Original subtitles

Let me ask you a question, where are you guys from?

-San Diego. -Yay.

And what'd you do? You drove here? Why'd you drive here?

-We wanted to see this. -See it.

Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill

and Carrie Fisher and Billy Dee Williams are here.

When you watch the movies, you can tell that they were made by people who really cared

about what they were doing.

Seeing this part of it filmed, and there's all of the props around,

and there's people lying on the ground, and it's all cruddy,

but you know that they're going to take it back and put in the opticals,

and it's going to be totally different.

-I mean, we're all-- -So there's a magic to that.

-We're all in Tatooine right now. -Yeah.

So it's terrific, you know.

By the time all nine films are done, it's gonna be like, I mean, I don't--

I'm afraid to see what you guys are gonna come up with.

It's gonna be amazing.

I've always called it a space fantasy,

designed to be a modern fairy tale.

Hopefully it will, you know, justify it as a series,

make you say, "Gee, what happens next?"

The real satisfaction will come out of completing what we started out to do.

And I don't think there's been anything quite like this, you know?

A beginning, a middle, and an end.

It is the final chapter.

It's the big finish.

So, all stops are out, and, uh, it's all go.

Friends, it's that time again.

To Mr. J.J. Abrams, I'd say a happy day one on Star Wars: Episode IX.

-Hip, hip-- - Hooray!

-Hip, hip-- -Hooray!

-Hip, hip-- -Hooray!

Thank you, all, again. Back to work.

Today is day one of Episode IX,

and we're starting on the Falcon,

which is, uh, incredibly surreal to be back.

I never in a million years, never thought I'd be back on this set.

I'm so excited.

It's not remotely what I'm sure it was like

for the legacy actors to come back at all.

But it is a strange thing to return to a place that you have fond memories

and feel like you got to do something very special,

and sort of dodged a crazy bullet, and was like, "I did it."

And now to be back here feels, uh, really weird.

We came into that first movie with a lot of trepidation.

All of us knew that we had this huge weight on our shoulders.

And now, to have everybody coming back and working together,

it's kind of like the family coming back together.

I can't believe it.

And that's made it really nice.

We all know each other. The crew are used to each other...

Oh, my gosh.

And now to finish it off with J.J. is a blessing, you know?

And so I just get to enjoy my job.

It's not just the end of three movies, it's the end of nine movies.

There's a lot to consider, but I couldn't be more grateful.

And I couldn't be more comforted by the company I'm in.

I come to Star Wars first and foremost as a fan.

So I have extremely high expectations.

And the world of it means so much to me that I'm not easy on it.

And so we haven't been easy on ourselves.

This is their creative faces.

They're creatively trying to come to a decision

and they do faces like that 'cause that's what they do.

It's how we create... to kind of make real Star Wars decisions.

-Hey... do that thing where--

What'd he say? I'm gonna rewind this and watch it.

Every day we ask ourselves,

"How do you end the story that George Lucas started so many years ago?"

"How do you end this myth that's become a myth for the whole world?"

- Rolling. -Rolling.

Moving. And we're flying.

Set, and action.

Action.

The fun begins.

How long before you can make the jump to light speed?

Take a few minutes for the navi-computer to calculate the coordinates.

A few minutes? Are you kidding? At the rate they're gaining?

Uh... No, what is it?

- "Traveling through hyperspace..."

Do you have to shoot this?

Traveling through hyperspace is like dusting--

It ain't like dusting crops, kid,

without precise calculations, we fly too close to a star...

Then bounce into a supermarket and then--

-Yeah. -It'd be a hell of a mess.

What's that?

Watch-- We're losing the deflector shields.

Go strap yourselves in. Be careful on the way out.

Yeah, sure. I'm taking it very cautiously.

Okay, cut.

You.

Go away with that.

- "Bounce too near a supermarket"? - What did you say?

It's a righteous challenge, you know?

I think for the last movie there is such expectation

and such investment in these characters.

-Where are you skipping to, Poe? -Scary places.

Roll.

Seeing Poe and Finn and Chewie in the cockpit

has been an extremely fun and sweet start.

And now we're doing a quick test with Daisy.

-It's so pretty, the thing. It's so nice. -Nice, huh?

We're kind of trying to finalize the look.

I haven't seen it. I mean, I saw the rough--

-I like it. -An outward reflection of my inner soul.

Um...

Uh... What's going on? How are you?

I'm having a proper lack-- I couldn't sleep last night.

It's been quite a long buildup of freaking out.

Yeah, it's nerve-racking. I don't really know how to describe it,

but I feel more the expectation of what people want for the last chapter.

I do remember what my first week was like because we were in Abu Dhabi.

You're on Fatima and then you look at the ship.

It's sort of the same levels of nerves, actually.

There we go, that's better.

So I remember it vividly.

And the whole week was like ... and it was both amazing and terrifying.

I was doing my walk along the desert,

taking off my stormtrooper gear.

There you go.

It was very hot,

and everything looked very big to me.

I was like, "Why is this camera so big?" Like, "Why everything is huge?"

Um... But it was fun. I was getting used to a whole new world.

When Oscar came in to audition,

obviously I had the role before, and Oscar hadn't done much--

It was more of a technicality.

I mean, I, you know, I wouldn't call it an audition--

An audition. More of a read.

It was more of a-- But he read the scene, and I was kind of like,

"J.J., what are you doing, man? It's him. Come on. Let's stop wasting time, man."

And it's nice to be able to actualize that chemistry that we had on that first read.

Thanks for a great, great first day back. Thank you very much.

We made it one day. Day one.

It is my honor to be the one to introduce back to this universe...

Mr. Billy Dee Williams.

I am quite pleased about this whole situation

coming back as an elder statesman.

Will you die in the movie?

Uh, no. Not yet, anyway.

No, I understand they want to carry this character on.

Continue-- I think he's going to be part of the heroes.

Well, look at you. A general, huh?

You look damn good, that's all I'm gonna say. Let's do it.

- And go, background. - Action.

I love the whole idea of a movie like this,

because it talks about the classic question, you know, about good and evil,

and what prevails and what doesn't prevail.

-There's something to gawk at. Billy Dee. -Trust me.

You said it, Chewie.

One last time.

- And sound speed. -Thirty-eight apple. Take one.

Could have used your help out there.

-How'd it go? -Not well, actually.

It is the first movie that, you know,

that, ostensibly, this new generation had to carry on their own.

As the end of VIII left the Resistance, you know, in kind of pieces,

they've set up camp quickly with what they've been able to resource and access.

It's weird coming back and kind of feeling this, like,

earned confidence of having done it before,

but also knowing that there are still going to be times

when you're figuring things out, and it's different and new and scary.

But you can get through it with the people that you're working with.

-I love it. -I liked it, it was really good.

Joonas coming through. - Hurry up.

Making J.J. laugh is my number two priority, you know?

Get the shot, nail the acting, make J.J. laugh.

Go, background!

The challenge for the designers and for J.J.

was to create an environment that looks temporary and sort of ad hoc,

but also has a bit of the soul of Star Wars in it.

Looking amazing, guys.

When I'm in there, I say, "Gonk, gonk, gonk."

Look straight, yeah, that's it.

That's amazing, really incredible.

Bloody hell. How much you lifting in the gym, bro?

-We have a whole situation in here, boy. -Yeah, man.

Put a microwave in, a little TV on the side...

-That's what I'm going for. -Home sweet home.

As we decided that we would link this place with Leia's past,

it all started to come together.

Kevin has the idea we could put the Blockade Runner in the middle of the cave,

and that's why they're hiding out.

That way, every time you turn around, you're going to see the Blockade Runner.

The Blockade Runner is the first ship that you ever see in Star Wars,

the ship that is running from the Imperial Star Destroyer.

It's the first time we ever see Princess Leia.

It was trying to link this last film all the way back with the very first film

by saying, "This is how we've introduced her,

and this is how we finish her journey within Star Wars. "

Okay, guys. Walk away. Quick, quick. Go, go.

When we were doing VII,

she knew that that movie was very much Han's story.

And then VIII was very much Luke's.

You know, the thing she had said was that IX should be Leia's.

Uh, and that's really something that we've tried to do.

We lost Carrie before the movie began, so that was our first discussion, really.

It's, "How on earth do you tell Episode IX without Leia?"

We couldn't let Leia not be in this story.

Action.

Rey.

Leia is extremely important

as a part of the conclusion of this saga,

so we had to figure that out.

May the Force be with you.

One more time. That was great.

I will probably always be identified as this person.

Vivien Leigh was always Scarlett O'Hara except to Olivier.

I don't know. I will probably be Princess Leia till I'm 85 years old.

Are you happy now?

I give George huge credit for creating Princess Leia.

Certainly one of the feistiest female heroines ever in cinema.

You know, in the fairy tales, a princess is to be rescued,

and she was far from being a damsel in distress.

Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?

Huh?

She found both Han and I incompetent.

"You call this a rescue? Give me those guns."

It still makes me laugh.

What the hell are you doing?

Somebody has to save our skins.

She's just authoritative and just plows ahead, it doesn't matter.

"Let's go through this shower of asteroids, who cares?"

And my hair won't get messed up.

So, uh... she's different from-- And I like her, I like her independence.

And I do wish that I had a little bit more of,

"Come on, let's just walk through the traffic, it doesn't bother me.

It's not a, you know-- I won't get hurt, there's a sequel."

