'Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker' Round-Up: J.J. Abrams And The Cast Tease More Details About Rey And Kylo Ren's Relationship
We're just under four months away from the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which brings the Skywalker saga to an epic conclusion. In a new interview, co-writer and director J.J. Abrams briefly teased the film's final sequence, and elsewhere, he and Daisy Ridley and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy all tried to describe Rey and Kylo Ren's relationship in this film in just one word. Watch their answers below, and find out some more details about a different relationship that plays out in the upcoming sequel.
.@jjabrams gave us a few hints on what to expect in '#StarWars: Rise of Skywalker' from the mysterious Emperor, to the pivotal final sequence and a possible redemption for #KyloRen through Adam Driver's performance: "He is mindblowing in this" #D23Expo pic.twitter.com/QbXNJzixnm
— MTV NEWS (@MTVNEWS) August 28, 2019
MTV News's Josh Horowitz spoke with J.J. Abrams about...well, several things, but the one thing I'm sort of surprise Abrams would comment on at all is the ending of the movie. Of course, it was largely vague, but Abrams revealed they decided on the final sequence "very early on". Kevin Smith visited the set and previously alluded to the ending, and former /Film contributor Lindsey Romain has a plausible spoilery theory about what it might be; read her thoughts in this thread.
Good Morning America (via Star Wars Underworld) got Abrams, Kennedy, and Ridley to separately boil down Rey and Kylo Ren's relationship in this film into just one word. I like all of their responses, and appreciated how Abrams compared it to other character motivations across the franchise.
And speaking of Kennedy, she revealed some more info about another one of this movie's big relationships: BB-8 and D-O. "Think of D-O as kind of a rescue. BB found D-O, helped get him going, put him back together, and now they're best friends. Inseparable." If you listen closely, you can almost hear legions of fans crying out at once, saying that they would die for D-O and if anything happens to the little bot in this movie, they're going to riot.
And finally, this collection of red carpet interviews from IMDb is a breezy, enjoyable watch, but I'm wondering how literally we should take Anthony Daniels' final comment. "When you see The Rise of Skywalker, you'll see somebody did a magic trick," he says. And notice the sly smile that creeps across his face as he says, "You almost won't be aware of some of the things that happened before." Could that confirm my personal fear that plot points from Star Wars: The Last Jedi are going to be retconned in this movie? What is Daniels trying to get at there?
We'll spend the next few months thinking about it, until Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker arrives in theaters on December 20, 2019.