The climactic scene of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has Rey hear the echoing voices of past Jedi whose legacy she carries, lending her their strength against the undead might of the Emperor. And even though it would have been straightforward to pull them from archives, almost everything heard was a new recording.
Confirmation came from the film’s sound editor Matthew Wood, who had this to say about the endeavor of creating the audio montage:
“We got Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson and Sam Jackson. It was wonderful to have all the actors come back and be able to revisit their characters. I had to fly all around the world to go get them all. Everyone just has such a great love for Star Wars, and it was so fun to see all the different eras of Star Wars represented in that moment. It ends with Luke Skywalker telling her to get up, and then she has both sabers in her hand from Luke and Leia.”
The first voice she hears is Obi-Wan Kenobi’s, both Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness, the latter of whom is the only archived voice as Guinness passed away in 2000. As such, the recording of him saying “Rey” is edited from “afraid.”
The others she hears, in order, are Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, Luminara Unduli (featured in The Clone Wars and the rumor of whose survival of Order 66 was used as a trap by Jedi hunters the Inquisitorius), Qui-Gon Jinn, Aayla Secura (also featured in The Clone Wars and whose death was seen in Revenge of the Sith, shot down by a circle of her own squadron of Clone Troopers), Mace Windu, Adi Gallia (a third Clone Wars supporting character, ultimately killed by Darth Maul’s brother Savage Opress), Yoda and Luke Skywalker.
The inclusion of Ahsoka’s voice would sadly suggest that she’s dead, but if she were still alive she would be over 70 by this point, and with Twi’lek lifespans roughly concurrent to human ones, that’s not a bad innings. Alternatively, if you want to believe she’s still alive, then take her being able to appear here as a result of her briefly dying in The Clone Wars episode “Altar of Mortis.”
The re-emergence of so many past characters was a fantastically uplifting moment in a decidedly mediocre film that acted as a culmination of 40 years of the Star Wars saga’s ever-continual expansion, and it’s no wonder that Wood and his fellow sound editor David Acord have been Oscar nominated for their contribution to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s technical accomplishments.
