Many people have been wondering just how the latest Star Wars trilogy was going to end, given how The Last Jedi ended. Now, we’re getting out first look at the big finale in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Man, is this teaser packed. We see some old faces, including Princess Leia as played by the amazing Carrie Fischer, and the return of Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams. We also see Rey, Finn, and Poe finally reunited and on the hunt of something, which looks like it could be the Death Star. Rey is taking down a tie-fighter with a new lightsaber, though how, where, and why are never addressed. And, perhaps most surprising of all, is the sound of some very familiar laughter right at the end that sounds like our good friend Emperor Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious. Could he have survived his famous fall? Or is his force ghost still wandering around the halls of the Death Star?
I’m probably not the only person scratching their head over the title. While The Rise of Skywalker sounds cool as hell, who exactly does it refer to? Luke is, for all intents and purposes, is dead, and Leia is likely not going to be around. Does this title refer to Kylo Ren, the only surviving member of the Solo-Skywalker family? Or is Rey somehow more tied into this family than we previously thought? Lots of questions remain.
The film will be directed by J.J. Abrams, who directed Episode VII and wrote the script for both films. And for those wondering, no, Fischer did not film anything for this film before her untimely death, but Abrams found ways to use un-shown footage from The Force Awakens to fill in the void.
“You don’t recast that part and you don’t suddenly have her disappear. The weird miracle of having a number of scenes from Force Awakens that had got unused, looking at those scenes and starting to understand that there was an actually a way to use those scenes and continue her story, so that it would be her,” Abrams explained to Stephen Colbert at the Star Wars Celebration in Chicago. “The idea of having a CG character was off the table … we said, ‘what if we could write scenes about her so it’s her performance?’ “
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will premiere in theaters on December 20, 2019.