So, on that level, I envy her. I admit it.

I don't know that the luck, the serendipity,

of the fact that we had this footage that we didn't use in Episode VII,

and, you know, really, it meant a lot that it had been J.J. there directing her,

and he was confident in partnership with his editors and visual effects supervisor

that we could use that footage and it would be 100% Carrie Fisher.

Week one, we were pulling dailies

for them to start writing a script based on lines of performance

that hadn't been used.

And then Chris phoned me to say, "We have this one line,

how many takes do we have, what is she doing, how does she look,

how does she say the line?"

What I felt like with J.J.

was he loved these films in the same way a lot of people do.

They're part of your childhood.

And so there's a tremendous responsibility to that.

To this thing that he treasured.

But he seemed completely up for that.

They had so much fun on Force Awakens,

and we all got along so well.

It was actually my first movie I ever did.

This is my daughter, the un-legacied, the legacy of the legacy.

I treat it incredibly personally and I think we all will, very carefully,

to make sure that those scenes

are both serving a story purpose, an entertainment purpose,

but also honoring her and the character,

which is, you know, a real point of this movie.

Carrie was such a wonderful, special person, and I loved her dearly.

And so, there was a personal aspect for all of us that knew her,

but also, technically, how to do it,

and do it in a respectful, seamless, clever way.

Instead of trying to integrate Carrie into a scene,

we actually had Carrie

and then we just built the entire scene around her.

We were initially creating storyboards

to be able to fill in what the scene would be

that wasn't the actual Carrie footage that we pulled from Episode VII.

This mission is everything. We cannot fail.

Roger, Maryann and I then cut the scenes together

to demonstrate to J.J. what it could be.

Do me a personal favor? Be optimistic.

He could then visualize conceptually,

"Ah, well, we definitely need these shots, we don't need those shots."

We were able to recreate everything

as faithfully as it was on the day,

building our movie around her.

And so that involves figuring out the staging of the other characters as well.

It's literally like a gift from her,

or her forcing us to make her the star of the movie, but--

Probably both.

This is the first scene that we're doing with Leia,

and of course, we don't have the most important person with us.

I would say, we should have a moment of silence,

but that's the last thing that Carrie would stand for,

um, so instead I will say,

let's have every moment be one of celebration for a woman we loved,

a character we loved and admired.

Thanks a lot. Thank you.

The reality of having to do a scene

with someone who isn't actually there...

Yes, Master.

...was very difficult.

I sort of had to walk off and have a moment.

Being back has been incredible, painful, surreal--

All of the adjectives that you can come up with, probably, I felt.

It was a hard day, but it was a good day.

We've had tears and we've had, you know--

-Laughter. Memories. -Laughter. Yeah.

And the fact that there were so many people around talking so fondly of her,

and sharing our memories of her.

And with Billie, to be able to listen to, you know, how people think of her mum...

-You know, it's-- -Amazing.

There's no one in the entire cast and crew

that was more supportive than Billie.

And so, to know that we were doing this with, sort of, her at our side,

that's something I'll just always be grateful to her for.

I'm so happy, and she would be happy that it's her movie too.

We asked some really exciting questions at the beginning of this,

as far as Leia's Force strength.

Did she train as a Jedi?

And the decision to make her part of that story

was a pretty exciting one to us.

You see the saber fight between Luke and Leia.

We tried to use two performances of Mark Hamill and Carrie

at the appropriate age.

And in fact, Leia is being played by Billie, her own daughter,

which is amazing.

There was this idea in Return of the Jedi that there is another.

And of course, it refers to Leia.

And we thought that was kind of a promise that had not yet been fulfilled.

So when she says at the end of Episode VIII...

We have everything we need.

...it felt like the perfect transition to this story,

where we come in and discover that Rey is continuing her Jedi training,

but she's being trained by the other Skywalker.

It's fascinating to watch an actress come into a role like Rey,

and to be 19, 20 years old.

Even the idea of getting strong physically, all of that was new.

Whoo!

And now as she's emerging as a powerful Jedi--

-Blast him back? Okay. -Yeah.

And you're watching her as Daisy actually move through that process,

there's an interesting parallel.

Bit of dialogue, bit of dialogue.

I went into it knowing that I wanted to be healthy.

Doing stuff that literally feels good for your body.

So I was sort of combining a number of things,

so I was doing essentially bodyweight training five days a week,

and then kickboxing twice a week.

One, two.

En garde. Dialogue.

I took karate, uh, kendo,

and did a little bit of weight training.

They sort of want to mix that martial arts flavor

in with the traditional foil fencing.

-That's good. All right. -Okay.

-Okay, we have to rest now. -Okay. That's it, all right.

I can't talk now. I'm out of breath.

Is it difficult?

He's becoming better than Errol Flynn.

What do you mean by difficult?

This is unusual, you know, I haven't seen this one before.

Then you pull the saber out. Here we go.

You know how this is going to go. It hits you immediately.

This remote droid was molded from the original mold for A New Hope,

the one that they used then.

So that is exactly the same as what you saw on the Falc on A New Hope.

- Sick.

Do a stab.

There you go. Yeah, like that.

That's what it, are you ready? -That was quick.

It must be really annoying. -Yeah.

- Try, get me. Go on.

That's the feeling. That's it, yeah.

-Eunice. - Come get me, go on.

-It is like that though. -That's what it is. That's exactly right.

Eunice just a tremendous stunt coordinator,

amazing force of nature.

She just came across as a breath of fresh air,

someone who would attack this with a passion that J.J. would respond to.

She's on the tightrope.

-Going. -Yeah.

She gets the ribbon. Now she's running back.

-Thirty foot is quite a big gorge. -It is.

Do you like the idea that there's like a half-fallen tree

and she sprints up the fallen tree so it pitches it off over the gorge a bit,

and she gets the height coming, to come down on?

-You would believe it more. Yeah, cool. -No, it's good.

All right. Nice.

-Yeah, I got one!

Yes, home run! Boom. Have it.

-How's that? -Good.

Does it-- Make it softer next time?

She's walking to the end.

And then remember, that strong takeoff changes the whole body language.

-That strong takeoff. - Okay.

And when you cycle through, forget about the wires,

-then just bring your arms through. -Yeah.

-Okay. -Okay.

It's funny because I had heard various things about Eunice

before I met her.

People go-- People call her intense.

With intention, Tommy.

-I'm tense. -Oh, I'm tense.

Oh. I'm not tense at all. I'm having a lovely time. This is great.

She's just got the most amazing energy all the time.

This is all you, forget the wires. You're doing this jump for real.

- Yeah. -Just drive!

Set. And roll sound.

- Rolling. -Roll cameras, please.

Sound speed.

-Sixteen Lima, take two. -Here we go.

Set and go. Camera! Three, two, one. Action!

Stretch out!

And cut. Great job, Daisy.

-I don't think that was the best one. -Great job, Dais.

-I think I'm seeing you do that. -Yeah.

-It's like good, good, good, weird. - Didn't hit the wires.

Eunice came over to me at one point, she goes,

"Do you think you were as intense as last time?"

I was like, "That's not the question, is it, Eunice?

You're asking me to be more intense. Just ask me to be more intense."

She's like, "Yeah, be more intense." I was like, "Okay."

Set, energy, and go. Camera! Three, two, one. Action!

Drive! Stretch out!

Good girl. That's the one. That's the one.

Good girl.

-Great job, Daisy. -That was great.

The excitement on Eunice's face when we nail it.

She's just like, "Yeah!"

I mean, it's just so-- You're just so happy she's happy.

So it's truly--

I think every stunt that happens,

she actually projects herself into the role, and she's doing it.

Her entire body is moving in front of the monitor

when she watches every little detail of a stunt.

Eunice has a confidence that is really exciting to work with.

She's ferocious in a way that you want people to be.

And when you have people like that, then you trust their opinion.

And it challenges you to make it better and more specific.

There was no icebreaker with Adam. You just, it's like--

And that's it. But I actually love it, I love it.

Even in rehearsals, Adam's in character.

I'll go, "Adam, you need to step out more, it's closing your strength down."

And he's like, "No, no, I don't need to step out more.

Kylo Ren wouldn't be like that."

He wants it there, he wants it there.

And I'd be like, "Yeah, but, yeah, but..."

And we'd have this, like, argument, but I like it.

Character is her starting place. It's never from spectacle, it's always from within.

He was like, "So this how it is, Eunice. I do all my own stunts."

And I'm like, "Yeah, here we go. I always hear it."

I go, "Adam, there's a level you can do, and there's a level you can't."

"No, no, no, you're not hearing me. I do it all."

The physicality of Kylo, I'm very protective over,

so you kind of-- I wanted to do all of the things.

I was like, "Well, okay, if it looks good, you can do it.

If it doesn't look that good, I'll be putting the stunt guy in."

It has to look good, so, um-- But he did everything.

Okay, troopers. Grab yourself a seat.

Welcome, everyone.

Thank you for being here, for being the evil crew.

Troopers, quick as you can. Thanks.

You look awesome.

Thank you so much, and let's have fun.

All in favor say, "Aye." - Aye.

At the start of the movie,

you find Kylo the most assured of the choices that he's making,

going deeper and deeper into the dark side.

The thing that J.J. said to me when we first met was

that I imagine a journey of a character where it's almost the opposite of Vader.

