Truth is in perilously short supply these days, and whether in the spheres of politics or entertainment, reporters have had to adapt. It’s no longer enough to ferret out the actual reality of a situation and relay that to readers; writers must get out in front of and directly interface with the flurries of hearsay that swirl around any major story. So the read on a new cache of purportedly leaked information regarding the upcoming Star Wars film is not so much “We may now know what happens in The Last Jedi” as much as it is “A Reddit user wants us to believe he knows what happens in The Last Jedi.”

Here’s how the process of information-genesis works these days: A Reddit user known as “dbvjb” added a post titled “Spoiler Dump (ACT I)” to the Star Wars Speculation board. The post outlines an ostensible outcome of the first hour or so of the next Star Wars movie, including the detail that Luke can now talk to birds. (Which would rule, but that’s not the point here.) One fellow Reddit user cannily commented, “This fake leak is so much better than any fake leak we ever got for TFA.” Indeed, for a “leak” that is backed up with zero sources or hard information, it’s relatively amusing, what with Luke talking to birds and whatnot.

The trenchant investigators of Nerdist then repeated this information as a “rumor” in a recent video and advised viewers to “take it with a grain of salt.” The folks at Gizmodo’s io9 site then reposted Nerdist‘s video under the headline “We Might Know One of the Pivotal General Leia Scenes in Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” which is kind of like me saying “I might have latent superpowers” in that it technically exists within the realm of possibility but almost definitely is not the case. So, the only confirmed story here is “guy on a web site said a thing.”

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