Does the cast of “Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker” hinting at a Finn and Poe Dameron ship qualify as “queerbaiting”?
The action-packed first trailer for Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker pits Rey (Daisy Ridley) against Kylo Ren’s TIE Silencer and reintroduces Emperor Palpatine to the Star Wars saga, but the cast of the movie had something else on their minds while introducing the new teaser on Friday: a potential romance between Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) that’s been brewing since their first meet-cute in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Compared to the love triangle between Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo in the original Star Wars movies, the Sequel Trilogy has been light on romantic entanglements, with the exception of a kiss shared between Finn and Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) in The Last Jedi.
But there’s one romance which fans have been clamoring for ever since Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) reunited with Finn and insisted the newly minted Resistance hero hold onto his jacket. “Keep it, it suits you,” Dameron tells Finn, biting his lip. The moment has inspired everything from bromance memes to a “shipping” (fan-fantasized relation ships) hashtag: #stormpilot.
At the Star Wars Celebration Episode IX panel in Chicago, where The Rise of Skywalker trailer first premiered, the cast repeatedly referenced the Poe and Finn ship.
