Just like every major blockbuster before it, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker circled back into production late in the game to film some reshoots and pick-ups.
Of the additional photography, it turns out three pretty significant scenes were added into Episode IX, as the film’s editor Maryann Brandon told Art of the Cut (h/t Collider). Brandon, who edited The Rise of Skywalker alongside Stefan Grube, confirmed that reshoots began in July 2019, where the cast and crew reunited for a couple of weeks.
During that time, Abrams and his team “added some dialogue” and a “couple of very small emotional moments” to help tie everything together. One such scene involved Luke and Rey on Ahch-To, though Brandon is quick to note that “nothing major” was changed, so we imagine this last-minute tinkering brought about some reworked dialogue, rather than a new scene entirely.
The scene on the island with Luke, when Luke sees Rey. The film kind of informed us, after it was together, what it needed to say so we went back and got that dialogue. There was like a funny moment between Poe and Rey when he lands the Falcon and it’s on fire, we wanted to have a more humorous exchange between them. Nothing major, no.
Rey and Leia’s opening scene was also added during reshoots, and we understand J.J. Abrams and Co. turned to the Lucasfilm archives in order to retrieve old footage from Carrie Fisher’s performance in The Force Awakens. Indeed, Abrams had initially planned for Leia to hand over Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber in Episode VII, which is why it doesn’t look out of place in The Rise of Skywalker.
Brandon continued:
We shot Rey’s introduction when she’s up in the air and the rocks are spinning around her, because we wanted to introduce Leia and her. I had to go back and find good shots of Leia that we hadn’t used in [The Force Awakens], and we had those and it kind of made us think, ‘Oh we could have this really fun scene to introduce Leia and Rey.’ So the film kind of informs you of things it might need.
Now at $900M and climbing, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker continues to rule over the global box office – even if it’s likely to fall just short of The Last Jedi when the final tickets are tallied.
