All language subtitles for atom 1973

Let me ask you a question,
where are you guys from?

-San Diego.
-Yay.

And what'd you do?
You drove here?
Why'd you drive here?

-We wanted to see this.
-See it.

Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill

and Carrie Fisher
and Billy Dee Williams are here.

When you watch the movies,
you can tell that they were made
by people who really cared

about what they were doing.

Seeing this part of it filmed,
and there's all of the props
around,

and there's people
lying on the ground,
and it's all cruddy,

but you know that they're
going to take it back
and put in the opticals,

and it's going to be
totally different.

-I mean, we're all--
-So there's a magic to that.

-We're all in Tatooine
right now.
-Yeah.

So it's terrific, you know.

By the time all nine films
are done, it's gonna be
like, I mean, I don't--

I'm afraid to see what you guys
are gonna come up with.

It's gonna be amazing.

I've always called it
a space fantasy,

designed to be
a modern fairy tale.

Hopefully it will, you know,
justify it as a series,

make you say,
"Gee, what happens next?"

The real satisfaction
will come out of completing
what we started out to do.

And I don't think
there's been anything
quite like this, you know?

A beginning,
a middle, and an end.

It is the final chapter.

It's the big finish.

So, all stops are out,
and, uh, it's all go.

Friends,
it's that time again.

To Mr. J.J. Abrams,
I'd say a happy day
one on Star Wars: Episode IX.

-Hip, hip--
- Hooray!

-Hip, hip--
-Hooray!

-Hip, hip--
-Hooray!

Thank you, all, again.
Back to work.

Today
is day one of Episode IX,

and we're starting
on the Falcon,

which is, uh,
incredibly surreal to be back.

I never in a million years,
never thought I'd be back
on this set.

I'm so excited.

It's not remotely
what I'm sure it was like

for the legacy actors
to come back at all.

But it is a strange thing
to return to a place
that you have fond memories

and feel like you got to do
something very special,

and sort of dodged
a crazy bullet,
and was like, "I did it."

And now to be back here
feels, uh, really weird.

We came into that first movie
with a lot of trepidation.

All of us knew
that we had this huge weight
on our shoulders.

And now,
to have everybody coming back
and working together,

it's kind of like
the family coming back together.

I can't believe it.

And that's made it really nice.

We all know each other.
The crew are used to
each other...

Oh, my gosh.

And now to finish it off
with J.J. is a blessing,
you know?

And so I just
get to enjoy my job.

It's not just the end
of three movies,
it's the end of nine movies.

There's a lot to consider,
but I couldn't be more grateful.

And I couldn't be more comforted
by the company I'm in.

I come to Star Wars
first and foremost as a fan.

So I have extremely high
expectations.

And the world of it
means so much to me
that I'm not easy on it.

And so we haven't been easy
on ourselves.

This is their creative faces.

They're creatively trying
to come to a decision

and they do faces like that
'cause that's what they do.

It's how we create...
to kind of make
real Star Wars decisions.

-Hey... do that thing where--

What'd he say?
I'm gonna rewind this
and watch it.

Every day we ask ourselves,

"How do you end the story
that George Lucas started
so many years ago?"

"How do you end this myth
that's become a myth
for the whole world?"

- Rolling.
-Rolling.

Moving. And we're flying.

Set, and action.

Action.

The fun begins.

How long
before you can make the jump
to light speed?

Take a few minutes
for the navi-computer
to calculate the coordinates.

A few minutes? Are you kidding?
At the rate they're gaining?

Uh...
No, what is it?

- "Traveling
through hyperspace..."

Do you have to shoot this?

Traveling through hyperspace
is like dusting--

It ain't like
dusting crops, kid,

without precise calculations,
we fly too close to a star...

Then bounce
into a supermarket
and then--

-Yeah.
-It'd be a hell of a mess.

What's that?

Watch-- We're losing
the deflector shields.

Go strap yourselves in.
Be careful on the way out.

Yeah, sure.
I'm taking it very cautiously.

Okay, cut.

You.

Go away with that.

- "Bounce too near
a supermarket"?
- What did you say?

It's a righteous challenge,
you know?

