With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker just a few weeks away, Disney and Lucasfilm are eager for audiences to think of it as the final installment in a longer story. They’re saying it closes out the Skywalker Saga and to this end they’ve released a new mini-featurette taking us behind the scenes of the movies from across the saga. While there’s not a huge amount from the prequels, the aim seems to be to firmly connect Disney’s films with the Original Trilogy.
Whether they succeed or not remains to be seen, but whatever the case, this is a seriously cool little video. The absolute best bit comes right at the start when we see Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Alec Guinness and Peter Mayhew joking around in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon between takes. Ford is improvising through his lines, clearly not taking it particularly seriously. Everybody seems to be enjoying themselves, too, with the hilarious exception of a very grumpy looking Alec Guinness. Guinness famously thought that A New Hope was an awful film while making it and here he looks like he’s mentally berating his agent for signing him up to this.
Another thing that stands out is the amount of practical props on set in the new films. Right from The Force Awakens Disney, Lucasfilm and J.J. Abrams were vocal about their plans to eschew blue screen as much as possible and go with practical effects. Watching the cast react to the Millennium Falcon prop is great, as is seeing Daisy Ridley holding a ‘real’ lightsaber prop that illuminates her surroundings.
One thing also of note in the final moments of the video is a very short clip of Warwick Davis in costume as Wicket, which may be a hint that everyone’s favorite forest-dwelling furballs are finally making a comeback.
We’ll see whether Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker lives up the hype when it hits theaters on December 20th.
