By Zach Johnson

When JJ Abrams called up Chris Terrio and asked him to co-write the script for what would become Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (in theaters Friday), Terrio was excited, honored… and terrified. Saying yes meant he would not only be tying up the sequel trilogy, which began with 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but he would also be ending the Skywalker Saga that Disney Legend George Lucas started in 1977.

So… no pressure.

Terrio, of course, said yes to the project he’d been dreaming about since childhood. With Abrams, he began plotting where to pick up from 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi and where to take the characters next. “This movie is very much about this generation—and whether this generation can accomplish things that the previous generation didn’t,” he says. “Having grown up with the original trilogy, I would ask, ‘Can’t we talk a little bit more about Threepio or Lando?’ My natural affinity is toward these characters who are like my family, who I’ve grown up with and have loved. But in this film, if there had to be an emphasis, it fell on all the new characters, who we still have so much to learn about.”

In The Rise of Skywalker, the main trio—Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), and Poe (Oscar Isaac)­—finally work as a single unit. “We get to see them together on this adventure,” Terrio explains. “They learn about each other as we are learn about them.”

The film also introduces new characters, including the freedom fighter Jannah (Naomi Ackie) and the droid D-O. “We worked very hard to make sure every character had an arc,” says producer Michelle Rejwan, a veteran from The Force Awakens. “It was very important to us, because we’re so invested and care so deeply about these characters.”

So, when actors like Richard E. Grant and Keri Russell make their Star Wars debuts in The Rise of Skywalker, they do it in style. “Michelle and I both feel like the first 10 or 30 seconds you spend with a character is the moment when you bond with that character,” explains Terrio. “Think about the moment you first meet Lando, when he walks up to Han; the moment you realize he’s actually going to hug him, you fall in love with him.”

The Rise of Skywalker also marks the last time Disney Legend Carrie Fisher appears onscreen as General Leia Organa. Although the actress passed away in 2016 before filming began, Abrams—with the blessing of Fisher’s actress daughter, Billie Lourd, who plays Lieutenant Connix—was able to integrate unused footage from The Force Awakens into the movie. “Every time you look at a line, you know it’s amongst the last words that Carrie will ever say onscreen, so you want it to have meaning. And yet, you don’t want to lose the sense of Carrie’s wit and her funniness and her fun; you don’t want every line to be some grand pronouncement,” Terrio says. “You want to also keep a little of the improvisation and messiness that Carrie would deliberately bring to a role.”

For that reason and more, having Abrams return as the writer and director seems obvious in retrospect. Bookending the trilogy “just felt right,” Rejwan says. “There really is no one who could have done this other than JJ. It was a real homecoming to have him back.” It helped that the filmmakers have an “irrevocable chemistry and alchemy,” she says. “We did everything we could. We gave it everything we had. Because not only do we care about this movie so much—we care about each other.”

With the opening day just around the corner, both Rejwan and Terrio admit they are only now beginning to accept that this chapter of their careers is coming to an end. “It’s not a job,” Terrio says with a laugh. “You don’t text each other and call each other at 2:45 in the morning with an idea because it’s a job; you do it cause you love it so much.”

 “I really am so inspired by Star Wars and the endless possibilities. It’s the conversation around good and evil in the galaxy and within ourselves—that constant tension of the Force,” Rejwan tells D23. “Star Wars is this unbelievable blend of the intimate and the epic. Always. Because of that, it has to be very personal to the storytellers. This is a reflection, in a way, of all our souls because we love it so much and we put so much into it. It’s really Star Wars that inspires me, and I want to give it everything that it deserves.”

By Zach Johnson

Surprises! Unlimited surprises!

The first of many unexpected (but welcome) delights at the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker global press conference came when director Ava DuVernay was announced as the moderator. With the crowd going wild in anticipation, DuVernay quickly invited writer/director JJ Abrams, writer Chris Terrio, producer Kathleen Kennedy, and actors Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca), Naomi Ackie (Jannah), Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico), John Boyega (Finn), Daisy Ridley (Rey), Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron), Keri Russell (Zorii Bliss), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), and Richard E. Grant (Allegiant General Pryde) to share stories about the ninth and final episode in the Skywalker Saga before it opens in theaters December 20.

The biggest surprise would come later, as Abrams was explaining how he integrated unused footage of late Disney Legend Carrie Fisher (General Leia Organa) into the film. “There was no way we were going to do a digital Leia, and there was no way we would ever recast her, but we couldn’t do it without her. When we went back to look at the scenes we hadn’t used in The Force Awakens, we realized we had an opportunity. We could use the footage, use the lines she was saying, literally use the lighting—” Before he could finish his sentence, the lights suddenly turned off. “That’s amazing,” a smiling Abrams marveled. “That is creepy. Hi, Carrie! That is so Carrie, by the way, to do that!”

Tran said her scenes with Fisher are some of her favorite in the entire film. “There is sort of this idea that J.J. has talked about of ending nine films. Carrie was such a big part of all of that,” she said. “I think for me, personally, there was a lot of wanting to honor this thing and do right by this thing. I think she’s pretty incredible in this movie.”

Suotamo felt similarly about honoring the late Peter Mayhew. “When Peter passed, I was heartbroken,” the actor said. “I tried to do him justice in this film. I’m really proud, with this incredible cast, that we’re a part of something so much bigger than ourselves.”

Tran, Suotamo, and their co-stars hadn’t seen the finished film until a day earlier—but Grant, who makes his villainous Star Wars debut in The Rise of Skywalker, wasted no time posting a glowing review online. “I didn’t tweet any spoilers about it at all,” the actor clarified. “Having seen the first one as a theater student when I was 20 years old, before any of the younger cast were even born, it was an extraordinarily emotional thing to see the passing of time that goes through all of these movies. It felt really like a combination of everything I read in the Bible, Greek mythology, and The Wizard of Oz all rolled into one—into this extraordinary summation of the whole story. It delivers an emotional wallop at the end that I was totally unprepared for; I was wiped out, and I barely slept!”

Before the film debuts, we’re sharing seven standout stories from the press conference:

1. As Rey Has Grown in Her Power, So Has Kylo Ren.
“Being called The Force Awakens was intentional in that it was the force awakening for both sides of the light and the dark,” Driver explained. Over the course of three films, Kylo Ren has become the person he’s always wanted to be. “JJ, even in those first meetings, talked about someone who is unformed and not quintessentially in control of his faculties. He knows where he fits in—which is helpful for me as an actor, because we were figuring out the same thing—and it totally echoes what’s going on in the story.”

 2. Poe Dameron Is No Longer Flying Solo.
“I remember JJ being excited about dirtying up the squeaky flyboy image and revealing a little bit more of his personality,” Isaac said. “And I’ve been taken away from my little box in space! I get to join my friends this time!” Teasing that Poe’s “relentless, almost aggressive optimism” will be tested, he said fans will see “how he tries to be there for his friends,” as well as how he “tries to push them along when it seems quite hopeless.” 

3. C-3PO and Anthony Daniels Are One and the Same.
After playing one of only two characters to appear in all nine episodes of the Skywalker Saga, Daniels admitted he barely remembers a time before Star Wars was part of his life. “It’s rather like having your nose up against the planet: You can’t see how big that planet is. Now I’m beginning to a have a perspective on it, and that comes from talking to fans, to people who say what Star Wars has meant to them over the years,” he said. “It’s meant something completely different to me. It’s a job. It’s kind of fun. It’s kind of a ball.” Now, he added, “I’m getting to see it from the other perspective of the audience.”

4. Like The Mandalorian, Zorii Bliss Never Removes Her Helmet.
Russell was pleasantly surprised when Abrams reached out with an offer to join the cast. After collaborating for over 20 years, she was even more excited when he told her she’d be wearing a mask. “Keri loved the mask so much that the first two days she worked as Zorii, I never saw her face!” Abrams said. When she’s in character, Russell explained, “I can see everyone as this super tough version of myself in costume—and no one can see me. That’s my dream! It’s a real power play, in a way, because no one can really see what you’re thinking, but you can see everyone else.” Russell added that it was a thrill to work with Abrams again, and said she’s proud to see him finish what Disney Legend George Lucas started in 1977 with Star Wars: A New Hope. “I feel like we have a shorthand. We just speak the same language, in a way,” the actress said. “I feel like JJ got to finish a piece of history by getting to do this. He did such a great job.”

5. Jannah Is a Force to Be Reckoned With.
Resistance ally Jannah is a formidable warrior, so Ackie did pull-ups and took up horseback riding to look and feel the part. “With that came a confidence I hadn’t previously experienced,” the Star Wars newbie admitted. “I felt like Jannah’s strength was in her body.” To ensure Jannah was a multidimensional character, Ackie worked with Abrams to explore the freedom fighter’s softer side. “We don’t always have to be strong and fierce,” the actress said. “Sometimes vulnerability is strength at the same time. Finding that balance was really interesting, and I feel like we found it by the end.”

6. Lando Calrissian Is Back—and Better Than Ever.
Although Donald Glover played a younger version of the smooth-talking smuggler in 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, Williams hadn’t appeared onscreen as the character since 1983’s Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. “I didn’t think that it would happen,” he said. “I just wrote it off.” So, when he got the call from Abrams, he just laughed. “I thought it was just a wonderful gift,” he added, “so I’m a very, very happy human being right now.”

7. JJ Abrams Believes in the Power of the Force.
“The truth is that there’s the movie that you know you’re presenting to the world, and then there’s the thing that you’re doing not necessarily secretly, but meaningfully,” he said. “We live in a crazy world. We live in a crazy time. Star Wars, for me, was about hope, and it was about community and the underdog, and it was about bringing people together and seeing all oddballs represented and the most unlikely friends in the most unlikely places. And the family that you make is really your family.” Without spoiling the final film, Abrams added, “It really is about hope. It’s about coming back to a sense of possibility. It’s about unity. And if Star Wars can’t do that for us, I don’t know what can.”