Star Wars fans are in for a wild ride!
J.J. Abrams is opening up about what’s in store in the upcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in Entertainment Weekly‘s December issue, which hits newsstands on Friday.
With three special covers honoring generations of beloved heroes and notorious villains from the nine-film saga, Abrams was quick to avoid any spoilers but did offer a tease of what’s coming next.
“The [trailers] that have come out are scratching the surface of what the movie is,” Abrams told EW.
As for what production on the final film in the saga was like, the director, 53, said, “We always knew we were going to have three fewer months to postproduction in this film.”
“So much is still being worked on,” he said. “It’s literally a practical race to get it finished.”
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Despite the deadline crunch to get the film ready for its Dec. 20 release date, Abrams said he is feeling “infinitely better” about it at his stage than he was about The Force Awakens, which hit theaters in 2015.
Abrams also divulged more on Carrie Fisher‘s final appearance as Princess Leia in the film, telling EW, “Saying Leia had passed away, or that she was off somewhere, felt like a cheat.”
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“Then I remembered we had these scenes that we hadn’t used from Episode VII,” Abrams said of his decision to include old, unused footage of Fisher in the upcoming installment.
“It was like finding this impossible answer to this impossible question,” he explained. “Suddenly, we had classic Carrie in these amazing moments. So when you see her in the movie, it’s her, she’s there. It’s not like there’s some crazy digital trickery. She’s just in the movie.”
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is in theaters Dec. 20.