Someone who almost starts the most vulnerable...

and kind of gradually becomes closer to his convictions,

more assured about his choices,

had metaphorically and physically killed his father--

The unique and very deeply emotional and troubling way

in which Han Solo meets his fate

helps realize the full potential of the character that Adam Driver plays.

What is it in the human brain

that gives us the capacity to be as evil as human beings have been?

That's what I wonder. I wonder how can those people possibly exist?

Compassion and greed, we all have those two sides of us.

We have to make sure that those two sides of us are in balance.

What happens when you go to the dark side is it goes out of balance.

At the heart of this movie is a darkness.

It's part of Rey's journey to confront this darkness

that's been there from the very beginning of The Force Awakens.

We knew from the beginning

that there would be a Heart of Darkness-y structure to the movie

and that this would be about Rey's journey to the darkest place,

both in the galaxy and for her.

But we had to work a lot to try to figure out exactly what that was,

exactly what it meant, how the past would come into the story,

how the present and future would interact with that past.

The idea came up of, "Well, what if Palpatine lived on in some way?"

Within about 30 seconds of discussing that idea,

we just knew that it was the right idea

because we knew that this has always been a story of Skywalkers and Palpatines.

It's a generational story.

The idea of the story of these grandchildren

grappling with the same things that their predecessors had dealt with,

it just felt poetic.

My favorite scene from the prequels,

Palpatine telling Anakin the story of Darth Plagueis the wise

and his obsession with cheating death.

And it sits there like the greatest setup of all time.

The dark side of the Force is a pathway

to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.

So, it could be this unholy combination

of trying to prolong life both through medical means and through dark magic.

I love that he already looks like his action figure.

I feel I've been lucky for the third time.

When George saw me for ten minutes all those years ago for Return of the Jedi,

I was suddenly the emperor of the universe.

So then, to get this call,

it was once again a third time, extraordinary experience.

This is fantastic. It's so good.

- Is it still insane? -It's insane.

-It's insane.

It's actually getting more insane moment to moment.

Welcome, young Skywalker. I have been expecting you.

It's like he has this instrument that can go from a whisper to this mega roar.

It sounds like he's got a tiger purring in his throat

and that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.

This is the full Emperor now bursting forth as he always was.

Um...

and it's clear that although I have the best makeup artist in the business,

he doesn't.

I hadn't seen him in his garb till on the day, and it was awesome.

The way it's described in the script

is so creepy and so weird and unsettling.

I just want to see Ian be the Emperor again.

I'm really excited about that.

Look what you have made.

The idea that this is an ancient place,

a place where maybe the Sith really began in the very beginning.

The ideas are not just coming from the script,

there is a visualization process that also invokes creating ideas.

This feeling is so dramatic, you know what I mean?

This like tumultuous, stormy feeling.

It would be great to talk to Dom about what methods we may be able to employ

to create that sense of it's a crazy storm,

and just do it, you know, in camera.

One thing J.J. was always impressing on me was

the fact that Rey must feel small.

We must feel like little people in a massive world.

The context of it is, "I'm under...

-I'm an ant under the shoe of a giant." -Right. Right.

When we made these, a man was going to be about that high.

Now a man's going to be about that high.

So these are absolutely giant.

The thing that we're talking about is if we cast someone,

then we wanna see the mask become something that's a choice.

And so his putting it on, it's almost oddly a vulnerability.

Putting on the mask makes him feel more powerful.

J.J. wanted Kylo Ren to have the helmet,

yet we had to address the fact that he had destroyed it in Episode VIII.

There's a technique that the Japanese use when they have broken pottery,

and they put it back together with gold.

It's always very evident that the piece was once broken.

Rather than do the gold, we did a bright red.

It's really nice to be killed by his lordship.

You know, if you've got to go, then that's the way to go.

So, you'll be sitting, uh...

Action.

One of the background players is none other than

the granddaughter of Sir Alec Guinness, Sally Guinness, right here.

Sally.

Action.

It's just very exciting to be here.

- Isn't it crazy? -Yeah.

I've gone to the dark side, apparently.

Isn't it sad what's happened?

Rolling.

-Rolling. -Two, seventeen, take nine.

One second. And set. Go, background.

-Sir, we've just received news-- -I see it. Send another battalion.

This is a moment when things are getting particularly bad for the bad guys.

And so I wanted it to feel like things were a bit out of control,

but the idea is to kind of try and find ways to keep the thing alive.

It's not, like, an exercise in how much can you do in one shot,

it's the longer you can hold on something, and watching it actually happen,

the more exciting it is.

-Cut! Beautiful. Great job. -Cutting.

And then it ends with a close-up on our friend, Richard E. Grant.

You know, you can't do wrong with that guy.

Action.

We recovered the scavenger's ship, but she got away.

For a Star Wars geek, this is a dream job come true.

You feel like a kid in here, and I've seen other crew members do this as well.

Even though you know it's switches and buttons, and it doesn't work,

this impulse to just go up and press things is very strong.

It's like being a kid in a sweet shop.

I mean, there are some pretty big-name actors in this.

And they all feel the same way. We're all like, "Yes!"

I've said to J.J., "Can you just pinch me

to know that I'm actually here today?"

So that's my feeling about it, undisguised delight.

Because Domhnall's such a good guy,

it was extremely enjoyable to pull status on him.

I have the very great pleasure of being shown the door by Richard E. Grant,

which is lovely.

It wouldn't be so bad to make sure that when we shoot--

To have a Star Wars gun to take out General Hux

was an extraordinarily pleasurable thing to do.

Tell him we found our spy.

B mark.

Bang, bang, bang!

The other two I enjoyed while I was making them,

but there was the stress of the first time of it being the first time,

and then the second time of everything being different.

And this time it's really nice just to kind of

allow yourself to sit back and look around a little bit

and remember how amazing it is to actually be in Star Wars.

The more emphatic you say yes, the funnier, I think, it should be.

I'm the spy.

- What? You? -Yes.

Hang on. Yes.

Back to one.

- You? -Yes. We don't have much time.

Yes, we don't have much time. Yes, yes, yes, we don't have much time.

Yes, we don't have much time.

-That last one was good.

Cut. Great job, thank you.

Well, I think myself and Richard had competitions

to see who could forget their line first.

They overpowered the guards and forced me to take them through their ship.

I that up. I it up.

It was a co-- Ah...

What is it? Sorry, what's his name again?

Allegiant General Pryde.

It was a coordinated incurment, Allegiant Pryde.

- Jeez, I said Pryde now.

-This is what happens. -Cut.

At one point I did have to shamelessly request of the director,

could they please write this one sentence that kept jamming in my brain

on a piece of card so that I could at least look at it.

No, Alderaan is peaceful, we have no weapons. You can't--

You would prefer another target? A military target? Then name the--

The-- Name it. Now!

A lot of times it has impossible dialogue to say.

You can type it.

Like Harrison says, you can type it fine, there's no way to say it.

Blah... blah...

The actual production is shot in England, and also Star Wars,

by the nature of the exotic environments that we deal with,

we sort of travel all around the globe

and have things going on on various continents, actually.

- You can name them. - One and two.

Evangeline and Livonne.

There are no roads here.

There's no facilities, there's no bathrooms, there's no power.

We will have to play a little because their eyes are magical,

and I don't want to lose their eyes in a profile.

There's no food, there's no potable, drinkable water.

When they go to look this way, this one will come this way, we'll lose--

-This one could track over to here-- -Yes. Exactly.

-I see this one's eyeball the whole time. -He could be watching him.

So maybe that way a little bit like that, we see him in profile.

No Wi-Fi, no internet.

There's none of that.

As soon as we're good in this field, ladies and gents,

stand by to shoot please.

There are no buildings here, there's nothing to age where we are.

It's timeless.

The Wadi Rum desert was just epic.

The vastness of the place already feels like an alien world.

I always like going on location.

It gives much more of a real gravity to the scene, I understand it more.

I feel like I'm really in the environment.

It feels like a proper journey.

We were in the desert for the first one at the very beginning,

and now we're here for the last one.

It wasn't the first desert I'd been in.

I'd been in Star Wars since day one out in Tunisia in 1976.

Sand dunes and all that.

This was the desert in Jordan that Ralph McQuarrie must have had in mind

when he'd painted that original picture of Threepio.

These strange craggy shapes with a kind of miasma of sand below them,

so the whole thing kind of melted into one.

It-- It was heart-turning.

In a way, it was like Threepio coming home.

Okay.

Am I in here?

No one understands Threepio at this point

better than Anthony.

-Oh, yeah. Aw. -Aw.

I visited Anthony at home,

and he showed me some of the dialogue looping notes from Star Wars,

the first Star Wars, and from The Empire Strikes Back.

So, there are handwritten sheets that say,

"I'm not going that way, it's much too rocky."

Or the moment in Empire Strikes Back where he says,

"The chances of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 3,720-1."

But in the original, it had said,

"The chances of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 3,725-1."

And he changed it and got rid of the five because the rhythm was better.

- Yeah. -The way that it ended up in the film.

You know, on the other shot, uh, when I say to R2, you know,

-"Come on. Let's go."? -Yeah.

I've already seen them,

so they ought to be kind of in the doorway.

-Yeah. -I don't know how you're gonna cut it.

-That whole lineup is a little tricky. -Just throw it all away.

Cut me out of this, mate.

He has a way of tilting his head or raising it back that's...