I think for the last movie
there is such expectation

and such investment
in these characters.

-Where are you skipping to, Poe?
-Scary places.

Roll.

Seeing Poe and Finn
and Chewie in the cockpit

has been an extremely fun
and sweet start.

And now we're doing
a quick test with Daisy.

-It's so pretty, the thing.
It's so nice.
-Nice, huh?

We're kind of
trying to finalize the look.

I haven't seen it.
I mean, I saw the rough--

-I like it.
-An outward reflection
of my inner soul.

Um...

Uh... What's going on?
How are you?

I'm having a proper lack--
I couldn't sleep last night.

It's been quite a long buildup
of freaking out.

Yeah, it's nerve-racking.
I don't really know
how to describe it,

but I feel more the expectation
of what people want
for the last chapter.

I do remember what
my first week was like
because we were in Abu Dhabi.

You're on Fatima
and then you look at the ship.

It's sort of the same levels
of nerves, actually.

There we go, that's better.

So I remember it vividly.

And the whole week was like
... and it was
both amazing and terrifying.

I was doing
my walk along the desert,

taking off my stormtrooper gear.

There you go.

It was very hot,

and everything looked
very big to me.

I was like,
"Why is this camera so big?"
Like, "Why everything is huge?"

Um... But it was fun.
I was getting used to
a whole new world.

When Oscar came in to audition,

obviously I had the role before,
and Oscar hadn't done much--

It was more
of a technicality.

I mean, I, you know,
I wouldn't call it an audition--

An audition.
More of a read.

It was more of a--
But he read the scene,
and I was kind of like,

"J.J., what are you doing, man?
It's him. Come on.
Let's stop wasting time, man."

And it's nice to be able to
actualize that chemistry
that we had on that first read.

Thanks for a great,
great first day back.
Thank you very much.

We made it one day. Day one.

It is my honor
to be the one to introduce
back to this universe...

Mr. Billy Dee Williams.

I am quite pleased about
this whole situation

coming back
as an elder statesman.

Will you die in the movie?

Uh, no. Not yet, anyway.

No, I understand they
want to carry this character on.

Continue--
I think he's going to be
part of the heroes.

Well, look at you.
A general, huh?

You look damn good,
that's all I'm gonna say.
Let's do it.

- And go, background.
- Action.

I love the whole idea
of a movie like this,

because it talks about
the classic question,
you know, about good and evil,

and what prevails
and what doesn't prevail.

-There's something to gawk at.
Billy Dee.
-Trust me.

You said it, Chewie.

One last time.

- And sound speed.
-Thirty-eight apple. Take one.

Could have used
your help out there.

-How'd it go?
-Not well, actually.

It is
the first movie that, you know,

that, ostensibly,
this new generation
had to carry on their own.

As the end of VIII
left the Resistance,
you know, in kind of pieces,

they've set up camp quickly
with what they've been able
to resource and access.

It's weird coming back
and kind of feeling this, like,

earned confidence
of having done it before,

but also knowing that there
are still going to be times

when you're figuring things out,
and it's different and new
and scary.

But you can get through it
with the people that
you're working with.

-I love it.
-I liked it,
it was really good.

Joonas coming through.
- Hurry up.

Making J.J. laugh
is my number two priority,
you know?

Get the shot, nail the acting,
make J.J. laugh.

Go, background!

The challenge
for the designers and for J.J.

was to create an environment
that looks temporary
and sort of ad hoc,

but also has a bit of
the soul of Star Wars in it.

Looking amazing, guys.

When I'm in there, I say,
"Gonk, gonk, gonk."

Look straight, yeah, that's it.

That's amazing,
really incredible.

Bloody hell. How much you
lifting in the gym, bro?

-We have a whole situation
in here, boy.
-Yeah, man.

Put a microwave in,
a little TV on the side...

-That's what I'm going for.
-Home sweet home.

As we decided that we would link
this place with Leia's past,

it all started to come together.

Kevin has the idea
we could put the Blockade Runner
in the middle of the cave,

and that's why
they're hiding out.

That way, every time
you turn around, you're going
to see the Blockade Runner.

