Almost three months after its release, the dust has officially settled on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The verdict is that the film is at best a missed opportunity and at worst a disaster that may have done some serious damage to the franchise. I’m somewhere between the two: I thought the movie itself was pretty terrible and reeked of corporate cowardice, but I hope they can learn from their lessons as they move towards the future. And, even as someone who really hated it, there were some cool ideas that I enjoy in isolation.
One of them was the gigantic Resistance fleet that Lando organized to take on the Emperor’s fleet of Star Destroyers in the finale. Sure, not much of the scene made sense and it was too visually busy, but I at least appreciated the shout-outs to a bunch of obscure Star Wars crafts. Almost as soon as the film was released, many of these cameos were detailed, too. Star Wars Rebels’ ships on the big screen included the Ghost and the Shadow Caster, while The Clone Wars saw the Crucible make the cut and we even got several crafts from the Prequel Trilogy.
But a Blu-ray special feature titled “A Final Alliance” promises to take us through how they assembled the thousand-strong fleet. This feature is exclusive to the Target edition of The Rise of Skywalker but io9 have a new clip from it, in which Lucasfilm Design Supervisor James Clyne explains that “we’ve thrown in just about any ship we can find.” These include everything from The Phantom Menace‘s Naboo Starfighter, to Rogue One’s U-Wing, to Mandalorian ships from The Clone Wars and, my personal favorite, the ship from old Disneyland ride Star Tours.
You can see the clip for yourself by hitting the link in the Tweet below:
See how the most impressive Star Wars fleet was created in this exclusive Rise of Skywalker clip https://t.co/IV1Fd6XhbN pic.twitter.com/k2ToOBn7B4
— io9 (@io9) March 10, 2020
Despite my opinion of the film, I’m almost tempted to pick up a copy of the Blu-ray simply for the special features. This breakdown of the fleet sounds cool enough, but the feature-length documentary The Skywalker Legacy looks to be an in-depth exploration of why Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker turned out how it did. I doubt there will be much juicy gossip in there, but perhaps we’ll get some clues as to why it disappointed so many.
