Now that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is almost at the end of its theatrical run, Lucasfilm is preparing for the home release by sharing snippets from the last installment in the Skywalker Saga.
These short clips have included Harrison Ford’s cameo as Han Solo, Rey and Ben teaming up to fight Darth Sidious, a young Luke and Leia training together, Lando Calrissian encouraging Poe to lead the Resistance, and last but not least, Rey slicing through Kylo’s Silencer in one of the movie’s most epic moments. Now, fans can relive the scene that showed the deep bond between R2-D2 and C-3PO.
As seen above, after the group of swashbuckling heroes deletes C-3PO’s memories to decrypt a Sith rune on a dagger, the droid returns to the Resistance base but fails to recognize his old friend. R2-D2, on the other hand, has prepared for such an occasion and restores his memory by uploading a backup copy from several days prior.
While it’s sweet to realize that R2 is always making a backup of Threepio’s memory banks, the whole thing about this journey to translate the artifact falls apart if you think too much about it. Moreover, it’s just one of The Rise of Skywalker‘s several instances that prove the filmmakers weren’t willing to take a risk with the story. Chewbacca seemingly dying but returning in the next scene, Rey stabbing Kylo in the gut with a lightsaber, and Ben Solo falling off an endless chasm, to name a few, all go a long way to show that almost everything is consequence-free in Episode IX.
Of course, there’s no denying that Abrams’ concluding entry didn’t renovate the story in any meaningful way after its divisive predecessor and most of the plot revolved around a MacGuffin that would lead the characters to where Emperor Palpatine had been hiding all this time. But through this stretched-out and sometimes bland chasing sequence, Anthony Daniels got the chance to shine as C-3PO and once again remind us all why we fell in love with his character in the first place.
In any event, if you haven’t been able to watch Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in theaters, you can catch the digital edition on March 17th and the Blu-ray UHD disc on March 31st.