One of the most talked-about scenes in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, at least before the movie’s premiere, was an evil version of Rey brandishing a crimson double-bladed lightsaber. While the sequence didn’t last as long as we thought it would, it seems that a lot of work was put into making it as aesthetically pleasing as possible.
In terms of plot developments and character resolutions, J.J. Abrams had to pack a lot into the last movie of the Skywalker Saga. Maybe that’s why the film ultimately failed to live up to the hype and ended up disappointing fans. In a sense, Episode IX feels utterly rushed and incomplete. The pic had many promising setups, mind you, but it just didn’t care to flesh out any of them in a meaningful way. One of these instances revolved around Rey finding her way through the ruins of the Death Star after learning that Palpatine is her grandfather.
This was a pivotal moment for our protagonist. Knowing that Darth Sidious ordered Ochi of Bestoon to kill her parents, Rey was tilting closer and closer to the dark side. After finding the Sith Wayfinder in the Imperial Vault, she’s confronted by an image of her would-be evil counterpart, known as Dark Rey. The confrontation, much like everything else in this film, is underwhelming and only lasts for a couple of seconds, but it would seem that the producers really put a lot of thought into the details.
In fact, Abrams personally asked the designer to incorporate elements of Darth Vader’s lightsaber into Dark Rey’s double-bladed one, which you can see below.
Matthew Savage, the film’s concept artist, shared these photos on Instagram recently, highlighting the nod to the Original Trilogy villain, which, of course, isn’t the movie’s only reference to Darth Vader. Unfortunately, however, the sequence was too brief for us to notice all of these subtleties.
What did you think about Dark Rey’s moment in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, though? And what else did you expect to see? As usual, sound off with your opinions in the comments section below.
