New Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Footage Teases Rey's Dark Side

One day immediately following the trailer for Disney+'s The Mandalorian dropped, which will add to the storied Star Wars universe this coming November, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy returned to D23 to share even more news about the upcoming conclusion to the Skywalker Saga, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker with a brand new sizzle reel. For the big debut, Kennedy and the film's director J.J. Abrams were joined on stage by the cast, including Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Keri Russell, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, and Naomi Ackie.


The footage opened with a montage of scenes from all previous Star Wars movies, as Luke Skywalker says in a voiceover, "We've passed on all we know. A thousand generations reside in you right now. Nevertheless this is your fight." Because the sizzle builds into footage from the upcoming movie, the clips crescendo into more intense battles while in the galaxy, including a tense face-off between Rey (Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Yet the largest shock came at the very end, any time Rey was seen wearing a dark hooded cloak and holding a red double-bladed lightsaber.


Unfortunately, the sizzle hasn't been released to the public nevertheless, although we do have a new poster to adore. Visualize it below.


We were also treated to a little more data about Russell's brand new character, Zori Bliss, who has wonderful costume" along with a helmet that Russell didn't hope to take off for two days. "She’s very cool along with a little shady," the actress teased. "She’s sort of a criminal, and categorize kind of this old friend Poe’s."


And needless to say, it wouldn't be suitable for the late Carrie Fisher to go unmentioned while in the presentation, as we are all well aware that Abrams incorporated unused footage from 2015's The Force Awakens to give Leia Organa the send-off she deserved. The director recalled an occurrence that helped him come to terms with the use of the repurposed scenes without being able to get her direct approval: In her 2016 book The Princess Diarist, Fisher thanked Abrams for putting up with her "twice." The thing was — they'd only worked with each other once, on The Force Awakens, and Abrams hadn't originally been slated to direct The Rise of Skywalker. "It was a classic Carrie thing to write something like that, that could only mean one thing for me," Abrams mentioned. "We could not more excited for you to be able to see her final efficiency as Leia."


We'll update this blog post if the footage is released online. Up until then, attempt to satiate your necessary for more Skywalker imagery by studying every detail of the new poster above and re-watching the two-minute teaser that was released in April.