A new Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker featurette that aired exclusively on the American Music Awards, last night, takes a look at the forty years’ worth of storytelling that has made an impact all over the world.
The featurette won’t reveal any spoilers, but it reminds us of how the franchise is ingrained in the very fabric of pop culture as clips from shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, Key And Peele, South Park, and others making sly references are seen, while films like Toy Story tips their hat to The Empire Strikes Back, and Armageddon’s Owen Wilson asking Ben Affleck if he’s ever seen Star Wars, and Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs takes a few humorous jabs at it.
One scene shows the cast walking on stage for Star Wars celebration, while a collection of other scenes reveal fans waiting in long lines before the days of reserved eating, people dressed in Stormtrooper armor, kids reading Star Wars books, fans sharing their Star Wars toys, and film critics and late-night talk show hosts saying Star Wars.
The video is also a behind the scenes look at all of the trilogies from the Original to the Prequels to the latest trio of films, where the cast and crew talk about how Star Wars has impacted them. In one scene, director J.J. Abrams talks about what Star Wars means to him, and in another, Kerry Washington reminisces about how she and her father would attend the midnight premieres to the Star Wars film. And another clip sees Lin-Manuel Miranda, standing alongside Naomi Ackie (who plays Ackie), appearing as a character from the Resistance.
It is also an all-inclusive film franchise, much more now than it has ever been before. “It was designed to fire the imaginations of every girl or boy who yearns for adventure,” Mark Hamill said. And in other clips, we see Oscar Isaac and Carrie Fisher talk about Star Wars in Spanish.
There are also a few bittersweet moments as clips of Carrie Fisher, Kenny Baker, and Peter Mayhew appear. Their impact doesn’t go unnoticed either as we see Leia for President buttons in the featurette. “It’s about family, and that’s what is so powerful about it,” Fisher says in the video. “They’re sharing something that moved them.”
Here’s the official plot synopsis for Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker:
Lucasfilm and director J.J. Abrams join forces once again to take viewers on an epic journey to a galaxy far, far away with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the riveting conclusion of the seminal Skywalker saga, where new legends will be born and the final battle for freedom is yet to come.
Directed by Abrams, who is using a script written by himself and Chris Terrio with a story by by Derek Connolly & Colin Trevorrow and Abrams and Terrio, Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker stars Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Anthony Daniels, Naomi Ackie, Domhnall Gleeson, Richard E. Grant, Lupita Nyong’o, Keri Russell, Joonas Suotamo, Kelly Marie Tran, with Ian McDiarmid and Billy Dee Williams. It opens in theaters on Decemb
