Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's JJ Abrams responds to dark Rey twist

Following the recent footage released from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, director JJ Abrams has responded to the dark Rey twist at the end of the video.

In the clip, Daisy Ridley's character can be seen wielding a red, double-bladed lightsaber, which has left many fans speculating whether she'd turned to the Dark Side.

The footage was released at D23 Expo in Anaheim back in August and Abrams has now addressed those rumours.

Related: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker unveils first look at Kylo Ren's repaired helmet

"I'd rather let that one lie," he told Empire. "But I will say that the movie has a number of things that you wouldn't expect to have happen and that you wouldn't expect certain characters to do."

"There are surprises along the way," the director added. "And that's one of them."

So is she just a regular Rey using a red lightsaber? Or has she taken the wrong direction?

JJ's not the only one to give such an ambiguous answer to that burning question. Last month, Daisy herself spoke about her character and whether she could have gone dark or not.

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"I mean, the evidence is on the screen," she told Yahoo Movies. "Take that evidence as you will. But there's no smoke without fire."

"Just wait and see what JJ [Abrams] and [co-writer Chris Terrio] did," she added. "It's really impressive how they wrapped it up altogether and hopefully [with] a fitting ending."

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be released on Thursday, December 19 in the UK and Friday, December 20 in the US.

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Filiz Mustafa

Filiz Mustafa is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy.