Trivia / The Rise of Skywalker

This page contains unmarked spoilers. You Have Been Warned!

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• Acting for Two:
  • Boolio, the Ovissian spy allied with the Resistance whom Finn met in the beginning, is voiced by Mark Hamill under pseudonym "Patrick Williams".
  • Billie Lourd, already playing Lt. Connix, also physically played Leia during the flashback to her training with Luke, with her late mother’s younger face digitally superimposed on her.
  • Besides reprising his role as Wicket W. Warrick, Warwick Davis also has an uncredited role as a background character named Wizzich Mozzler, a Cyclorrian who works in the Resistance as a technician.
  • This technically applies to Daisy Ridley, who plays both Rey and the evil doppelganger Rey encounters in a vision (with the implication this would've been Rey's fate had Emperor Palpatine successfully possessed her).
• Acting in the Dark: Daisy Ridley claims that Abrams was flip-flopping over whether Rey should be made Palpatine's granddaughter or stick with the previous film's reveal of not being connected to anyone important, to the point that for most of filming, she had no idea which one would end up being in the film. Nonetheless, she was aware of the idea that Rey was going to be related to the Emperor, which informed her performance.
• All-Star Cast: The cast is already star-studded with the actors who appear prominently in the film, but then there's all the voice cameos, especially from dead Jedi talking to Rey at the end, with their actors from all sorts of Star Wars media. Also Harrison Ford via One-Scene Wonder.
• Approval of God: J.J Abrams confirmed that he spoke to George Lucas about Palpatine's resurrection and that Lucas approved of the idea. This is not surprising, as Lucas had a hand in approving Dark Empire, where Palpatine returning in a cloned body and leading a massive fleet of Star Destroyers was also a core premise.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Ian McDiarmid says that when J.J Abrams called him to ask him if he would be willing to return as Palpatine, he had to "contain himself" in order to give a professional answer, since the notion of playing Palpatine again filled him with that much giddiness and excitement.
• Banned in China: The film was only allowed for theatrical release with a PG-13 in Singapore if a same-sex kiss was edited out. On Disney+ in Singapore, where the movie is uncensored, the movie is instead rated NC-16.
• Billing Displacement: As with The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, top billing is given to original trilogy leads Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa) and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), and sequel trilogy antagonist Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) is also credited before Daisy Ridley (Rey), the actual lead of the film and trilogy. The Rise of Skywalker, however, is the most blatant case of the three because the top-billed Fisher has only brief appearances through formerly unused footage and Hamill appears in just two scenes, with only one prominently featuring him. Fisher's top billing was presumably a tribute to her and recognition of how the film was supposed to focus on Leia, like how The Force Awakens focused on Han Solo (which gave top billing to Harrison Ford) and The Last Jedi focused on Luke (which gave top billing to Hamill), before her death dashed these plans. Curiously, Ford is uncredited despite his One-Scene Wonder.
• Blooper: As detailed here, during the shot in the trailer where Rey and Kylo are dueling on the wreckage of the Death Star, a close look at the latter's reflection reveals that his cape is in fact CGI. It was fixed in the final product.
• The Character Died With Her: Carrie Fisher's death meant that the story had to be reworked to minimize Leia's role and ultimately work her death into it.
• Christmas Rushed: There are reports that the production team lost three months of time to work on the film and ended up having to rush it through since Disney insisted on the December 20th release date. This was later given credence with editor Maryann Brandon saying the film's editing process was a rush job that affected the entire production.
• Content Leak: Every major plot point was leaked on Reddit months before the film premiered, with many not believing them until the film released (partly because of a number of other "leaks" which contained false information that came out around the correct one). John Boyega also misplaced his shooting script in a hotel room and it was found by a maid and placed on eBay, but in this case it was recovered before any damage could be done.
• Creator Backlash:
  • John Boyega and Oscar Isaac have made it adamantly clear on social media and in interviews that they dislike how Finn and Poe were handled in this movie. Isaac even admitted that he, after feeling like his character's personality and role shifted with every movie, had little real interest in reprising the role of Poe unless he desperately needed the money (although he backtracked on this a few years later), while Boyega was exceptionally frank about how disappointed he was to see Finn's role reduced after The Force Awakens, noting that some of his co-stars, including Daisy Ridley, were supportive of his criticisms.
  • Unrelated to his role in the movie, Boyega also got into a Twitter spat with Reylo shippers when he implied he felt the ship came out of nowhere (by juxtaposing the scene of their kiss to screenshots of their previous interactions- Rey cutting open Kylo's face, Kylo kidnapping and torturing Rey, etc.)
  • Freddie Prinze, Jr. only reprised the role of Kanan Jarrus as a "favor", as he feels that the character’s sacrifice gets cheapened by any appearance he made after his death.
• Dawson Casting: According to the Visual Dictionary Zorii is in her mid-thirties while Keri Russell was in her early forties during filming.
• Demand Overload:
  • After the announcement trailer went live, Twitter went down for a minute or two due to the overload of fan excitement.
  • The release of the first real trailer for the movie also caused several sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even AT&T's own cell service, to crash for a few minutes from too many people trying to watch it.
• Descended Creator: J. J. Abrams provided the voice of D-O.
• Died During Production: Carrie Fisher's fatal heart attack in December 2016 before the release of The Last Jedi reportedly brought some major changes to the film. Leia's part in TLJ was not changed, even though there was a clear opportunity to kill off the character, reportedly because Rian Johnson wanted all of her final performance as Leia to be in the finished film. For The Rise of Skywalker, J. J. Abrams repurposed unused footage of Leia from The Force Awakens, and wrote Leia's scenes in the movie around what was available, with use of a Fake Shemp (Fisher's daughter Billie Lourd) in some shots from the back.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • The then-81-year-old Billy Dee Williams went through a strenuous workout routine to get back into shape for the film. It was actually reports about it that first stirred excitement that Lando might be in the film, months before it was officially confirmed.
  • Naomi Ackie took seven months' worth of horse-riding lessons to prepare for her role as Jannah.
• Enforced Method Acting: Joonas Suotamo really drew upon his own grief about Carrie Fisher's passing for the scene where Chewie breaks down in sorrow over Leia's death.
• Follow-Up Failure: Followed The Force Awakens in the directing filmography of J. J. Abrams and was nowhere near as well received.
• Gay Panic: There's a blink-and-you-miss-it shot of a female-female kiss during the victory celebration at the end of the film that is conveniently short enough to be cut from some overseas versions to keep the film from being Banned in China without affecting the story.
• Lying Creator:
  • J.J. Abrams stated that while making The Force Awakens, his intention was that Rey wasn't related to anyone important from the rest of the franchise. Come The Rise of Skywalker, and she's Darth Sidious/Sheev Palpatine's granddaughter. Of course, it is possible that he was specifically talking about her parentage, as her parents are indeed unimportant characters that have never been in the franchise before.
  • At the 2019 Celebration and building up to the film’s release, Abrams claimed that Rose would receive a lot of screen-time, but she ended up suffering Demoted to Extra status in the film (amounting to less than two minutes of screentime). In this case, the lie may have been accidental and a result of the aforementioned Christmas Rushed editing problems.
• Meaningful Release Date: The final trailer was released October 21, 2019, which would've been Carrie Fisher's 63rd birthday.
• No Stunt Double: Daisy Ridley did 95% of her own stunts in the film, with only the most risky stunts (such as the shot of Rey backflipping over Kylo Ren's TIE fighter) being reserved for her three stunt doubles. Adam Driver also insisted on doing his own stunts, as he was very protective of Kylo Ren's body language and didn't want a double changing the way he carried himself.
• Not Screened for Critics: Like The Force Awakens, The Rise of Skywalker had no test screenings, likely as a failed attempt to prevent any spoiler leaks.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Hassan Taj and Lee Towersey play R2-D2 instead of Jimmy Vee.
  • In the Japanese dub, Shin Aomori replaces Takashi Inagaki as the voice of Palpatine.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Víctor Covarrubias replaces Arturo Mercado as Lando. This is especially a relevant case, as another SW role played by Mercado in the previous film (Yoda) was voiced by a Brazilian Portuguese voice actor, and many fans already expected that Mercado could at least return as Lando.
  • In the Hungarian dub, Kanan Jarrus' single line is spoken by a different actor, as his regular dubbing actor from the series Star Wars Rebels, Csaba Zöld, is already the voice of Ben Solo/Kylo Ren in the film.
• Posthumous Credit: As with The Last Jedi, Carrie Fisher still receives a credit as Princess Leia despite her death almost 3 years before the film's release.
• Prop Recycling:
  • As seen here, one of the Knights of Ren is carrying a weapon first seen on Dryden Vos' ship in Solo.
  • Palpatine's Xyston-class Star Destroyers are very clearly the same Imperial-I-class digital model used in Rogue One (with the addition of a Wave-Motion Gun and some red stripes).
  • Almost the entire fleet that Lando gathers is reused CGI.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • As it turns out, Richard E. Grant (Allegiant General Pryde) is a huge fan of the franchise, having seen the original on opening day when he was 20.
  • Co-writer Chris Terrio is a lifelong fan and brought a lot of his Expanded Universe knowledge to the writers room, explaining plot similarities to Dark Empire and the Jedi Prince series.
• Reality Subtext: The teaser has a voiceover of Luke saying that "We'll always be with you," and "No one is ever really gone," while Rey hugs Leia, referencing the passing of Carrie Fisher in 2016.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • As with the previous two films, both Carrie Fisher (Leia) and her daughter Billie Lourd (Kaydel Ko Connix) appear in the film (though the footages of the real Carrie date back to The Force Awakens).
  • For the first time in the history of the Star Wars franchise, both Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) and his uncle Denis Lawson (Wedge Antilles) appear in the same film, if only as a voice cameo for the former and a brief cameo for the latter.
  • Warwick Davis reprises the role of Wicket W. Warrick. The Ewok standing next to him is Wicket's son Pommet, played by Warwick's son Harrison.
  • Víctor Covarrubias, who voiced Lando in the Latin American Spanish dub, is the nephew of the late Jesús Barrero, who voiced Luke in all of his previous appearances until The Force Awakens.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Rey/Daisy Ridley's hairstyle and outfit are similar to her original look in The Force Awakens due to her scenes with Leia/Carrie Fisher being mixed with archival/unused footage of her and Leia/Carrie from there.
• Recycled Script:
  • A major element is the return of the Emperor. In addition, during the climax he actively takes part in the battle by using the Force to attack and nearly destroy the Resistance fleet and their allies. Both plot points were previously used in Dark Empire.
  • The concept of two people inextricably bound through the Force, to the point that they are able to share each other's senses, strongly resembles a concept from the Legends backstory of General Grievous of all places, as well as the Jedi Exile in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords regaining the ability to use the Force at all through her bond with Kreia.
  • Palpatine's plan of harnessing the combined power of all the Sith is pretty much lifted from Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, where Jerec's plan was to harness the combined powers of thousands of fallen Jedi to make himself a Physical God.
  • A lot of similarities to Star Wars: The Old Republic:
    • An immortal Sith Emperor making three attempts to take over the galaxy. The first is a military attempt through proxies and with Mandalorian help, then, a long time after, another military intervention (with an attack on the capital), then one with a geometrically perfect superfleet out of nowhere, with the Emperor claiming this is the real attempt.
    • The slain Emperor tempts the hero with promises of true power, in reality, of course, intending to hijack them for his resurrection.
    • A direct descendant of the Emperor, whom a parent tried to keep away, is instrumental in his defeat.
  • The Jedi Prince series also revolved around the heroic grandchild of Palpatine, whose father was Palpatine's defective clone.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • The revelation that Snoke was actually a Puppet King created and controlled by Palpatine may have been inspired by the early drafts of A New Hope, where the character of Cos Dashit (who ultimately evolved into Palpatine) served as a figurehead of the New Galactic Empire, which was in reality ruled by the Moffs.
  • Palpatine being the Final Boss of the ninth and final installment of the Skywalker Saga actually hearkens back to Lucas's original plans for a Sequel Trilogy, in which he would've only debuted in the final installment of said trilogy. Lucas eventually decided to shelve his Sequel Trilogy and work on the Prequel Trilogy instead.
  • The aforementioned unused footage with Carrie Fisher from The Force Awakens being repurposed for this film to give Leia a sendoff, complete with some uses of a Fake Shemp here and there.
  • Some concepts for Rey's homeworld in The Force Awakens included an ocean world and/or a world riddled with debris from one of the Death Stars, which we see reused in this film. In addition, Rey can be seen holding what appears to be a breathing tank for diving, which was also a part of the scrapped ocean world concept.
  • According to Abrams, making Rey a Palpatine was a very early idea during the writing of The Force Awakens.
    J.J. Abrams: "And though I completely understand 'you're nobody' is a devastating thing, to me the more painful, the more shocking thing was the idea that you're from the worst possible place."
• Release Date Change: The film was moved from a Summer 2019 release to December 20, 2019 in order to accommodate the change of director. Box office pundits noted it made sense to do so, as the previous Disney-produced Star Wars films benefitted greatly from the Christmas season box office (and while the film was a financial success, its time running in theaters was cut shorter than usual because of the onset of COVID19.)
• Role Reprise:
  • Ian McDiarmid reprises his role as Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious for the first time on-screen since Revenge of the Sith, which also follows his voice role in Star Wars Rebels.
  • Billy Dee Williams returns as Lando Calrissian after being absent from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Similar to Palpatine, this marks his first big screen appearance as the character since Return of the Jedi. Prior to this, he has lent his voice to the character in some voice-over projects such as Star Wars Rebels.
  • The same happens in the Japanese dub with the same character, as Norio Wakamoto returns again as Lando.
  • In the Hungarian dub, Gábor Reviczky returns as Palpatine, having last voiced him in the 1997 Special Edition dubs of the Original Trilogy (Palpatine's voice actor from the Prequels, Hugó Gruber, died in 2012). Károly Gesztesi, who sadly passed away shortly after the film's release, also returned for a final time as Lando, who has previously been dubbed by random other actors in other media.
• Shrug of God: Harrison Ford was asked if the Han Solo in this film is a Force Ghost. His response:
  I have no fucking idea what a Force Ghost is. And I don't care.
• Star-Derailing Role: The controversy surrounding the film caused Daisy Ridley's acting career to temporarily hit a speed bump (the fact the COVID-19 Pandemic really started kicking off shortly after its release didn't help either).
• Swan Song: This is the final work to feature James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader. He retired from the role a few years later, signing the rights to his voice to Lucasfilm to recreate using Respeecher for future projects starting with Obi-Wan Kenobi.
• Throw It In!: Chris Terrio claims that some of Kylo Ren's Harrison Ford-esque mannerisms such as giving Hux the pointed finger and his cocky shrug at the Knights of Ren were all improvised by Adam Driver.
• Troubled Production: The film hit several snags during pre-production. Carrie Fisher, who reportedly had a much larger role as Leia than the prior two films, died in December 2016, requiring the script to be heavily rewritten.^note It was later revealed that there was actually very little forward planning being done with the franchise, meaning they'd lost one of the very few things they were working towards. In September 2017, director Colin Trevorrow and writer Jack Thorne were fired only a few months before filming was set to begin. Rian Johnson was first asked to stay on after completing The Last Jedi, but turned down the offer. J. J. Abrams later signed on as director and the release date was pushed back from a Summer 2019 release to December 20, 2019. And then of course there was the editing rush due to the need to meet this release date, which had ripple effects across all aspects of production including the writing.
• Uncredited Role: Harrison Ford is uncredited for his cameo as Han.
• Voice-Only Cameo: When Rey is knocked out in the final battle with Palpatine, she hears the voices of many Jedi before her at her time of need. They are Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker, Olivia D Abo as Luminara Unduli, Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano, Aayla Secura (with her TV voice Jennifer Hale), Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu, both Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan, Frank Oz as Yoda, Adi Gallia, Freddie Prinze Jr. as Kanan Jarrus and Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn.
• Wag the Director: At the film's premiere Daisy Ridley stated how grateful she was to Abrams for removing a certain development for Rey that she disagreed with, though she didn’t give any specifics.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to Todd Fisher, Leia was originally going to be the "last Jedi". Carrie Fisher's 2016 death ended all of those plans. Likewise, Leia's overall role in the movie was altered to accommodate the unused footage from The Force Awakens (along with a brief shot from Return of the Jedi in a flashback), so as to avoid any digital body doubles like with Tarkin in Rogue One.
  • There were plans at one point to use unseen footage of Carrie Fisher from The Last Jedi as well, but it was ultimately decided to not use it because there was nothing that could contribute to the film.
  • Alan Dean Foster who wrote several Star Wars Legends novels along with the novelizations of A New Hope and The Force Awakens hated The Last Jedi to the point where he wrote his own story outline for Episode IX. This story treatment would undo and retcon many elements of TLJ such as revealing Rey’s affinity with the Force came from her being part-droid and Luke Skywalker would be revealed to be Not Quite Dead. Ultimately, however, Foster couldn’t finish his script in time for Disney to consider using it.
  • The film would have originally begun with Kylo Ren receiving Vader's wayfinder on Mustafar from a mysterious Force-sensitive being known as the Oracle. The being would have resembled a crustacean-like being sitting on or parasitizing a giant goblin-like creature (or possibly just a statue) submerged in the water below it. A drawing based on an eyewitness account was leaked on Reddit in April 2019, with another leak contextualizing its role being released in August. It was later announced that the Oracle was removed in reshoots, although a model of it briefly appeared in a BTS promo, confirming it was once intended as part of the movie. It was ultimately replaced with Kylo finding the Wayfinder in a safe in the ground at the Mustafarian village. This scene is included in the novelization, where the creature is known as "The Eye of Webbish Bog".
  • Leaks also indicate there was once more to the scene where Kylo repairs his mask, with the Knights of Ren apparently performing some kind of weird tribal dance once Kylo put it on.
  • Rose Tico and Leia were supposed to spearhead what remained of the Resistance together as co-leaders, but the unused footage of Leia from The Force Awakens gave the crew no plausible way to make the idea work, explaining why Rose ended up getting so little screen time compared to the previous film.
  • Concept art depicts Rey being even more aggressive during one of her confrontations with Kylo Ren, including Force-choking him and holding his lightsaber to his throat.
  • There is concept art depicting Kylo visiting an imprisoned Chewbacca, indicating they were intended to share a scene following Chewie's capture on Pasaana that didn't make it into the final product. Joonas Suotamo, Chewie's actor, would later talk about the filming of this scene in an autobiography.
  • Naomi Ackie stated that they tried out a few different hairstyles for Jannah, including an afro, a bob, and a long, straight style Ackie called "the Moana" (presumably in reference to the title protagonist of the animated film), before finally settling on the loose, shoulder-length curls she sports in the film, which was close to Ackie's natural hair.
  • An early concept involved Kylo Ren visiting the former Jedi Temple on Coruscant, which is depicted as having been abandoned by its many inhabitants for unclear reasons, and encountering giant wolf-like creatures that now inhabit the place. Palpatine was to be situated underneath here. This was scrapped when the idea for Exegol was implemented instead.
  • Rey and Rose were originally intended to share some scenes together, which were at least filmed, given there are stills of them together at the Resistance base and Kelly Marie Tran stated prior to the film's release that she was "excited" they would get to interact. However, these scenes were ultimately removed from the final film.
  • Hux and Pryde originally appeared much earlier in the film; they accompanied Kylo to Mustafar to locate the Wayfinder and watched the battle from a distance. Their scenes were ultimately cut from the theatrical film. The novelization includes their presence on Mustafar, with the scene even initially being told from Hux's viewpoint.
  • Creative director Doug Chiang revealed unused concept art for a double-decker Star Destroyer.
  • According to Daisy Ridley, Rey's heritage was not determined by the time that The Force Awakens was finished, with multiple options for an answer available to subsequent directors. Ridley suggested that one of J. J. Abrams' original ideas at the start of the trilogy was that Rey would be connected to either Obi-Wan Kenobi or Emperor Palpatine, until Rian Johnson decided to make her a 'nobody' in The Last Jedi. Given that Johnson's rationale for that decision was that Rey not having an easy answer was the hardest thing that she could hear, Abrams threw out the "Kenobi" explanation as that would give Rey exactly what she wanted — a place in the story. With that in mind, Ridley noted that Abrams was on the fence about whether or not he would use the Palpatine connection — the only thing harder for Rey to hear, in the circumstances of a story about him returning and being revealed as the source of much of her trauma — until the final cut of the film:
    Daisy Ridley: At the beginning, there was toying with an Obi-Wan connection — there were different versions — then it really went to it was no one, and then it came to episode nine and JJ pitched me the film and was like 'Oh, yeah, Palpatine is a granddaddy.' Then two weeks later he was like, 'Oh, we're not sure,' so it kept changing, so then even as we were filming, I wasn't sure what the answer was going to be.
  • Editor Maryann Brandon stated in an interview with the Huffington Post that she debated whether or not to include the scene where Rey and Ben kiss, including trying a few different cuts, before deciding it keep it in the film:
    Maryann Brandon: I always said, 'The movie will tell us whether they should kiss or not [...] We will know by the time we get to the end of our process, if it should happen. And I felt it should, and [director J.J. Abrams] agreed with me, and other people who saw the film agreed.
  • Concept artist Phil Saunders revealed that an earlier version of the script featured Rey seeking out the original designer of the Millennium Falcon for help in defeating the Final Order's armada, with Dame Judi Dench being considered for the role. She would’ve been found living on "yet another desert planet of course, and her home would’ve been carved into the top of a spectacular mesa."
  • According to the Art of the Rise of Skywalker book, earlier drafts had the aforementioned character as a blind shipbuilder character. She and Rey would have been familiar with each other as she made frequent visits to Jakku. During this draft, it was her ship that had been seen in Rey's flashback during Force Awakens. While it's never been confirmed, due to her relationship with Rey it's speculated that the character would have been revealed to be Rey's grandmother and thus the woman Palpatine had a child with, before the canon explanation that Palpatine's "son" was really a strand-cast clone of himself was decided upon.
  • Dark Rey was originally going to wear white robes and have her face shown.
  • Concept art exists of Finn using a lightsaber in the final battle, suggesting that at some point in development Finn training to be a Jedi was going to be in the film.
  • After years of rumors about him being involved in the film due to his name being briefly included on the cast list in 2018, Matt Smith confirmed in 2021 that he was seriously considered for a role in Episode IX early in development. He stated in an interview that his character would've had a significant role in the film and the Star Wars universe as a whole, though he didn't go into specifics. The role ended up being cut during script rewrites; Smith stated that things only got as far as a few meetings with the filmmakers before the character he would've played was scrapped. Many speculate that the role would have been Palpatine turned young through absorbing Rey and Ben's life force, when in the final movie it just restores Ian McDiarmid to his Revenge of the Sith appearance.
    Matt Smith in an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast: We were close to me being in it but then it just never quite happened. I think the thing they were thinking of me for eventually, the part became obsolete and they didn’t need it and so I never got to be in Star Wars.
• Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: In the wake of the movie's ending with Ben Solo's death, several Reylo shippers took to Twitter to campaign for Disney to retcon his death or otherwise resurrect him by getting hashtags such as #SaveBenSolo, #BringBackBenSolo and #BenSoloLives trending, primarily posting them as replies to posts from Star Wars' official Twitter account. Eventually, Star Wars account administrator Michelle Buchman informed them (from her personal account) that flooding the replies with those hashtags was being seen as spam and "negative engagement" and asked them to tone it down. But most of them didn't listen and a few of them started attacking Buchman on her personal account, which led her to take a break from her personal account. To this day, there is a Vicious Cycle in the Star Wars Twitter account: the Reylo shippers are aggressively demanding Reylo content/Ben's resurrection which is dissuading the Star Wars account from posting said content which makes the shippers more aggressive in their demands.
• Word of God:
  • Abrams revealed that Finn is Force sensitive, which explains the multiple instances in the film where he has a "feeling" and how he was able to realize that Rey was still alive during the final battle on Exegol. Abrams also said that his would-be dying declaration to Rey in the sand pit would have been to tell her about it.
  • The film's visual dictionary reveals that the planet the film opens up on is Mustafar, where it seemingly fully recovered after the events of the virtual reality game, Vader Immortal.
  • The Art of The Rise of Skywalker reveals that even prior to The Force Awakens entering development, meetings between leading figures in Lucasfilm such as Kathleen Kennedy, Dave Filoni and Pablo Hidalgo cemented Kylo Ren's fate as being influenced by Leia to return to the light before he dies. This notably remained a constant in every version of Episode IX that was worked on even when Colin Trevorrow was attached to direct. Not even Carrie Fisher's death prevented it from transpiring.
• Working Title: The initial working title of this movie was Star Wars: Black Diamond. In June 2018, the working title was changed to trIXie.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: As with previous films in the trilogy, many members of the production crew have admitted that very little of the story was planned out in advance of the film's production; Rian Johnson and J. J. Abrams both admitted prior to release that they did not actually have any specific ending in mind when writing the previous two films. Especially notable is that the earlier drafts for the film's script didn't include Palpatine at all, and it was Abrams who included him after being brought back. The death of Carrie Fisher also necessitated that many aspects of the film be suddenly rewritten. Daisy Ridley also revealed on a livestream in September 2020 that the subject of Rey's parentage was constantly in flux and went through numerous revisions. Even when the movie was being filmed, the idea of Rey being a Palpatine was something that even Abrams wasn't fully committed to at the beginning of production.
• You Look Familiar: In addition to her recurring background role as Resistance pilot Kaydel Ko Konnix, Billie Lourd body-doubles for her mother Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa in a number of shots.

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