The Blockade Runner
is the first ship
that you ever see in Star Wars,

the ship that is running from
the Imperial Star Destroyer.

It's the first time
we ever see Princess Leia.

It was trying to link
this last film all the way back
with the very first film

by saying, "This is
how we've introduced her,

and this is how we finish
her journey within Star Wars. "

Okay, guys. Walk away.
Quick, quick. Go, go.

When we were doing VII,

she knew that that movie
was very much Han's story.

And then VIII
was very much Luke's.

You know, the thing she had said
was that IX should be Leia's.

Uh, and that's really something
that we've tried to do.

We lost Carrie before
the movie began, so that was
our first discussion, really.

It's, "How on earth do you tell
Episode IX without Leia?"

We couldn't
let Leia not be in this story.

Action.

Rey.

Leia is
extremely important

as a part of the conclusion
of this saga,

so we had to figure that out.

May the Force be with you.

One more time. That was great.

I will probably always
be identified as this person.

Vivien Leigh was always
Scarlett O'Hara
except to Olivier.

I don't know.
I will probably be Princess Leia
till I'm 85 years old.

Are you happy now?

I give George huge credit
for creating Princess Leia.

Certainly one of the feistiest
female heroines ever in cinema.

You know,
in the fairy tales,
a princess is to be rescued,

and she was far from
being a damsel in distress.

Aren't you a little short
for a stormtrooper?

Huh?

She found both Han
and I incompetent.

"You call this a rescue?
Give me those guns."

It still makes me laugh.

What the hell are you doing?

Somebody has to save our skins.

She's just authoritative
and just plows ahead,
it doesn't matter.

"Let's go through this shower
of asteroids, who cares?"

And my hair won't get messed up.

So, uh... she's different from--
And I like her,
I like her independence.

And I do wish that I had
a little bit more of,

"Come on, let's
just walk through the traffic,
it doesn't bother me.

It's not a, you know--
I won't get hurt,
there's a sequel."

So, on that level,
I envy her. I admit it.

I don't know that the luck,
the serendipity,

of the fact that we had
this footage that we
didn't use in Episode VII,

and, you know, really,
it meant a lot that it had been
J.J. there directing her,

and he was confident
in partnership with his editors
and visual effects supervisor

that we could use that footage
and it would be 100%
Carrie Fisher.

Week one,
we were pulling dailies

for them to start
writing a script
based on lines of performance

that hadn't been used.

And then Chris phoned me to say,
"We have this one line,

how many takes do we have,
what is she doing,
how does she look,

how does she say the line?"

What I felt like with J.J.

was he loved these films
in the same way
a lot of people do.

They're part of your childhood.

And so there's
a tremendous responsibility
to that.

To this thing that he treasured.

But he seemed completely
up for that.

They had so much fun
on Force Awakens,

and we all got along so well.

It was actually my first movie
I ever did.

This is my daughter,
the un-legacied,
the legacy of the legacy.

I treat it incredibly
personally and I think
we all will, very carefully,

to make sure that those scenes

are both serving
a story purpose,
an entertainment purpose,

but also honoring her
and the character,

which is, you know,
a real point of this movie.

Carrie was such
a wonderful, special person,
and I loved her dearly.

And so,
there was a personal aspect
for all of us that knew her,

but also,
technically, how to do it,

and do it in a respectful,
seamless, clever way.

Instead of trying to
integrate Carrie into a scene,

we actually had Carrie

and then we just built
the entire scene around her.

We were initially
creating storyboards

to be able to fill in
what the scene would be

that wasn't
the actual Carrie footage
that we pulled from Episode VII.

This mission is everything.
We cannot fail.

Roger, Maryann and I
then cut the scenes together

to demonstrate to J.J.
what it could be.

Do me a personal favor?
Be optimistic.

He could then visualize
conceptually,

"Ah, well, we
definitely need these shots,
we don't need those shots."

We were
able to recreate everything

as faithfully
as it was on the day,

building our movie around her.

And so that involves
figuring out the staging
of the other characters as well.

It's literally
like a gift from her,

or her forcing us to make her
the star of the movie, but--

Probably both.

This is the first scene
that we're doing with Leia,

and of course, we don't have
the most important person
with us.

I would say, we should have
a moment of silence,

but that's the last thing
that Carrie would stand for,

um, so instead I will say,

let's have every moment be one
of celebration for a woman
we loved,

a character we
loved and admired.

Thanks a lot. Thank you.

The reality
of having to do a scene

with someone
who isn't actually there...

Yes, Master.

...was very difficult.

I sort of had to walk off
and have a moment.

Being back has been incredible,
painful, surreal--

All of the adjectives
that you can come up with,
probably, I felt.

It was a hard day,
but it was a good day.

We've had tears
and we've had, you know--

-Laughter. Memories.
-Laughter. Yeah.

And the fact that
there were so many people
around talking so fondly of her,

and sharing
our memories of her.

And with Billie, to
be able to listen to, you know,
how people think of her mum...

-You know, it's--
-Amazing.

There's no one
in the entire cast and crew

that was more supportive
than Billie.

And so, to know
that we were doing this with,
sort of, her at our side,

that's something I'll just
always be grateful to her for.

I'm so happy,
and she would be happy
that it's her movie too.

We asked
some really exciting questions
at the beginning of this,

as far as Leia's Force strength.

Did she train as a Jedi?

And the decision to
make her part of that story

was a pretty exciting one to us.

You see the saber fight
between Luke and Leia.

We tried to use two performances
of Mark Hamill and Carrie

at the appropriate age.

And in fact,
Leia is being played
by Billie, her own daughter,

which is amazing.

There was this idea
in Return of the Jedi
that there is another.

And of course,
it refers to Leia.

And we thought that was
kind of a promise
that had not yet been fulfilled.

So when she says
at the end of Episode VIII...

We have everything we need.

...it felt like
the perfect transition
to this story,

where we come in and discover
that Rey is continuing
her Jedi training,

but she's being trained
by the other Skywalker.

It's fascinating
to watch an actress
come into a role like Rey,

and to be 19, 20 years old.

Even the idea of getting strong
physically, all of that was new.

Whoo!

And now as she's emerging
as a powerful Jedi--

-Blast him back? Okay.
-Yeah.

And you're watching her as Daisy
actually move through
that process,

there's an interesting parallel.

Bit of dialogue,
bit of dialogue.

I went into it knowing
that I wanted to be healthy.

Doing stuff that literally
feels good for your body.

So I was sort of combining
a number of things,

so I was doing
essentially bodyweight training
five days a week,

and then kickboxing
twice a week.

One, two.

En garde. Dialogue.

I took karate, uh, kendo,

and did a little bit
of weight training.

They sort of want to mix
that martial arts flavor

in with the traditional
foil fencing.

-That's good. All right.
-Okay.

-Okay, we have to rest now.
-Okay. That's it, all right.

I can't talk now.
I'm out of breath.

Is it difficult?

He's becoming
better than Errol Flynn.

What do you mean by difficult?

This is unusual, you know,
I haven't seen this one before.

Then you pull the saber out.
Here we go.

You know
how this is going to go.
It hits you immediately.

This remote droid was molded
from the original mold
for A New Hope,

the one that they used then.

So that is exactly the same
as what you saw on
the Falc on A New Hope.

- Sick.

Do a stab.

There you go. Yeah, like that.

That's what it, are you ready?
-That was quick.

It must be really annoying.
-Yeah.

- Try, get me. Go on.

That's the feeling.
That's it, yeah.

-Eunice.
- Come get me, go on.

-It is like that though.
-That's what it is.
That's exactly right.

Eunice just
a tremendous stunt coordinator,

amazing force of nature.

She just came across
as a breath of fresh air,

someone who would attack this
with a passion that J.J.
would respond to.

She's on the tightrope.

-Going.
-Yeah.

She gets the ribbon.
Now she's running back.

-Thirty foot
is quite a big gorge.
-It is.

Do you like the idea that
there's like a half-fallen tree

and she sprints up
the fallen tree so it pitches it
off over the gorge a bit,

and she gets
the height coming,
to come down on?

-You would believe it more.
Yeah, cool.
-No, it's good.

All right. Nice.

-Yeah, I got one!

Yes, home run!
Boom. Have it.

-How's that?
-Good.

Does it--
Make it softer next time?

She's walking to the end.

And then remember,
that strong takeoff changes
the whole body language.

-That strong takeoff.
- Okay.

And when you cycle through,
forget about the wires,

-then just bring
your arms through.
-Yeah.

-Okay.
-Okay.

It's funny because
I had heard various things
about Eunice

before I met her.

People go--
People call her intense.

With intention, Tommy.

-I'm tense.
-Oh, I'm tense.

Oh. I'm not tense at all.
I'm having a lovely time.
This is great.

She's just got
the most amazing energy
all the time.

This is all you,
forget the wires.
You're doing this jump for real.

- Yeah.
-Just drive!

Set. And roll sound.

- Rolling.
-Roll cameras, please.

Sound speed.

-Sixteen Lima, take two.
-Here we go.

Set and go. Camera!
Three, two, one. Action!

Stretch out!

And cut. Great job, Daisy.

-I don't think
that was the best one.
-Great job, Dais.

-I think I'm seeing you do that.
-Yeah.

-It's like good,
good, good, weird.
- Didn't hit the wires.

Eunice came over to me
at one point, she goes,

"Do you think you were
as intense as last time?"

I was like, "That's not
the question, is it, Eunice?

You're asking me
to be more intense.
Just ask me to be more intense."

She's like,
"Yeah, be more intense."
I was like, "Okay."

Set, energy, and go. Camera!
Three, two, one. Action!

Drive! Stretch out!

Good girl.
That's the one. That's the one.

Good girl.

-Great job, Daisy.
-That was great.

The excitement on Eunice's face
when we nail it.

She's just like, "Yeah!"

I mean, it's just so--
You're just so happy
she's happy.

So it's truly--

I think every stunt
that happens,

she actually projects herself
into the role,
and she's doing it.

Her entire body is moving
in front of the monitor

when she watches
every little detail
of a stunt.

Eunice has a confidence
that is really exciting
to work with.

She's ferocious in a way
that you want people to be.

And when you
have people like that,
then you trust their opinion.

And it challenges you
to make it better
and more specific.

There was
no icebreaker with Adam.
You just, it's like--

And that's it.
But I actually love it,
I love it.

Even in rehearsals,
Adam's in character.

I'll go, "Adam, you
need to step out more, it's
closing your strength down."

And he's like,
"No, no, I don't need
to step out more.

Kylo Ren wouldn't be like that."

He wants it there,
he wants it there.

And I'd be like,
"Yeah, but, yeah, but..."

And we'd have this, like,
argument, but I like it.

Character is her starting place.
It's never from spectacle,
it's always from within.

He was like,
"So this how it is, Eunice.
I do all my own stunts."

And I'm like,
"Yeah, here we go.
I always hear it."

I go, "Adam,
there's a level you can do,
and there's a level you can't."

"No, no, no,
you're not hearing me.
I do it all."

The physicality of Kylo,
I'm very protective over,

so you kind of-- I wanted
to do all of the things.

I was like, "Well, okay,
if it looks good, you can do it.

If it doesn't look that good,
I'll be putting
the stunt guy in."

It has to look good,
so, um--
But he did everything.

Okay, troopers.
Grab yourself a seat.

Welcome, everyone.

Thank you for being here,
for being the evil crew.

Troopers,
quick as you can. Thanks.

You look awesome.

Thank you so much,
and let's have fun.

All in favor say, "Aye."
- Aye.

At the start of the movie,

you find Kylo the most assured
of the choices that he's making,

going deeper and deeper
into the dark side.

The thing that J.J. said to me
when we first met was

that I imagine a journey
of a character where it's
almost the opposite of Vader.

Someone who almost starts
the most vulnerable...

and kind of
gradually becomes closer
to his convictions,

more assured about his choices,

had metaphorically
and physically
killed his father--

The unique and very
deeply emotional
and troubling way

in which Han Solo meets his fate

helps realize the full potential
of the character
that Adam Driver plays.

What is it in the human brain

that gives us
the capacity to be as evil
as human beings have been?

That's what I wonder.
I wonder how can those people
possibly exist?

Compassion and greed,
we all have those two sides
of us.

We have to make sure
that those two sides of us
are in balance.

What happens
when you go to the dark side
is it goes out of balance.

At the heart
of this movie is a darkness.

It's part of Rey's journey
to confront this darkness

that's been there
from the very beginning
of The Force Awakens.

We knew from the beginning

that there would be
a Heart of Darkness-y
structure to the movie

and that this would be
about Rey's journey
to the darkest place,

both in the galaxy and for her.

But we had to work a lot
to try to figure out
exactly what that was,

exactly what it meant,
how the past
would come into the story,

how the present and future
would interact with that past.

The idea came up of, "Well,
what if Palpatine lived on
in some way?"

Within about 30 seconds
of discussing that idea,

we just knew
that it was the right idea

because we knew that
this has always been a story
of Skywalkers and Palpatines.

It's a generational story.

The idea of the story
of these grandchildren

grappling with the same things
that their predecessors
had dealt with,

it just felt poetic.

My favorite scene
from the prequels,

Palpatine telling Anakin
the story of Darth Plagueis
the wise

and his obsession
with cheating death.

And it sits there
like the greatest setup
of all time.

The dark side of the Force
is a pathway

to many abilities
some consider to be unnatural.

So, it could be
this unholy combination

of trying to prolong life
both through medical means
and through dark magic.

I love that he already looks
like his action figure.

I feel I've
been lucky for the third time.

When George saw me for
ten minutes all those years ago
for Return of the Jedi,

I was suddenly
the emperor of the universe.

So then, to get this call,

it was once again a third time,
extraordinary experience.

This is fantastic. It's so good.

- Is it still insane?
-It's insane.

-It's insane.

It's actually getting
more insane moment to moment.

Welcome, young Skywalker.
I have been expecting you.

It's like he has
this instrument that can go from
a whisper to this mega roar.

It sounds like he's got
a tiger purring in his throat

and that makes
the hairs stand up
on the back of your neck.

This is the full Emperor
now bursting forth
as he always was.

Um...

and it's clear that although
I have the best makeup artist
in the business,

he doesn't.

I hadn't seen him in his garb
till on the day,
and it was awesome.

The way it's described
in the script

is so creepy and so weird
and unsettling.

I just want to see Ian
be the Emperor again.

I'm really excited about that.

Look what you have made.

The idea
that this is an ancient place,

a place where maybe
the Sith really began
in the very beginning.

The ideas are not just
coming from the script,

there is a visualization process
that also invokes
creating ideas.

This feeling is so dramatic,
you know what I mean?

This like tumultuous,
stormy feeling.

It would be great
to talk to Dom about what
methods we may be able to employ

to create that sense
of it's a crazy storm,

and just do it, you know,
in camera.

One thing J.J. was always
impressing on me was

the fact that Rey
must feel small.

We must feel like little people
in a massive world.

The context of it is,
"I'm under...

-I'm an ant under
the shoe of a giant."
-Right. Right.

When we made these,
a man was going to be
about that high.

Now a man's going to be
about that high.

So these are absolutely giant.

The thing
that we're talking about
is if we cast someone,

then we wanna see
the mask become something
that's a choice.

And so his putting it on,
it's almost oddly
a vulnerability.

Putting on the mask
makes him feel more powerful.

J.J. wanted Kylo Ren
to have the helmet,

yet we had to address the fact
that he had destroyed it
in Episode VIII.

There's a technique
that the Japanese use
when they have broken pottery,

and they put it
back together with gold.

It's always very evident
that the piece was once broken.

Rather than do the gold,
we did a bright red.

It's really nice
to be killed by his lordship.

You know, if you've got to go,
then that's the way to go.

So, you'll be sitting, uh...

Action.

One of the background players
is none other than

the granddaughter
of Sir Alec Guinness,
Sally Guinness, right here.

Sally.

Action.

It's just
very exciting to be here.

- Isn't it crazy?
-Yeah.

I've gone to the dark side,
apparently.

Isn't it sad
what's happened?

Rolling.

-Rolling.
-Two, seventeen, take nine.

One second. And set.
Go, background.

-Sir, we've just received news--
-I see it.
Send another battalion.

This is a moment when
things are getting particularly
bad for the bad guys.

And so I wanted it
to feel like things
were a bit out of control,

but the idea is to kind of
try and find ways
to keep the thing alive.

It's not, like, an exercise
in how much can you do
in one shot,

it's the longer
you can hold on something,
and watching it actually happen,

the more exciting it is.

-Cut! Beautiful. Great job.
-Cutting.

And then it ends with a close-up
on our friend, Richard E. Grant.

You know, you can't
do wrong with that guy.

Action.

We recovered
the scavenger's ship,
but she got away.

For a Star Wars geek,
this is a dream job come true.

You feel like a kid in here,
and I've seen other
crew members do this as well.

Even though you know
it's switches and buttons,
and it doesn't work,

this impulse to just go up
and press things is very strong.

It's like
being a kid in a sweet shop.

I mean, there are some
pretty big-name actors in this.

And they all feel the same way.
We're all like, "Yes!"

I've said to J.J.,
"Can you just pinch me

to know that
I'm actually here today?"

So that's my feeling about it,
undisguised delight.

Because Domhnall's
such a good guy,

it was extremely enjoyable
to pull status on him.

I have the very great pleasure
of being shown the door by
Richard E. Grant,

which is lovely.

It wouldn't be so bad to
make sure that when we shoot--

To have a Star Wars gun
to take out General Hux

was an extraordinarily
pleasurable thing to do.

Tell him we found our spy.

B mark.

Bang, bang, bang!

The other two I enjoyed
while I was making them,

but there was the stress
of the first time of it
being the first time,

and then the second time
of everything being different.

And this time it's really nice
just to kind of

allow yourself to sit back
and look around a little bit

and remember how amazing it is
to actually be in Star Wars.

The more emphatic you say yes,
the funnier, I think,
it should be.

I'm the spy.

- What? You?
-Yes.

Hang on. Yes.

Back to one.

- You?
-Yes. We don't have much time.

Yes, we don't have much time.
Yes, yes, yes,
we don't have much time.

Yes, we don't have much time.

-That last one was good.

Cut.
Great job, thank you.

Well, I think myself and
Richard had competitions

to see who could
forget their line first.

They overpowered the guards
and forced me to take them
through their ship.

I that up.
I it up.

It was a co-- Ah...

What is it?
Sorry, what's his name again?

Allegiant General Pryde.

It was a coordinated incurment,
Allegiant Pryde.

- Jeez, I said Pryde now.

-This is what happens.
-Cut.

At one point I did have
to shamelessly request
of the director,

could they please
write this one sentence
that kept jamming in my brain

on a piece of card
so that I could at least
look at it.

No, Alderaan is peaceful,
we have no weapons. You can't--

You would prefer another target?
A military target?
Then name the--

The-- Name it. Now!

A lot of times it has
impossible dialogue to say.

You can type it.

Like Harrison says,
you can type it fine,
there's no way to say it.

Blah... blah...

The actual production
is shot in England,
and also Star Wars,

by the nature
of the exotic environments
that we deal with,

we sort of travel
all around the globe

and have things going on
on various continents, actually.

- You can name them.
- One and two.

Evangeline and Livonne.

There are no roads here.

There's no facilities,
there's no bathrooms,
there's no power.

We will have to play a little
because their eyes are magical,

and I don't want to lose
their eyes in a profile.

There's no food,
there's no potable,
drinkable water.

When they go
to look this way, this one
will come this way, we'll lose--

-This one could track
over to here--
-Yes. Exactly.

-I see this one's eyeball
the whole time.
-He could be watching him.

So maybe that way
a little bit like that,
we see him in profile.

No Wi-Fi, no internet.

There's none of that.

As soon as we're good
in this field, ladies and gents,

stand by to shoot please.

There are
no buildings here, there's
nothing to age where we are.

It's timeless.

The Wadi Rum desert
was just epic.

