It’s not often that we get to peek behind the curtain at the creative design process in a galaxy far, far away but this piece of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker concept art gives us exactly that – while also connecting to two Star Wars spin-offs.
Concept designer Jake Lunt Davies shared artwork on Instagram, revealing three (presumably) background characters that didn’t make the cut.
- How to watch the Star Wars movies in order
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ending explained
- The best Star Wars movies, ranked!
More interesting than Episode 9 seemingly almost featuring a girl gang lounging around on a speeder is the fact that they each have connections to either the sequel and prequel trilogies, Solo, or The Mandalorian.
“The girl on the left was an alien I did for the casino in The Last Jedi and the centre girl was also a species for TLJ as well as making appearances in Solo and the Mandalorian. And a Twi’Lek in the right,” Davies said.
Whether you liked Rise of Skywalker or not, the relative lack of new alien species was a black mark against a franchise that so often embraced weird and wonderful character designs. It’s heartening to see they found homes on-screen elsewhere.
It’s not clear that the character that appeared in both Solo and Mando was the same character – most likely not unless Lucasfilm has been playing the super-long game with the most minor of minor aliens – but it’s nice to see that this sort of world-building still goes on behind the scenes.
Dune's Denis Villeneuve has no interest in directing Star Wars and it's partly down to Return of the Jedi making him "so angry" in 1983: "It seemed like a recipe, no more surprises"
Five years after it was announced, Marvel is finally releasing its Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker comic adaptation, complete with extra scenes not in the film
