The New ‘Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker’ Footage Teases A Climactic Showdown

Footage from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker premiered at D23 over the weekend, and now it’s available online. Half of the “special look” is clips from old Star Wars movies, from A New Hope to Revenge of the Sith to The Last Jedi, and the other half is from Skywalker, including Rey and Kylo Ren fighting on top of a ship floating in a stormy sea, C-3PO with red eyes, a quick glimpse at Leia, and, most intriguingly, Rey in a black hooded robe wielding a double-sided lightsaber. A red double-sided lightsaber. She’s looking very… Sith-y.

While appearing at D23, director J.J. Abrams called Carrie Fisher (who passed away in 2016) “the heart of” The Rise of Skywalker. “We could not tell the end of these nine films without Leia. And we realized that we had footage from Episode 7 that we realized we could use in a new way. So Carrie, as Leia, gets to be in the film,” he said. Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, and Ian McDiarmid (returning as Emperor Palpatine) are also in the conclusion to the nine-film saga, as well as newcomers Naomi Ackie, Richard E. Grant, and Keri Russell.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens on December 20.