in. That is, wilder than Star Wars Barbie dolls. Now we can treat our eyes to some brand-new visuals from the upcoming release in the form of the first official artistic poster.

To filthy casuals, artistic posters might just be underwhelming, but as my fellow devotees understand, this is a big moment. As well as all the functional information, including its December 20 release date, the poster also details a fairly hectic looking clash between our two enigmatic leads; Luke Skywalker’s protégé Rey, and wannabe Sith badass Kylo Ren.

Before long your eyes will be drawn to the huge, menacing portrait of the once-deceased Emperor Palpatine, who’s evil laugh punctuated the official teaser released back in April. As such, it’s not a huge surprise that he will feature somehow in the film but the artistic poster suggests he’ll be playing a central role to the story, hopefully with more texture than we saw with apparent throw-away villain, Snoke.

The poster was revealed over the weekend at Disney’s D23 conference. As well as the poster, those in attendance were treated to some new footage of the film which is expected to land in the public realm sometime very soon. The footage reportedly features Rey holding a duel red lightsaber and – wait for it – the iconic laboured breathing of Darth Vader.

Rumours regarding the storyline are running wild at this point but Star Wars has a pretty great rep of keeping tight lips on their plots and twists. It’s widely believed that The Rise Of Skywalker will give us more info into Rey’s fuzzy background, there’s expected to be a bit of history on Space Cowboy Poe Dameron via the introduction of new character Zorii Bliss and more insight into just wtf Palpatine has been scheming.

In other Star Wars news, it’s been confirmed Ewan McGregor will reprise his Obi-Wan Kenobi for a Disney+ series, we’ve also been gifted with the first official trailer of The Mandalorian which looks to be a mix between Mad Max and The Punisher.

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