You-- It just...

it says more probably than a person would do.

The face itself has no expression.

But I find working with Tony Daniels, who plays the part,

you read expressions into that face.

To me, he has an incredibly mobile face.

He looks quizzical, he's, uh-- You know when he's in danger...

I can't stop myself making all the faces

and smiling or frowning, looking worried.

Even though I'm way behind something, nobody can see what I'm doing,

but for myself, I'm doing all the actions.

And people come up and they take the face, and they say, "I'll try this on,"

and they put it on, and they take it off again,

'cause they can't bear it, you know?

I don't know, there's something wrong with me that I can put up with it.

What do you think? Would you put your head in there?

Neither would I.

I rather love Threepio. I think he's a nice guy.

I think he gets a rough time, but that's part of the magic of it.

I remember at our cast dinner,

where everyone had started reading the script

and Anthony hadn't read it yet.

So he kept hearing from everybody, "Oh, my God, Threepio's role in this film--"

Suddenly Threepio was part of the team again.

Not since really the very first film had Threepio lived such a full life.

It's been gratifying to give Anthony a role that was bigger,

and to really let him go along on the adventure,

'cause he has been along on the adventure since the beginning.

-I made it. - Thank you, thank you.

We started shooting the Festival of Ancestors, which is truly insane.

I've never seen anything like this before.

And the amazing thing is, that's literally the line in the movie that Rey says.

When you think about Rey's journey through these films,

she hasn't seen a lot of joy.

She has only seen the hardship of growing up as an orphan,

and then she's seen war.

And the point of Pasaana, the world that we discovered and created in Jordan,

is for her to see celebration and abundant joy.

The Aki-Akis were actually a design that happened quite early.

But if you bend over and do this, you keep your arms long,

I start to not quite understand what the body shape--

You know what I'm saying?

So if you guys wouldn't mind all just bending your knees

and keeping your arms long, you know, and maybe move your head forward a bit.

Yeah, that's kind of cool.

Maybe if we did have some prosthetic legs

to kind of see, for a couple hero ones.

- Yeah. -And the legs weren't so...

just human legs with stockings,

-but like we change the anatomy a bit. -Yeah.

That could be interesting.

If you saw one or two, you'd be like, I get all of them.

There's a few lines in the script that hint at what this might be,

and then when we begin, obviously, talking with J.J.,

or we begin sketching ideas out

and coming up with something that's, you know,

feels like it may be a desert creature that doesn't feel misplaced here.

Baby rhinos, things like elephants,

all these things are quite good places to, quite good creatures to look at.

And obviously, with Michael Kaplan in Costume,

when Michael starts to engage them,

the shape becomes a little bit more understandable.

Each one really requires a lot of fabric.

And so, it was finding the correct fabrics.

We had to make a lot of trips to different countries

just to find the quantities we needed.

We found a lot of fabrics in Italy, outside Florence,

in these massive warehouses.

The most amazing thing about them is just the sheer volume.

We were given the daunting task of casting 450 Creatures, Akis.

We were talking about how could we achieve this.

Obviously we couldn't fly everybody in and hotel them.

There wouldn't be enough hotels, there wouldn't be enough infrastructure.

So the idea was working with the Jordanian soldiers

and local Jordanian people here as well.

The first part of today will be learning the ritual dance.

Left, right, left.

-Make a noise. -Ooh.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Again.

They just became so involved.

Five, six. Here we go. One.

They got into it and all of a sudden I started to see it,

how it's going to be in weeks to come, after the boot camp week.

Again.

And then obviously filming.

Here we go.

Five, six. Here we go. One.

J.J. did come along, and his feedback was great.

He absolutely loved it.

So, take ten minutes, get yourself a drink, have a breather.

We'll all come back.

You know, talking to the performers,

for a lot of them, they've never done this type of work before.

It's the first time for them,

and they're excited.

I felt awesome. I felt like a real alien. A real Aki-Aki.

The more I'm in it, the more fun it becomes.

And I'm having, like, the best time.

It's really beautiful.

Thank you, thank you.

That's the main thing, they're excited, they're into it, and they want to do it.

And that's all I could ask, so it's great.

And then we're gonna put it over Rob's head.

And that was another army of people that were involved in that,

just to get the creatures ready.

Normally we're used to one-on-one,

or you have sort of two or three people to dress.

And, this is sort of so constant for the two hours

that you've really got to push them through.

All right, we're just plugging you in, Calvin.

To get all those aliens on that set, on time,

and to have them trained, and be dancing...

- Is that all right? -You okay? Perfect.

...that was pretty remarkable, I thought.

We first came here in April, and there was nothing here.

We scanned this whole area and ILM helped put together a virtual version

so that J.J. could walk around with the headset back in the UK.

Set dec designed all the tents, and now it's October.

We've been here six weeks, putting this up.

So then to have the tents here, and everyone in it,

is quite special and we're excited to get filming.

We're gonna move you over this way.

I can't believe what we're doing.

-I know who you are.

We're basically bringing the most insane, massive puppet show to Jordan.

The head shake is amazing.

A little bit more shake, Liam. On the head shake.

-I hope it works. -That is so good.

It was a little bit like putting on a big show event.

It didn't feel like filmmaking,

it felt like something much more carnival about the whole thing.

I must say I'm very proud of all our crowd.

And they're being very patient, it's a very hot day today.

I've never seen anything like this.

I've never seen so few wayfinders.

The enthusiasm and joy that they have brought to it,

and commitment, is extraordinary.

Shukran. Shukran. Amazing. Amazing.

I've got to kind of keep my cool and stay professional about it,

but working with J.J. has been amazing.

We also did some little Aki children as well,

which have a little part to play,

and that was very sweet, because they were all hand puppets

and we literally dug a trench and put nearly 30 puppeteers beneath them.

It's a three-person puppet, each one, and we've got 14.

So there's quite a lot of us underneath the floor here.

So they do a sweep for scorpions first thing in the morning

before we get down here and scare them all away.

We did see some scorpion tracks in the sand the other day,

so that was quite exciting.

You're actually seeing a kind of version of the world of Star War in one area.

What you're seeing is a galaxy that is worth fighting for.

You got the gun there, like that, you're training it.

You just literally relax and let it all go.

I was shot by Chewbacca in The Force Awakens.

Hey.

And now you're going to be shot by?

Lando Calrissian, I've been told. I don't know if that's true.

-Just imagine that the second here. -Yeah.

-Now the lights are out. -I got it. Yeah.

I hope that that's true.

I sort of gradually work my way through the entire cast,

maybe everyone can have a go.

Action.

-Pretty good? -Yeah.

No worries, I'll be all right.

-That was pretty good. -Okay, good.

All right. So if I can just do that--

The stormtroopers have discovered us, and we have to run away.

Easier said than done in my case, of course.

We've got a ton to do.

We had a 20-day schedule. We decided to make it a 16-day schedule.

The work hasn't changed that significantly, so it's not easier.

You see all different departments working really hard

in what can be some really quite challenging conditions.

Well, it's, uh, quite dusty.

Hot, hot, hot.

And then, you know, you have your occasional dust.

It's quite hard to work in a desert.

Everything takes a little bit longer.

That pesky sand and the wind get in the way.

My name is Ali, this is my first production.

And I just want to see Chewbacca, man. Chewbacca holler at me.

I love you. I love you.

Ladies and gentlemen, Joonas. Give it up for Joonas.

Chewbacca's my hero.

This is amazing.

Our bad boys end up going that way.

It's an amazing exercise to do Second Unit, I gotta say.

Attack it. Attack it as it changes, be malleable.

We're doing a really exciting explosion, where we have three cameras.

Here we go then, guys. We're shooting.

You only get one chance to get it right.

I don't think there's one person here that would want to be anywhere else right now.

I'm pretty sure.

And three, two, one. Bang.

We are here to safely drown the heroes in sinking sand

without scaring them or injuring anybody.

We dug out-- You see this huge hole.

Got a crane in, load in all these containers.

And thanks to the local army,

because they've provided the digger and the labor to do that.

So there's various rigs involved,

one of which we can literally drag them all the way under

so they're completely covered in the material.

Or there's a couple of rigs where Daisy Ridley in particular,

she can crawl through the beans to get to Chewbacca.

She stands here, and she sinks down

through the sand as she's moving forward.

So, we're using a combination of materials.

Like, this is one of them.

We're using black beans in order to simulate black sand,

'cause they're much easier to push through.

One, two, three, four, five. Ah.

It's easy to find the set because it's all the black sand here.

Black beans, no one goes in it.

Okay? Apart from the effects team, and the stunt team.

There's very detailed protocols

that Dominic has for how we look out for the actors.

- What the hell is this? -Sinking fields, try to grab something.

The beans would just come and cover us up.

And you'd have to kind of hold your breath for a little bit, until they said, "Cut,"

and then they would lift them back up and you'd breathe again.

And that was a little freaky sometimes.

-Bye, John.

I liked it.

One, two, three, four, five,

six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

-Well done, man. - Well done.

I get a bit claustrophobic.

I remember coming through the first time,

and you sort of have to hold your breath, and, like, panicking.

I got stuck in the air bubble.

And we're good. Great work.

I think people were sort of joking about it, but I really--

It was--

Oh, it was, yeah, awful.

-Rey!

-Look, I never told you-- -What? No. No.

And cut. Beautiful job.

And it looks amazing, but it was awful.

You go into a sort of quicksand,

but then you end up at the underside of the quicksand,

which is something J.J.'s always wanted to do.

What's underneath all that?

This is so good.

This is like the thing when you're a kid, and you don't quite know where it goes.

It feels like it goes on forever.

And then essentially,

as you always are whenever you do something like that,

you're in the subconscious.

Now you learn things.

What do you learn? You learn what happened to her parents.

You learn about her ability to heal...

even when faced with something that could be perceived as threatening.

And you look and there's a snake. A giant snake, a huge scary giant snake.

Oh, my God, and it goes up!

-And, Anthony.

There are so many new characters and situations and effects.

I thought they would have used them all up on the first Star Wars.

And you know, I arrive in the studio

and there's something quite magical to see and some new monster.

I saw one today. A great sort of splodge thing.

And it was great fun to act with all that, and it's very stimulating.

I couldn't believe what the creature department had come up with.

The most wonderful piece of engineering and puppetry,

because various members of the team were coiled inside the coils

and sort of rolling it and slithering it.

And at the back somebody's got this main arm, you know,

and the face is coming at you, you know?

Swing left. And right.

Being, like, a big multi-person puppet,

we all have to work in synchronization with each other,

and if one of us is out of time, it kind of throws the whole thing off

and it can look a little bit clunky.

So, yeah, we all have to kind of tune in to each other,

and really feel it.

This is my favorite part.

We wanted to have something for the actors to react to.

So they had a pretty impressive stand-in version of that creature.

That creates a much more immediate performance for J.J. to watch and look at.

And can the snake in that position come back any more?

There's some shots where, you know, you could still use the puppet,

but for the most part we basically replaced it with a CG version of it.

Now, get really low down. Good.

Really low down.

You can sort of be like... it's sort of taking something out of you,

but you're kind of focused on it. And then it could do the inhale.

And cut. Good job.

-I'll tell you what, weirdly-- -I felt such a connection with the snake.

-I'm not joking. Are you kidding? -No.

'Cause I totally did at the end when you were healing it--

That's amazing.

That's what acting's all about.

You can't sort of go home and rehearse

your reaction to a 9-foot ice monster breaking through a wall, you know?

You just have to go on the day and see what happens.

But, uh, it's never dull.

What?

I'll be right behind you.

It's fine.

What if your sort of soul mate in the Force was your enemy?

As she's walking out, we'll sort of arm out as we're extending.

Circumstance pits them against each other,

but the Force bonds them together.

You'll walk out, basically, maybe this direction.

-And the saber is in your hand here. -Here you go.

So, try the other-- Turn the other way please.

That's actually probably better.

That way I get the saber coming across camera,

-you know what I'm saying? -Yeah.

They understand each other almost from a point of view of fate.

And yet fate has made them enemies.

-And three, two, one, go.

And cut. That's so good.

It would be cool to do a couple versions,

one that's more determined, one that's more afraid.

You should explode that much, like, say--

Like, just for that, and then just go-to.

-And then I could make-- -You could do a quick step out. Yeah.

-Shooting. -Stand by to shoot.

Because of its luscious nature,

there's nothing like watching film,

seeing that the exposure's right, that everything's right.

Three, two, one, go.

I love shooting things practically.

And cut. Great job. That was great, Dais. That's awesome.

There's just a reality to framing something up and how the camera moves.

And if she lands here, we should be good for Carlos.

-And for you. -Lovely.

Let's get the drone up in the air. Thank you.

Here we go. And three, two, one, action.

That's incredible.

Could you play A at 60 frames?

It's tougher emotionally than I thought it would be.

The stuff with Adam always has been so emotional,

trying to find that balance of feeling the light side

but also feeling the draw to the dark side.

I love my life. I love my job.

-It looks beautiful. -I'm so excited.

He learns that, over the course of the movie,

that they're two halves of the same thing.

I think it just, if anything, reaffirms what he knows intuitively,

and has known for a while,

but hasn't been able to articulate until he can.

No! No!

Chewie!

We did versions when I'm just looking at it

and versions when I looked at my hand.

And doing it felt horrific.

And that's really, I think, obviously when you start to see

that all is not well.

All right, we're gonna all clear out in a minute and let J.J. walk the set,

and then Adam let rehearse it as well.

When they finally have this confrontation,

despite it being this battle seemingly to the death,

he clearly has interest in her beyond just killing her.

There obviously have been questions for three films for Rey

that have culminated in this.

And it feels, having done it,

that it was the only way she was going to get back to herself,

is answering those questions that are, like, lingering, lingering, lingering.

You're looking down at the blade, frame that with her,

and then over her shoulder, he's standing there.

That was the thing I said to J.J.,

"I hope Adam and I have some stuff together."

'Cause it's nice seeing the differences.

I don't want it to feel like Episode VIII Rey and Kylo.

So it has to be beyond then. There has to be rage there.

But also, there has to be sympathy and understanding

and an actual connection.

And Adam, turn clockwise, I guess.

A little bit more, yeah, like that.

And then Daisy come to your left a touch more, please.

So, the Force connection, which becomes the fight in his quarters,

took like two or three days, and it was pretty tough.

I think that was the first fight we did.

And so in my mind I thought,

"We'll just have pickups in Kijimi, that will be great. We'll go to Kijimi."

And then we were shooting outside.

It was absolutely freezing,

and there were really technical things we had to do.

And some of the moves were really difficult,

and I thought, oh, I won't have to do these.

And then obviously I had to do them.

Sorry.

-Sorry. -No, it's all right.

Back to one. Twenty-four, Charlie, take three.

I was nervous about the fight, because he's enormous.

That was really my main worry.

But then once we got into it it was pretty cool,

because it was more like a choreographed dance.

And it felt like it really paid off,

because I think we both really knew what we were doing

and how we were feeling, and it was great.

They sold you to protect you.

Stop talking.

The set of Kijimi was one of the wildest I'd ever seen.

It's epically big. And it's got street after street.

It's like stairs leading to stairs.

The walls were easy, the windows were easy.

The bloody roofs.

Four hundred construction guys, it's like running an army.

Ta-da!

Where is this in the script?

Well this is the Kijimi, the snowy planet.

We wanted to reference Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress.

The original two guys in Hidden Fortress

were basically the initial versions of Threepio and R2,

two people in a bigger adventure.

I went to high school in Japan, and when I walked in,

these looked very familiar to those roofs.

You know the walls, the sloped angle and the giant flagstones,

it's very much based upon our tribute to Kurosawa.

The idea for Kijimi, what it looked like, what it felt like,

was really just, "Here's a corner of the galaxy that we should take a peek at

to see what these villages are like when the First Order has occupied them."

You guys are like, "Let's get out of here," and you start to walk off.

Yeah, 'cause it's the first slam, I think, and then--

The whole thing could be a little mistier.

It's quite cold out here, isn't it?

Amazingly, Star Wars has these big beautiful sets,

you're not imagining that much of it, because you're actually in them.

I just feel like I am in the galaxy right now.

I am going to win.

Ready, and background! Civilians! Troopers!

Three, two, one, go.

We knew that we wanted to learn more about Poe.

We wanted to learn more about Finn.

But the challenge was to do that without stopping the film.

Sometimes it takes a couple tries, you know?

- A couple tries? -A couple tries, you gotta--

That wasn't a couple tries, that was like 29.

Was it? Didn't feel like that much for me.

They're everywhere. We gotta find another way.

There's an Arthur Miller quote,

which is that every drama is a story of the birds coming home to roost.

And I think that's somewhat true for everyone in the story.

Poe, and the way that he left things with Zorii comes back in the film.

Heard you were spotted at Monk's Gate.

Thought, "He's not stupid enough to come back here."

I love that we get to go back to when he was a young, scrappy guy.

Poe and Zorii have history.

Okay, well, he had a little moment in time there

where he was caught up in the spice ring.

I think they were like a lot of people in Star Wars,

they were surviving in the only way that you can.

You were a spice runner?

-You were a stormtrooper? -Were you a spice runner?

Were you a scavenger? We could do this all night.

She takes the guy out... Boom. And then that's the end of the shot.

She's just really cool.

Bounty for her just might cover it.

I have three kids.

But there is nothing I have ever done

that my son has thought was cool...

until this.

-So, J.J.? -Yes.

It will be the twirl on one, and the pull out on action. Okay.

So, Keri, the gun goes up on action.

-Two, one, action!

J.J. told me he wanted it to be

always this kind of alluring, wondering who she was.

Like, seeing people and them not seeing you is very unnerving.

And action.

I've saved up enough to get out. I'm going to the Colonies.

Wanna come with me?

When the visor comes up and you see those eyes,

uh, that ended up being one of my favorite scenes to shoot,

because it's a real moment of connection.

And you often don't see Poe vulnerable.

It's that way that sometimes these people from your past

that knew you in a different light,

they say that thing that reminds you of who you are.

The spectacular Keri Russell.

So, we're in Babu Frik's droid shop,

and we've made hundreds of robot parts in the set dec and props department.

And if you look up, you'll see various heads,

some of which have been seen before,

some that are brand new.

Forever banging your head.

Possibly, for anyone who knows the Ralph McQuarrie concepts,

and that's stuff based on his.

Well, intricacy is closely interconnected to a complete mess.

So, we've got one or the other, I'm not sure which.

Our team is luckily very well-versed in Star Wars.

"Greebles." Greebles was a word apparently invented on the first Star Wars film.

And, uh, there are numerous pieces of greebly,

which is an English term for "dressing" on the barge.

Aircraft pieces that are made to look into a kind of space configuration.

It's to make something look more technologically advanced

than it actually is.

And it can be as simple as

just adding a couple of little buttons and a little shiny thing.

It can be a verb or a noun.

"We will greeble that."

"Find some greebles." "We're out of greebles!"

This has taken, I think it's about two to three months

to get this quantity of stuff.

And that's the team working every day, churning stuff out.

And we've also made a very special gallery

of items to commemorate the participation of John Williams.

Here, let's do it.

John Williams was having lunch with Kathy Kennedy,

and the idea of his being in the movie came up.

Kathy told me, and we were both like, "Well, we have to do this."

I said, "No, I don't want that, it's too silly,

I wouldn't possibly do that."

And then I mentioned it to my wife, Samantha, and she said,

"You have to, that's more important than doing the score of the film,

you gotta be in it."

Threepio looks at you, and you just don't like him at all,

and you can even shake your head a bit and go back to your thing.

And you just-- That's the moment, and the camera will push in,

-and it'll be fantastic. -Okay.

Do you mind if I make a little, small, embarrassing speech?

Do you mind? Okay.

For anyone who doesn't know,

and I think everyone does and is probably giddy in their own way,

but just to say it so we're all well aware,

we are in the presence of a supernatural genius,

someone who does the impossible,

someone who is now an actor.

Ladies and gentlemen, the one, the only maestro, Mr. John Williams.

Forty years, this thing.

So we're gonna play now the last piece here which was the first piece then.

In 1976.

In 1976, when I was 12.

-Okay? And it sounds like this.

One, two, three...

When we recorded the music of the first film,

none of us had any idea that we'd ever hear the music again.

It feels very privileged to have been able to do all of them to this point.

I don't think there's anything quite like it in the history of film.

But we had the opportunity over decades to take the same material,

use it again, and add something to it and revoice it and rework it.

Each and every time, there's some amazing theme.

Something that, in three notes, you know exactly what it is.

The music he writes is so profoundly good and impossibly moving,

you just can't believe it didn't exist before you hear it.

It's just, it's very strange, his superpower.

And equally amazing is just his nearly insane humility.

Like, he writes something, and then he'll conduct it, and you're crying.

And he literally turns around, he looks at you, he's like, "Is that good?"

-That's good? - Yeah.

All right. Let's go on.

All I can do is put notes on a paper with a pencil, and it stops there.

And I need an orchestra to play the music, and it stops there.

And then you need to have the third element, which is the audience,

sending back what they send back.

And that completes the circle, and that is what musical communication is about.

Watching him work is amazing,

and he's such a nice guy.

Rey's scene, where Daisy-- That's for you.

- Okay. That's huge. -All right?

-You see here, this is for you. -I think I'm gonna cry.

Don't get any fingerprints on it.

- Ah, come on!

That's her first page.

He's had 51 Oscar nominations,

and we thought it would be fun to do something

as a kind of celebration of what he's done and who he is.

You are surrounded by all this apparent junk.

Every single item has been very purposely chosen

to represent one of the 51 Academy Award nominated films that you've scored.

So, not only-- There's Hook over there behind you.

-Oh, my God. -This is Jaws.

There's ET,

Saving Private Ryan,

Tom Sawyer was a little interesting to figure out. We figured corn cob pipe...

That's from The Book Thief.

We've put letters from the Star Wars alphabet, Aurebesh, as J-T-W,

which is John Williams's initials.

Oh, there's the whip from Indiana Jones.

That's the iron from Home Alone.

-I mean, literally, isn't it crazy? -It is unbelievable.

-Isn't it incredible? Each piece. -Unbelievable.

This is ridiculous. -It's great.

To have him in a movie

and just see the man that we've been listening to all our lives,

who's been moving us so profoundly,

it was a blast to get to work with him in that way, and he was so...

uh...

he was so lovely and seemed to have a really good time.

Great energy. Here we go. Set, three, two, one, action!

Cut! That was fantastic.

Babu Frik? Can you help us with this?

Now this is the one that does the operation on Threepio's circuitry, right?

Babu Frik is a rod puppet,

which goes back to the ancient way of puppetry.

So it's, uh... You have your puppet, and you just stick rods on the limbs,

and puppeteers will move him, breathe life into him.

That's great.

So that's the simplest version of him.

But obviously, we would mechanize the fingers and the toes and the face,

and all of those things.

Oh, my gosh. Look at that.

This is particularly small for an animatronic head, you know?

I'll bet.

And only in this tiny head, there's 13 micro servos.

And they're all individually powering just so we can mix it up a bit.

You know, on the original films,

I was never in my dressing room, you know?

When I wasn't in a scene, they always knew I'd be in Stuart Freeborn's shop.

I remember Stuart whipping up the green foam

that they were gonna pour into the Yoda mold.

He said, "Do you wanna pour some?" I said, "Yeah! Are you kidding me?"

The most complex one, the most sophisticated one is the smallest one.

That is the Yoda.

He's only two foot high,

and, of course, he has to have all the animation it's possible to give him,

which is difficult in such a small creature.

He could even steal the picture.

And that would be great if he does.

It's just such a small space to work with.

So, it's just getting as many expressions in this little head as possible.

Partly because it'll be great to have on set,

and partly because I wanna prove to myself that I can put a lot in a tiny head.

The more impossible it is, and then in the end you succeed in doing it,

that's when, of course, it's that much more satisfying.

Keep in mind, this is the first time we're seeing him,

so he's gotta be, like, hero.

And maybe some quicker blinks.

You know what I mean? Just so that he's, like, a little more, like, alert.

That helps. Yeah, that's great.

Is that unusual, for an actress to be doing that?

Or does she have puppeteering experience?

Well, it's not common, no.

I met the creature team, who are amazing, and they handed me this machine

and said I've got to learn how to work the mouth very quickly.

And I didn't know that was gonna happen, so it was a bit frightening.

It's just-- Is the mouth working there? Can you see?

So, if I do this...

Ee, ee!

This is actually the first time we've done this.

Where we've had the talent performing the mouth

at the same time as delivering the dialogue, which is really good fun.

-'Cause she picked it up really quickly. -Thank you, Matt. Thank you.

A lot the time we would have another puppeteer do the voice on set,

and then they would dub it in ADR afterwards.

But it's great, 'cause the character's so strong,

and what Shirley's done with the character is great.

So it's really good to have that ability

for the other actors to bounce off what she's doing.

And action!

Perfect. Keep doing that.

Good. The looking up is great.

Okay, great. Yeah, uh...

I work on anybody who needs an accent, but I also make up new alien languages.

I was doing these things, and Jill was hearing it,

and she was describing it as if, like, things are shutting.

Like, things are clasping, clasping like that.

-Or that kind of thing. -We sort of, we played around--

And it was the beginning of this sound to Babu, trying to find Babu.

It's pretty great, with the blank-blank, the bye-bye.

This discovering it as you're-- And feeling it in your body,

but I believe it that way,

and I offered it up,

and then J.J. picks the bits that he believes.

That's one of my favorite little plot twists,

Threepio losing his memory.

Rich with comic potential,

because, you know, he's sort of written to get on people's nerves,

but he always had really funny lines.

"I'd forgotten how much I abhor space travel."

You know?

I'd always picture Threepio would be much happier at the opera

serving hors d'oeuvres instead of rattling through space.

Threepio is, uh, I think, very like an English butler.

He's the particularly British sort of person.

Very archaic and rather out of his time.

And action!

And consequently, he finds all the things that happen in Star Wars,

you know, the battles, the explosions, all the nasty characters like Darth Vader,

he finds that very worrying.

Tony, look.

Threepio's in some ways the observer of all things

and the memory of the saga.

So when we were playing with different plots for Threepio,

it felt like it was in his DNA that one of the plots was "he should lose his memory,"

because he's always the one who's observing and commenting on everything.

And if Threepio loses his memory, it's as though the crawl would disappear,

because Threepio is the keeper of the story.

You're gonna have the back of your head off now in this,

and the wires will be coming from that.

We make him translate it...

he won't remember... anything?

Droid, remember go blank.

Blank, blank.

If this mission fails, then it's all been for nothing.

All we've done, all this time.

Often Star Wars characters sacrifice themselves.

I mean, think of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He went to battle the dark side, Darth Vader,

and sacrificed himself for everybody.

And now Threepio's doing the same thing.

And, you know, he's not too ready to do it,

because he's going to be destroyed as himself.

There'll be a spark, which we'll probably hear.

-Yeah. -As soon as you hear the

you can just go.

Action, working, working, working.

Three, two, one, spark.

The fact that Threepio is willing to sacrifice himself

is because he belongs to the team.

He loves the team, the humans.

With Threepio, I really, I think he's one of the more human characters in the film.

Might I introduce myself.

I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations. And you are?

Okay, that's gonna be a problem.

Hello. I Babu Frik.

And then, even from right here, you're going to be like,

-"That's going to be--" -"That's going to be a problem."

Yeah, there you go.

-Classic. - You got classic Poe.

And then, we might actually go from Zorii's line

to the close-up of Babu saying "Go, go, go."

And action.

Go, go, go!

Go!

-Go!

All right, cut.

Oh, my gosh. It's ridiculous.

