The Rise of Skywalker promotes a marquee cast: Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac and John Boyega return as core team. Billy Dee Williams back as Lando Calrissian. Carrie Fisher resumed her royal role as General Organa thanks to the magic of Star Wars deleted scenes. Keri Russell, a J.J. Abram’s favorite since the Felicity days to play Zorri Bliss under a Boba fat-like mask. The list goes on – and on and on and on.
Star Wars is the type of property in which the name actors don’t mind taking on small but important roles. Take the Lord of the Rings and the lost star Dominic Monaghan, who appears as a resistance fighter and somehow knows how the emperor was brought back to life. Then there are the direct cameos: Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and longtime franchise composer John Williams both appear in Rise in no time, and you’ll miss them just because.
But perhaps the most fulfilling, inspired piece of cameo casting comes at the very end of The Rise of Skywalker, at a crucial point in time that is definitely spoiler territory.
(Ed. Note: The rest of this post contains important spoilers for Rise of Skywalker.)
When Rey places the Emperor in his dark room on Exegol and is tempted to knock him down, although he can give him unlimited power, the kind-hearted warrior hears the voices of the Jedi past.
“These are your last steps, Rey. Get up and take it. “
Like Korra in the Avatar: The Last Airbender Spin-Off The Korra legend is not only Rey the obvious candidate for leading a new generation of Jedi, she literally has the power of every Jedi who went before her. And while facing her greatest enemy, her predecessors whisper words of encouragement from the ether. Some of the Jedi are recognizable. Others that a viewer would only know if they had kept pace with the past decade of animated Star Wars television. Here is an overview of the surprising voices we hear in this key scene.
Picture: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker
Although Christensen has been replaced by the popular voice actor Matt Lanter in the television series The Clone Wars, he returns to his role as Brooding Older Anakin Skywalker to remind Rey that the Force surrounds her. It was the first time since Revenge of the Sith that he appeared in a Star Wars film (unless you count his power spirit in the Return of the Jedi rework).
Christensen’s work as Anakin was not particularly well received and in 2010 he took a four-year break from acting.
“I think I felt like I had this great thing in Star Wars that opened up all these opportunities and gave me a career, but it felt a little too overwhelming to me,” Christensen told the Los Angeles Times in Year 2017 while he was in heaven for the religious drama 90 Minutes. “I didn’t want to go through life like I was just riding a wave.”
Picture: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Olivia d’Abo as Luminara Unduli
Despite the deepening of the Star Wars canon since 2008, the mythology of Dave Filoni’s “The Clone Wars” has seldom passed into Lucasfilm’s blockbuster cinema. Rogue One was a milestone when Forrest Whitaker played a live action version of Saw Gerrera, showing a cameo of Ghost, the main ship of Star Wars: Rebels. For the first time, Rise of Skywalker establishes the connection to the canonically animated universe for the Skywalker saga and shows a line reading by Olivia d’Abo that breathed life into Luminara after she appeared silently in Attack of the Clones.
Picture: Lucasfilm Ltd
Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano
There is no bigger Star Wars fan favorite who never has to set foot on the screen than Ahsoka. Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan, the character was the lifeblood of The Clone Wars and later appeared on Star Wars Rebels to lead the young Jedi wannabe Ezra. (Both shows are now on Disney Plus, so no excuses.) When or if Ahsoka would show up in a movie was a sticking point for fans who would have a hard time separating Ashley Eckstein’s lively voice from the one she saw in the live -Show could play. Action. As we prepare for a Mandalorian appearance, her voice in The Rise of Skywalker is a bit heartbreaking. After the rebels, it was unclear what happened to Ahsoka, but when the First Order collapses, we know that she has passed away.
Picture: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Jennifer Hale as Aayla Secura
If you’ve spent an excessive amount of time watching background footage of Jedi battles, you’ll know Aayla Secura, who appeared in both Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Dave Filoni and his team of Clone Wars writers have worked out more backstory and adventure for the Rutian Twi’lek, but Aalya is particularly noteworthy because it’s not even a creation by George Lucas. She first appeared in Star Wars: Republic by Dark Horse Comics and became a canon through her inclusion in the Prequel films. Hale, who played her in Clone Wars, maintains the character’s legacy in the sequel to the trilogy.
Picture: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu
If viewers could pick out the voices of Rey’s motivators, it is likely Jackson who is not only a God power on the screen, but also a reputation for great narratives. Along with Inglorious Basterds’ story for long-time accomplice Quentin Tarantino, the actor did an Oscar-worthy work in which he spoke James Baldwin’s words in the recently made documentary I Am Not Your Negro. The man can talk.
Mace Windu had a life after the prequel trilogy in which Terrence C. Carson played the role in The Clone Wars for years. But in a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, Jackson, he would be interested in returning to the role. “I would really like to run Mace Windu in Star Wars again,” he said. Lucasfilm, are you listening?
Picture: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi
No one in the entire Star Wars galaxy has achieved McGregor’s concentrated charisma. It is therefore not surprising that Disney and Lucasfilm actually give the actor another run in his old Jedi robes. In August, Lucasfilm officially announced that Ewan McGregor, who filled Alec Guinness’s shoes in Lucas’ prequel films, will return to the Star Wars universe in a new Obi-Wan TV series for Disney Plus. We are already dreaming of the possibilities and his voice in Rise of Skywalker only excited us even more.
Picture: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Frank Oz as Yoda
OK, let’s take that back to Sam Jackson: There’s no more recognizable Star Wars voice than Muppet veteran Frank Oz’s older Yoda voice. After the OG Yoda appeared for The Last Jedi in rubber, she returned to Rey to be inspired in the central scene by Rise of Skywalker.
A funny fact: seasoned voice actor Tom Kane took on the role for the Clone Wars television series, and although there was no place to force him into the vocal Episode IX scene, he already has a place in the pantheon of the sequel trilogy: he chose the role of Admiral Ackbar after the death of the original actor Erik Bauersfeld.
Picture: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Angelique Perrin as Adi Gallia
Like Aayla Secura, Adi Gallia was a Jedi who appeared on the screen in the prequel trilogy but didn’t have much to do. In contrast to Aayla Secura, the Adi of the Clone Wars series, like its counterpart to live action, is played by a colored woman. Angelique Perrin, who last spoke characters in Cannon Busters, spoke the role about seven animated episodes and returned for The Rise of Skywalker.
Picture: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Freddie Prinze Jr. as Kanan Jarrus
The biggest surprise for any millennial Star Wars fan who couldn’t keep up with the animated expanded universe is that former heartbreaker Freddie Prinze Jr. shows up in Rise of Skywalker’s acoustic Jedi collage for a second. We don’t want to spoil the uninitiated too much of the rebels, but Kanan is the rare mix of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, a Jedi who laid down his saber for a blaster and lived as a smuggler after his brothers were killed in the Order 66. His History in Rebels will make your heart beat faster and make its inclusion in Rise of Skywalker emotional for a certain section of fans.
Image; Lucasfilm Ltd.
Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn
Last but not least, Neeson’s impressive Phantom Menace Jedi returns to continue the trilogy in which Rey takes on a villain he hasn’t lived long enough to be considered a villain. While Qui-Gon’s premature death by Darth Maul kept him away from the main narratives of the clone wars, he acted as a spirit of power to instruct his former Padawan Obi-Wan. And unlike most of the actors in the prequel trilogy, Neeson actually came back to play him.