The Week in Fan Theories: Is Baby Yoda a clone? And will Force Ghosts return?

Welcome to The Week in Fan Theories, your guide to what fan theories, good and bad, are taking the internet by storm!

With so many fan theories floating around the web, it can be hard to know which ones to take seriously and which ones are wildly off the mark. Some theories are brilliant breakthroughs that reveal a whole new understanding of what a work of fiction means, or they're spot-on predictions about what's going to happen in the next installment. Others are specious bunk, deeply flawed theories that nevertheless get aggregated by some of the less scrupulous news sites.

This week we've got two Star Wars theories that are actually pretty good and supported by some interesting evidence, as well as a wonderfully deranged theory about Avengers: Endgame. It's rare weeks like this when there are mostly good fan theories that make the rest of it worth enduring.

Credit: Disney+, Lucasfilm

FORCE GHOSTS WILL PLAY AN ACTIVE ROLE IN THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

There's lots of speculation that Force Ghosts will appear in Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. It makes sense, given that they've played big roles in past movies and because Mark Hamill is in The Rise of Skywalker despite Luke Skywalker's death at the end of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Presumably, Luke is a Force Ghost now. And, while there are lots of theories that unexpected ghosts will appear, like Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker, one theory just got a big boost.

The Last Jedi established that, contrary to what the original trilogy had us believe, Force Ghosts can interact with the physical world, as seen when Yoda summoned a lightning bolt to destroy the first Jedi temple. Will Force Ghosts play an active role in The Rise of Skywalker, actually influencing events rather than just appearing before Rey or Kylo Ren?

When Entertainment Weekly asked director J.J. Abrams, "What can Force Ghosts do — and not do — in our world?"

Abrams responded with an intriguing non-answer: "That's probably best answered," he replied, "by not answering it."

It's hardly confirmation, but Abrams seems to be keeping the possibility open that we'll see Force Ghosts do more than just tell people to go to the Dagobah system in The Rise of Skywalker.

BABY YODA MIGHT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH KAMINO CLONING

There are a lot theories about where Baby Yoda came from on The Mandalorian (and for the purposes of this article, we'll be calling him or her or it "Baby Yoda" only because there's no other easy way to refer to the little kid, because Yoda's species name is famously a Star Wars mystery). Is Baby Yoda literally Yoda's baby? Yaddle's? Something from the old, obscure Expanded Universe canon? After just two episodes, fans don't quite have enough information to make any real speculation, however one fan theory has some possibly compelling evidence.

An image of Dr. Pershing reveals an insignia that, from our incomplete glimpse of it, resembles similar emblems from Kamino, the planet from Episode II where the Clone Army was created.

Might this mean that Baby Yoda is a clone, or that Dr. Pershing intends to clone the lil' tyke? Fans will probably learn more tomorrow when Episode 3 hits Disney+.

TONY STARK'S DAUGHTER MORGAN WAS A ROBOT???

This is not a real theory so much as it is one person's hilariously bonkers reading, but one viral tweet claims that the poster's sister spent the entirety of Avengers: Endgame thinking that Morgan Stark, Tony's daughter, was just a robot child that he'd built for himself. According to this reading, all of the other Avengers were concerned about Tony because, well, he'd created a robot child for himself.

Again, this is not a real fan theory (and given how much stuff online is concocted for the purposes of going viral, it may not even be real at all). It does not need to be examined or considered. It's just, uh, pretty funny! Sometimes it's nice to have a little laugh.