Can you imagine we did that?

-The scene ended with a 20-second "Go!"

Oh, my God. It's hysterical.

All right. We're good. Thank you.

-Good morning. -Hey, good morning.

-How's it going? -Good.

That should be all right.

It's just the biggest thing I've ever seen.

It's, like, more people than I've ever seen concentrating on one thing at a time.

It would be up there a bit, just because of the scale of it.

- Yes. -If you look at it from a wide shot,

-you'd see an arc. -Perfect, okay, great.

-Hey, Naomi. -Hello.

The atmosphere is just so friendly and like, welcoming.

It's backwards. And you look into it.

It is also really lovely to see the whole cast come together

and to know that I'm, like, the new girl, but, like, part of that same team,

part of that same family.

It makes the bigness of this film a little bit more personal.

Horse positions, please.

All right. Here we go.

Lens, ready, set, and go, Jannah, action!

Action, horses.

Rough landing?

- I've seen worse. -I've seen better.

My first day of Star Wars was definitely memorable.

It was like a stimulation overload.

It was just, like, all of the things.

Like, so many people, so many animals, so many flies.

All the flying ants rise up from the ground

and decide that it's their time to do whatever they've got to do in the air.

The bugs, man. It was funny on set, you know?

When stuff like that happens, we all react in a normal way,

laugh about it and keep on moving.

They swarm you, then ate you.

They were stuck everywhere.

Buggy planet.

How about that?

They got caught in my 'fro.

Um, it was a lot.

That's filmmaking.

You can't control those things, but you still get the job done.

Unfortunately, our stormy planet isn't quite so stormy at the moment,

so sadly, we're waiting out the sun.

Just the practicality of working under those conditions,

there are different issues that that creates,

challenges that you have to overcome.

Hey, so we're going to give up on this shot,

'cause it's never going to get cloudy

and it's gonna keep getting more and more front lit.

So we'll bail on this shot. We'll do it another time.

We should move the shoot and go down below, to the low level.

Here we go. Clear frame. And we are rolling.

Crane, action.

Seven of them are heading up the hill.

And we see out into the stormy madness beyond,

and we see the wreck out that way.

One of the ideas J.J. brought back to Episode IX

that initially he had thought of in the early days of Episode VII,

was going to a crashed piece of the Death Star.

I was just fascinated with the question of,

"What is it to live in the aftermath of everything that we saw

in the original trilogy?"

So the idea of pieces of things that we have seen

that had been blown apart...

There was just something that was kind of haunting about it and kind of beautiful.

It was one of those things

that felt like an idea that you have suddenly finds its purpose.

For a long time, we knew that there was going to be a moment in the story

when we're going to see the Death Star.

First thing we wanted to do is go up into the archives

and take a look at the original model for the Star.

Look at this weird core thing.

If we could get some of that into our approach to Rey.

So we went up, took a bunch of photos.

We wanted to really understand the curvature that houses the dish,

and then the texture itself.

The texture of the Death Star is just as identifiable.

You can see these kind of banding,

which, when you get really close, you understand,

"Oh, my God. One of those bands is actually the trench Luke flies down."

We came across a really big issue in that it is completely, ridiculously huge,

and found out that it was about 90 miles across.

It's too deep to fit in the ocean,

and it's too tall to fit into the atmosphere.

So we found out that we could just barely fit the dish way out on the horizon.

That, we're pretty happy with. And J.J. looked at it and said,

"It's a little too convenient that we just happen to come across the dish."

So we kind of reset.

Maybe it would have just a piece of the shell,

with a little bit of the dish left in there

to hopefully recognize it as what it is.

From the sky, BB-8.

It's a bad place from an old war.

And then she'll pull out the blade and watch it widen out.

Even while we were dealing with these big epic things in this movie,

we found that the smallest details could sink you,

like the way that the blade interacts with the next stage of the journey.

Trying to get that right became a real challenge.

This one here, we was talking about it being on leathers, or you know--

So when it was flat, in the sunlight,

you could literally see all the way through it.

It could just be much more of a simple slab or tablet.

To be honest, the scrolls, it feels like a physical object.

Yeah, right.

I don't know.

Ah, this thing.

You know, this particular item,

it's just been something we've been kind of, not struggling with,

I think it's struggling with the whole idea of where it leads,

just because it's such a story point.

If the right idea showed up, it would actually help the story.

So it's helpful to look at these,

but I don't know if any of these are the right idea.

It would have been-- We're saying it was made after the...

-After the events... Jedi. -Second Death Star.

The second Death Star, to pass on the information

about where the wayfinder was to other Sith.

Like, would it have to have been hardier

because it would've had to pass from hand to hand to hand?

But, like this.

We've all seen knives that have a shape.

If that cool design happened to have a function, it was a map.

What are options for ways that things could be pulled out from,

or extracted from, or removed from, or adjusted on a knife?

I was imagining sort of something where it's like if this came down,

-it would be one thing. -Yeah. One thing.

And I just love the arrow. So that's where it is.

-That's cool. -That's good.

The wayfinder's there.

So, for the interior Death Star,

J.J. wanted this to sound like this creepy haunted house.

Scary winds, creepy metal creaks, weird whistling sounds...

And so we just kind of, by accident,

happened to find this structure that was made out of shipping containers.

So, it was a really windy day,

and it was the craziest sound when we were inside,

all that metal and creak and banging.

It was like, "Oh, this is the Death Star.

This is exactly going to work for the Death Star."

What more fitting place for Rey and Ren to have their meeting

than literally on the ruins of the war that came before?

We thought, "Well, surely the place that they have to meet is in the throne room,

which involves both of their grandfathers and involves their shared history."

Young Skywalker.

You will die.

We are currently looking at a legacy set designed by Norman Reynolds,

which is the throne room.

It involved building it all pristine,

originally, from the original blueprints,

and then destroying it.

We managed to fish out of the archives some of these blueprints,

original drawings from the original set build.

And from this, I was able to recreate this in 3-D,

so we created complete models of the original throne room.

So, this mezzanine level here,

we imagined that it entirely collapsed through,

so you get this really nice full view of the window there, which is all destroyed.

This is the Emperor's throne,

and it's fallen from the floor above down into this floor,

which is where Darth Vader and Luke fought for a bit.

When you're building destroyed sets, it's very hard for it not to look fake,

like it's been cut with a saw.

So Claire drove over it with a forklift.

I drove over panels to make it look better, yeah.

Let's try one, please.

And you can see it in everyone's faces

when they walk on that set,

and the throne, they're just like, "Can I sit on it?"

And you're like, "No. You're not allowed."

What was never in the original films is a secret vault room,

accessed through his throne room.

So we've taken a bit of liberty and said actually it was always there,

you just didn't notice it.

The idea that she's so crazy powerful with the Force,

you know, so quickly,

for us, we always felt that there was a connection

between her and something that would help explain some of these things.

Obviously, you know, it needs to feel like she is really contemplating it.

And that, the need for revenge, it sort of overtakes everything else,

which it does for a moment,

and then she's sort of reminded of what it all means

and what's at stake.

Right from Episode VII,

from the scene in which Rey is interrogated by Ren,

is clear that they have a connection, that they understand each other,

that they can literally read each other's minds.

They're made uncomfortable by it, and yet they're both drawn to each other.

Of course, Episode VIII furthered it by creating the idea of Force connection,

and I think what we wanted to do was complicate that and say,

"Actually, their connection is deeper than that."

We began talking about them as a mythic concept,

which is in Joseph Campbell, which is the mythic dyad,

that they're two parts of the same whole.

And then finally we began talking about how,

if the dyad ever came together, its power would be immeasurable.

When we first read the script,

I offered to J.J. that we could do some wave effects.

And at first he was kind of, "Yeah, yeah. Good idea, good idea."

And then we showed him some tests.

- Wow. - Wow. Beautiful.

-That's insane.

That is amazing. That's so cool.

That's 15 cameras there.

I think that we would do, I mean--

- We can let five go-- - Exactly.

And we'd be filling up at the same time.

That really is my favorite thing I've ever seen.

It's like, "Oscar, can you just come for a meeting?"

-"But I'm not in that--"

"No, I just want you to sit, sit right there."

"Stand over there."

That's incredible. That's awesome.

We knew that there was going to be a central fight,

and we wanted it to be the saber battle of all saber battles.

We really started thinking about making it as operatic as possible,

and sort of reducing the scene to just them and the elements around them,

so that the epic quality of this duel would be matched by the surroundings.

Girl, let's go. Come on. Time to go.

The fight felt so ferocious.

It needed to be really full of, like, rage and incomprehension

and all of that.

Rey needs to go on her own, very individual journey.

That side of things doesn't involve Finn, doesn't involve Leia, doesn't involve Poe,

no one else.

Rey!

No!

The thing that became more challenging is

we were being doused in water cannons

and it was November in England.

The water would come, I would be like...

"I can't breathe" kind of cold.

Hot water bottle.

It's freezing. That was fun.

It was really physically exhausting,

and we were, like, wet and soaked and cold and on wires.

I loved it, you know?

It's like, how many times are you going to get a chance to do that?

I did want to murder Dom, Special Effects,

because there were a few times where they said, "No water cannons,"

and when I say mid-scene, literally a dump of water on my head.

I remember watching the top of the water just starting to come over,

and I watched it like slow-motion as it rained down on Daisy.

