‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’: New TV Spot Goes Epic With John Williams’ Iconic ‘Duel of the Fates’

Ryan Lattanzio

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The latest “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” spot, timed for Thanksgiving, promises a battle to remember on December 20 when the movie opens. With “Duel of the Fates,” John Williams’ iconic theme from 1999’s “The Phantom Menace,” this should be enough to get any fan to buy a ticket immediately, if not sooner. Watch the new spot below.

“This will be the final word in the story of Skywalker!” announces the Emperor as the TV spot ramps up into a montage of battle-driven footage that portends a satisfying conclusion to this particular Star Wars saga from director J.J. Abrams.

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The film boasts all your favorite “Star Wars” players: Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Richard E. Grant, Keri Russell, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams, and Ian McDiarmid, and yes, Carrie Fisher in a posthumous role.

Regarding the return of Emperor Palpatine (McDiarmid) signaled in this spot and other recent footage — which has proven to be controversial among fans because he was supposedly killed in “Return of the Jedi” — director Abrams said, “Well, when you look at this as nine chapters of a story, perhaps the weirder thing would be if Palpatine didn’t return. You just look at what he talks about, who he is, how important he is, what the story is — strangely, his absence entirely from the third trilogy would be conspicuous. It would be very weird.”

The resurrection of Palpatine, according to Abrams, is in keeping with the upcoming film’s nostalgic spirit. “When Larry Kasdan and I worked on ‘The Force Awakens,’ we didn’t do it in a vacuum,” he said. “We very purposely looked at what came before. We chose to tell a story that touches upon specific things and themes and ideas that we’ve seen before, to begin a new story. But we examined all that came before to ask where does this feel like it’s going?”

“The Rise of Skywalker” is the third installment in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy that launched in 2015 with Abrams’ “The Force Awakens” before Rian Johnson took the reins for 2017’s “The Last Jedi.” The upcoming film is set a year after the events of “Last Jedi,” as the remnants of the Resistance once again face the First Order and the long conflict between the Jedi and the Sith comes to a head.

This looks to be another sweeping space-opera epic that will be an enormous holiday season hit for Disney. See for yourself below.

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