One of biggest challenges with Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker was dealing with the death of series mainstay Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, says crew member Maryann Brandon. The Academy Award-nominated editor has worked with director J.J. Abrams in over 20 movies, Star Wars included, and she discussed working on the final film in the Skywalker Saga in an interview leading up to the movie’s release this Friday.

Like Abrams, Brandon had worked on the first installment in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, The Force Awakens, and was brought back with Abrams when The Rise Of Skywalker’s previous director, Colin Trevorrow, stepped down due to creative differences with Lucasfilm. According to her, wrapping up the story they began proved to be difficult once Luke gave his life during the finale of The Last Jedi, especially combined with the tragic real-life death of cast member Carrie Fisher.

“All I can say about that is that The Last Jedi, I really enjoyed, but I will say it did present a lot of challenges in terms of where Episode IX had to go to finish the saga.” Brandon told AwardsDaily reporter Megan McLachlan. “In other words, unfortunately Carrie died… She’s a character that had to be figured out, and that was a huge challenge… Luke died, which was a problem. So we had those two opposing problems, so I think what you’re seeing trend is that the setup was difficult to deal with.” Brandon went on to praise Abrams and writer Chris Terrio for the way they handled these deaths in the movie and dispelled rumors of the cast and crew of The Rise Of Skywalker being displeased with the previous film. “I think [The Last Jedi director] Rian Johnson is an amazing filmmaker, and I just think that when you’re doing a trilogy, you can’t just abandon a story. So whatever he chose to put in that film, those things that are dangling have to be dealt with.”

Luke’s death at the end of The Last Jedi proved to be one of the most divisive aspects of the movie, something which seemed like a finale rather than the middle of a trilogy in the eyes of many fans. This has caused untold division in the Star Wars community leading up to the final installment of the franchise, with much speculation on how the last chapter in a saga which began all the way back in 1977 is going to end.

Still, if anyone can pull off such a task, it would be J.J. Abrams, given how he had dealt with the equally-mammoth task of following up the seemingly final Return Of The Jedi with his previous Star Wars film. Even without Carrie Fisher, Leia will still be a part of The Rise Of Skywalker, albeit in a more limited role than what was planned for her originally, and Luke appears to be continuing his role of mentoring Rey as a Force Ghost. Also, The Rise Of Skywalker will have an even stronger connection to the past films than either The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi, as Emperor Palpatine is set to return, and appears to have been manipulating Kylo Ren from the beginning. These factors all tie into the fact that Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is indeed the finale of a story spanning nine movies, and fans will see for themselves how it all ends when the film hits theaters this weekend.

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Source: AwardsDaily

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