And the true professional that she was, she carried on,

but I could see in her body that she kind of tensed because it was cold.

And as the water settled and they said, "Cut,"

she shouted out very loudly, "Dominic!"

Which I didn't want to be on the set at that moment in time.

But then people really thought I was really tough after that.

And J.J. was like, "You have so much crew respect."

So it was great.

It was actually my birthday, one of those days.

I don't know if that means anything.

It's not like I wanted to kill her more because it was my birthday,

but it was really exciting.

Huge water cannons are shooting how many thousands of gallons.

You're exhausted, you're tired. It's like-- It's great.

It's what you kind of hope work is.

Ben.

Kylo's journey really opened my imagination as an actor.

Things had come to almost full circle with him.

For the first time, someone had shown him what I think maybe he perceived as, uh...

a huge act of generosity in spite of what he had done.

Someone, like, kind of reached out when no one else had for a long time.

I know what I have to do...

but I don't know if I have the strength to do it.

Repeating the same exact scene from The Force Awakens line by line,

I thought was a really beautiful way of showing "Is he real? Is he not real?"

"Is it a conversation that he's been having for years in his head on repeat?"

You do.

It's both ambiguous and totally clear.

It's not that I wanted Han Solo to die,

I wanted Han Solo to be able to lend some significant emotional weight to the story.

His destiny is resolved

in a, I hope, a powerful and effective way.

The theme of redemption is important,

not just in Star Wars, but in life.

I mean, no one's perfect.

Jedis make mistakes.

I think it's comforting,

the idea that despite having done wrong, either intentionally or unintentionally,

they are able to right those wrongs and be forgiven.

It was probably nice for Mark to be more like the Luke of old.

Which I think J.J. felt like he really wanted that.

It was nice to feel, and even in the scene,

to feel really comforted that, like, "Luke Skywalker is here."

That's kind of good.

-All right.

I wanted to find a way to show that Luke, even in death,

was a Jedi Master who was helping the next generation.

We thought about Empire Strikes Back

and how the one thing Luke doesn't manage to do in Empire

is raise his X-wing out of the swamp in Dagobah.

When we saw in Episode VIII that the X-wing was under the water,

we thought, "Well, maybe this is the way to bring it full circle."

Looks good.

Proud moment, yes.

I hope that if there is any lasting legacy of the character,

is the idea that you can accomplish anything you want if you are selfless,

and willing to do what's right for the greater good.

You know, he was a symbol of optimism,

and I think that's probably the most satisfying aspect of the character.

He is every boy or girl who yearns for adventure,

who thinks this can't be all there is.

When the Resistance loses Leia,

Poe finds himself inheriting a Resistance that's on the brink of collapse.

It's clear that Leia had been grooming him for leadership, but what he--

He doesn't know if there's anything to lead at this point.

That scene wasn't originally in the film.

And I talked to J.J. about, "Well, I think that it'd be great

to just see a moment that Poe has with Leia.

Even just a moment for him to say goodbye."

That speaks to J.J.'s ability to try things.

I'm not ready.

Neither were we.

And so, out of that moment of goodbye,

Lando shows up and reminds him about family and about friends,

and about not being alone.

We had each other.

We were friends.

It turned into this catalyst for, "You know what? We still have a shot."

Something as large as Star Wars, which is a very complicated movie,

it really needs a lot of people, all working together to make it happen.

The ending, the last couple of reels of this movie...

the number of people who are involved

in getting those parts of the story to work,

and to make sense,

and to feel revelatory and believable--

And-- There are so many people involved.

We're all in this together, and it feels like a real team,

like kind of like the way Star Wars is.

You feel like you are working on something bigger than yourself.

You want to respect what's come before.

Working towards that blend of legacy and new.

We strive to have a great balance of those two things.

The balance of the Force is never a permanent, enduring thing,

so the idea that this is a story of a character

who needs to step up and bring balance in her own way.

If you had asked me, you know, in the middle of doing VII,

"Where would we go with Rey?"

I would say "The headlines would be exactly the same."

As we needed our Sith throne,

I'd always been very fascinated by this wonderful sketch that Ralph McQuarrie did.

It felt like a spiky shadow

emerging from the back of a conversation between the Emperor and Vader.

The big question was, "How do you turn

a black pencil drawing that is one-and-a-half inches across,

a silhouette, into a throne that's its own thing?"

Because it was done in a two-dimensional pencil sketch,

what if there was another thing that came out here even?

Like, it started to feel like it wasn't completely flat.

Most of these things are rather hazy.

They just feel right sometimes, and sometimes they don't.

So you just keep fiddling until they start to feel right.

What if there is kind of bits doing that, maybe in the ground near it and up there.

The throne envelopes around you to make it feel like it's grabbing her.

The hope at the beginning of the film that Sidious articulates

is that the dyad would come together on the dark side,

but the reversal is that the dyad does come together,

and it is as powerful as we expected,

but they come together on the side of the light.

One of the surprises and delights for me personally,

is seeing Adam get to play Ben in this film.

The great tragedy is that we don't have him for very long in the story,

but when you do, you know, you just feel the potential that,

you know, the person that he could have been.

Before, either someone who has the absence of hope,

and the thing that we started with for "Who is Ben, then?"

is someone who has hope.

Two, one.

There's no more ambiguity

about what it is that he has to do.

There's no more seesaw that's happening.

For the first time, someone who has never had the answer

now finally knows his purpose or destiny.

He has to let her know that they're together.

But I don't know that he entirely is sure of what's going to happen from there,

nor do I think he cares.

I think it's so long as he is with her, he is on the right path.

Leia's Jedi trial happens in Episode IX.

The end of her path as a Jedi is fulfilled when her son turns back to the light.

We had this crazy idea

about doing a cavalry ground invasion on a Star Destroyer's surface.

That's so cool.

So our challenge is how to make 300 feet worth of a Star Destroyer

that we can have two armies fighting on and a cavalry charge with horses.

Wow, is that amazing.

-That is crazy.

-No, but it's really insane. -I know.

'Cause we could do a cool thing where we pull them down,

and have our characters slide,

and then land on a vertical thing that's now more horizontal.

At that point they're just kind of standing on something.

At a certain point they'll jump off onto a platform...

- Three, two, one, go! -...that's meant to be the Falcon.

Ready, and now!

The idea of having humans and human-sized creatures

ground-invading a Star Destroyer

was too much fun an idea not to try.

So, we've been doing a lot of dynamic movements

on this lovely beast here.

It's like ballet on top of an orbak.

Boom!

Perfect. Yeah, that's it.

You're just going to drop that left knee to the ground.

Yeah, and then go for a grab on the knee.

I've never gotten shot before in a movie, so we'll see how it goes.

Bang!

-More importantly, after she gets shot... -I'm not.

-...she screams "Beaumont." -I go, "Beaumont!"

-"Beaumont!" -"Beaumont!"

Come on. Cover me. Cover me.

Come on!

He's been trying to get his name in the movie.

-It's important! -I'm trying to get a doll.

-He's trying to get a name. We'll get it. -It's important.

- I'll cover you. - Ready and bang!

I always wanted this to happen.

I always wanted there to be some form of a stormtrooper rebellion,

which is something that I was quite interested in since VII.

And it felt like J.J. was going towards that anyway.

-It's gonna be sick.

So it feels good to finally be here. To be on the horses.

We've been training for this for a long time.

I'm on the ground, making sure I blow everything up.

Poe's in the sky.

Poe, air strike please.

Here we go, here we go. And action!

All wings, cover that lander!

Watch those two on your tail!

What really excited me on VII

was the idea that we would put cameras, fixed cameras on CG X-wings.

Because if you really had an X-wing, what would you do?

You'd mount the camera possibly on a wing and you'd fly around,

sort of recreating a practical way of photographing something,

but inside the computer.

Incoming TIEs!

Flying along. Good and good.

Incoming TIEs.

And when I showed it to some of the guys

that had worked on the original movies,

they were excited about what we were doing.

Just keep doing the controls.

What can we do against these things?

They were saying that they were actually trying to do that

when they were making IV.

Red Two, standing by.

It's so funny and nice to come back to it.

I was looking for a kind of sailor's outfit like an admiral.

It's down to the orange jumpsuit again.

Look at the size of that thing.

- Mr. Denis Lawson. Legend! -Thank you.

They didn't have a miniature that was big enough

because, obviously with miniatures

you have an issue with physically, the size of the camera.

You got two black people leading the cavalry.

Which is something you don't see in every single feature film.

-At all. -So, for me and Naomi,

we are definitely, we have that in mind.

-And this is a passionate moment for us. -Yeah.

Seeing a black man and a black woman leading the cavalry of heroes.

- Yeah, to save the day. -I'm proud.

-Me too. -I'm proud.

Hell yeah. Hell yeah!

We've done a lot of work, isn't it?

Hey! Hey.

It's been a joy working with her.

We always have a good time. Always good conversation.

Probably singing and dancing half of the time.

You know, chilling, talking about chicken and chips,

and the next second you're saving the world.

It's definitely the underdogs, the little guys...

and certainly a different thing than the Ewoks on Endor.

We've got our new stormtroopers in red.

This is the first time that I'm actually seeing them, which is really, really cool.

The idea that people of human scale

can undo a machine of impossible scale

definitely feels like it's a theme of the series.

Each character on Exegol is really facing their greatest challenge.

Teamwork. Teamwork is a big thing with this.