Exactly what Spielberg contributed to the creative process on The Rise of Skywalker is something Star Wars fans will be eager to learn.His connection to Abrams goes back decades, to when the younger filmmaker was a teenager. Abrams even brought up the story at the premiere. The full version is told in this Vanity Fair article from 2015, but the short version is: Abrams and his friend Matt Reeves (best known for the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes movies, and now making the new Batman film) had won a student film festival in the early ’80s, and an article in the Los Angeles Times about them led Kennedy to ask the boys to assist Spielberg by helping archive and preserve some of his own childhood film projects.
“[Kennedy] reached out to me and my friend Matt Reeves when we were 16 after reading that we were in a Super 8 film festival,” Abrams told the audience. “30 years later, she called and asked me if I wanted to get involved in [Star Wars] Episode VII. And two years ago, she called to ask if I wanted to get involved in Episode IX.” He laughed and added: “Every time Kathy calls, it’s exciting.”
Abrams went on to thank his father (“I wish mom was here, too”), his children, and his wife Katie. “Thank you for your tough, honest notes on the movie,” he said. “Have I mentioned they were tough?”
Then Abrams began introducing key figures from the movie, “starting with a hero of mine” — composer John Williams. “Since I was 8 years old, I’ve been obsessed with movie soundtracks, his soundtracks,” the director said. “He has written scores to some of the best films of all time. I’d argue there’s a unifying reason they are the best films of all time. If you watch any scene, from any of his movies, without the score, everything changes — and not for the better.”
He then shouted-out executive producer Callum Greene, producer Michelle Rejwan (“a priceless, tireless, bottomless source of ideas”) and co-writer Chris Terrio (an Oscar-winner for Argo). “I don’t know anyone more self-deprecating, but I also don’t know anyone more talented.”
Abrams went on to introduce most of the cast: Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), Suatamo, Richard E. Grant (General Pryde), Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico), Naomi Ackie (Jannah), Keri Russell (Zorii Bliss), Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron), John Boyega (Finn), Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), Daisy Ridley (Rey), “and Luke Skywalker himself — Mr. Mark Hamill.” They all posed for photos for the press, flanked by white stormtroopers, red Sith troopers, and the droids R2-D2, BB-8, and unicycle robot D-O (which is voiced in the movie by Abrams himself.)
Before the lights dimmed, and before the fanfare that opens each of the Star Wars films, there was already a cliffhanger.
Disney CEO Bob Iger’s noted to the crowd that this film would be a finale of sorts for the Skywalker storyline. “While this is the conclusion of nine great chapters, we know — you and I both know ,” he said, looking to Kennedy, “that it is by far not the end of many more stories to tell from the galaxy far, far away.”
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