Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker saw the much-heralded, long-awaited return of a much-loved, long-missed character. No, not that one. You’ve already been well-informed about Emperor Palpatine’s comeback. I know, because I wrote about 30 of the pieces on it. No, not Lando either. Stumped? I’ll tell you. Today we’re discussing the return of a much-loved, long-missed character that isn’t Emperor Palpatine or Lando Calrissian. His name is Wicket.
Wicket’s the most famous Ewok to emerge from the Star Wars universe. The fan favorite, played by Warwick Davis, last appeared in 1983’s Return of the Jedi. That is, until his brief cameo at the end of Skywalker.
In a new interview with ComicBook.com, the actor reminisced about director J.J. Abrams’s moment of pure fanboyism when he saw Warwick getting into the iconic costume, saying:
Oh my God. He was like a little child! I couldn’t see much, because it’s hard to see out of an Ewok costume because the eyes are misted up. But he was just so, so excited. And this was his idea to do this, and he relished every moment of it. And his gratefulness to me doing it. I was like, ‘You don’t have to be thankful. I just love doing it. Thanks for asking me.’ And, yeah. It was absolutely, absolutely brilliant.
There you go. Contrary to popular belief, J.J. Abrams does care about Star Wars. It’s notable how buzzed he was about such a small role for a (relatively) minor character’s return, too. It’s just a shame that more of that buzz didn’t translate into the finished film. Still, I’m sure many an Ewokphile shared his excitement when Wicket made his Episode IX entrance, though I confess it was so brief I missed it. I get easily distracted.
If there were any other characters you wanted to see reunited on-screen that weren’t, or any other characters who did return that I haven’t mentioned here, you’re welcome to make your thoughts known below. Like we haven’t had enough nostalgia already. Just wait till they remake the Sequel Trilogy. I give it less than 10 years before we get Episodes X through XII. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is far from the last we’ve seen of these faces, trust me.
