Thanks to director J.J. Abrams and the cast of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, we have some new intriguing details to share with you regarding the film that will bring a close to the epic saga.

It’s been quite an interesting journey for Star Wars fans since Disney bought Lucasfilm and took over the Star Wars franchise. But, it’s all about to come to an end. The story of Skywalker will close out with this final film in the saga, and it might ease your mind to know that Abrams feels much better about this final installment than he did while he was making The Force Awakens.

While talking to Entertainment Weekly, the director explains that even though they were on a tight schedule to get the movie done, he’s not worried. He also says there were fewer reshoots for The Rise of Skywalker than The Force Awakens.

“We always knew we were going to have three fewer months to post-production this film. So much is still being worked on. It’s literally a practical race to get it finished.

“We had more reshoots on Episode VII than this one. We had more story adjustments on VII than this one. We didn’t know if these characters would work, if the actors would be able to carry a Star Wars movie. There were a lot of things we didn’t know. On this, we knew who and what worked, and everyone is doing the best work I’ve ever seen anyone do. But the ambition of this movie is far greater than Force Awakens. What we set out to do was far more challenging. Everything is exponentially larger on this.”

It’s nice to see that he’s confident in the work that he and his team have done with this movie. Now, let’s just hope the story he tells is a good one! We don’t know much about the story details, but we do know that Rey (Daisy Ridley), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), and Finn (John Boyega) are embarking on mission together as a team for the first time ever, and they are a seasoned and experienced team when the film picks up with them. Isaac says:

“We’re not just a ragtag group of people who have been thrown together. We’ve actually had time to train. There are some really great sequences with the three of us in infiltrating spaces.”

It’ll be fun to see these characters actually on an adventure together. It will also see Poe and Finn stepping out of their usual comfort zones. We’ll see more of Poe in action outside of the cockpit of a ship, and Boyega explains that he told Abrams that he wanted him to give more for Finn to do. Boyega says:

“I definitely wanted more after Episode VIII. [Rise of Skywalker] makes Finn’s Episode VIII arc make more sense. We got to bring out a side of Finn we haven’t seen.”

I assume this is because he wasn’t fully happy with how Rian Johnson handled his character in The Last Jedi. As for Rey, Isaac said, “Rey is driving her own thing. She’s not doing what other people are telling her to do.” Ridley went on to explain that Rey is more skilled in the ways of the Force, but she’s not cocky about it:

“I have skills that have developed, but ‘confident’ isn’t a word I’d use to describe it. She’s definitely more in control of everything and can do new fun stuff, but she’s vulnerable and a little insecure about at all.”

Ridley goes on to address the questions regarding her parents and where she came from saying:

“The parents thing is not satisfied — for her and for the audience. That’s something she’s still trying to figure out — where does she come from? It’s not that she doesn’t believe it. But she feels there’s more to the story. And she needs to figure out what’s come before so she can figure out what to do next.”

Those questions about Rey’s history will obviously be answered in this movie. If they aren’t, the fans are going to be pissed. Abrams goes on to say that it will be more than her Force abilities that define her role in this final battle:

“The scavenger who is desperate and haggling for portions and trying to survive [in Force Awakens] — those special skills and that special experience ends up being something that is essential to saving the galaxy.”

That’s a very interesting comment, and I’m looking forward to seeing what exactly that means when the movie is released. She is the key to saving the Galaxy and her actions will bring this story to a close for good. Abrams himself insists that “Rise of Skywalker won’t set up a future story.” According to the report, “He’s not leaving loose threads for Disney to hang another trilogy directly onto the back of this one.”

I can’t wait to see how it all ends when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens on December 19, 2020.