Daisy Ridley has teased Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's epic lightsaber battle between Rey and Kylo Ren, talking about the challenge of filming a fight scene in cold and stormy conditions. The final installment in Disney's current Star Wars trilogy is also the conclusion of the Skywalker saga, and will bring back old enemy Emperor Sheev Palpatine as Rey and Kylo Ren come together for a final showdown.
Each of the movies in the Star Wars sequel trilogy has a key lightsaber battle between Rey and Kylo. In Star Wars: The Force Awakens they fought one another in a snowy forest near Starkiller Base. Star Wars: The Last Jedi switched things up by having Rey and Kylo fight on the same side in its climactic lightsaber battle, working together to take out Snoke's Praetorian Guards. Despite this possible glimmer of redemption for Kylo, however, his burning desire for galactic domination ultimately kept him trapped on the dark side.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will see Rey and Kylo battle once again, as teased in a promotional image (above) that was recently released in Vanity Fair. Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Ridley hyped up the fight and explained how it was both grueling to film (due to the water being thrown around), but also easier than previous fights thanks to the new lightsaber props:
"We have a great fight. A great fight. And I was really happy that the Vanity Fair pictures did show a bit of it. It’s a great fight. Like I’ve become such a better fighter and they made the lightsabers lighter, so it actually looks like we’re swinging light and not like heavy, heavy [swords]."
Based on the water surrounding them, it looks like this fight takes place amid the ruins of the second Death Star, which was shown in the first teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, having fallen into an ocean on Endor. Ridley went on to explain that the fight was filmed with water crashing around herself and Kylo Ren actor Adam Driver, and that the stormy conditions will be enhanced even further with VFX:
"This fight, we did, it was November, we had water being thrown at us, and I got a great deal of respect because I did not, I was 'I’m not gonna complain about the cold, I’m just not gonna do it (laughs)—so it was like a real thing of stamina. It feels really epic, and it felt epic even at the time. Imagine, we had the waves like this, and they're gonna make the waves bigger, and one can only imagine what it’s gonna look like."
Both Rey and Kylo have survived their previous lightsaber battles, but with this being the final movie of the saga (and this fight likely taking place in The Rise of Skywalker's third act), this may well be a fight where only one of them walks away at the end. As for how Darth Sidious is involved, and the significance of the Death Star's ruins... well, we'll have to wait until December for the answers to those questions.
Source: Happy Sad Confused (via JoBlo)