The vastness of the place
already feels like
an alien world.

I always like going on location.

It gives much more
of a real gravity to the scene,
I understand it more.

I feel like
I'm really in the environment.

It feels like a proper journey.

We were in the desert
for the first one
at the very beginning,

and now we're here
for the last one.

It wasn't
the first desert I'd been in.

I'd been in Star Wars
since day one
out in Tunisia in 1976.

Sand dunes and all that.

This was the desert in Jordan
that Ralph McQuarrie
must have had in mind

when he'd painted that
original picture of Threepio.

These strange craggy shapes
with a kind of miasma of sand
below them,

so the whole thing
kind of melted into one.

It-- It was heart-turning.

In a way, it was like
Threepio coming home.

Okay.

Am I in here?

No one understands
Threepio at this point

better than Anthony.

-Oh, yeah. Aw.
-Aw.

I visited Anthony at home,

and he showed me
some of the dialogue
looping notes from Star Wars,

the first Star Wars, and
from The Empire Strikes Back.

So, there are
handwritten sheets that say,

"I'm not going that way,
it's much too rocky."

Or the moment
in Empire Strikes Back
where he says,

"The chances
of successfully navigating
an asteroid field are 3,720-1."

But in the original,
it had said,

"The chances
of successfully navigating
an asteroid field are 3,725-1."

And he changed it
and got rid of the five
because the rhythm was better.

- Yeah.
-The way that it ended up
in the film.

You know, on the other shot, uh,
when I say to R2, you know,

-"Come on. Let's go."?
-Yeah.

I've already seen them,

so they ought to be kind of
in the doorway.

-Yeah.
-I don't know how
you're gonna cut it.

-That whole lineup
is a little tricky.
-Just throw it all away.

Cut me out of this, mate.

He has a way of tilting his head
or raising it back that's...

You-- It just...

it says more probably
than a person would do.

The face itself
has no expression.

But I find working
with Tony Daniels,
who plays the part,

you read expressions
into that face.

To me, he has
an incredibly mobile face.

He looks quizzical, he's, uh--
You know when he's in danger...

I can't stop myself
making all the faces

and smiling or frowning,
looking worried.

Even though
I'm way behind something,
nobody can see what I'm doing,

but for myself,
I'm doing all the actions.

And people come up
and they take the face, and
they say, "I'll try this on,"

and they put it on,
and they take it off again,

'cause they can't bear it,
you know?

I don't know, there's something
wrong with me that I can put up
with it.

What do you think?
Would you put your head
in there?

Neither would I.

I rather love Threepio.
I think he's a nice guy.

I think he gets a rough time,
but that's part
of the magic of it.

I remember at our cast dinner,

where everyone
had started reading the script

and Anthony hadn't read it yet.

So he kept hearing
from everybody, "Oh, my God,
Threepio's role in this film--"

Suddenly Threepio
was part of the team again.

Not since really
the very first film had
Threepio lived such a full life.

It's been gratifying
to give Anthony a role
that was bigger,

and to really let him
go along on the adventure,

'cause he has been along
on the adventure
since the beginning.

-I made it.
- Thank you, thank you.

We started shooting
the Festival of Ancestors,
which is truly insane.

I've never seen anything
like this before.

And the amazing thing is,
that's literally the line
in the movie that Rey says.

When you
think about Rey's journey
through these films,

she hasn't seen a lot of joy.

She has only seen the hardship
of growing up as an orphan,

and then she's seen war.

And the point of Pasaana,
the world that we discovered
and created in Jordan,

is for her to see celebration
and abundant joy.

The Aki-Akis were
actually a design
that happened quite early.

But if you bend over
and do this,
you keep your arms long,

I start to not quite understand
what the body shape--

You know what I'm saying?

So if you guys wouldn't mind
all just bending your knees

and keeping your arms long,
you know, and maybe move
your head forward a bit.

Yeah, that's kind of cool.

Maybe if we did have
some prosthetic legs

to kind of see,
for a couple hero ones.

- Yeah.
-And the legs weren't so...

just human legs
with stockings,

-but like we change
the anatomy a bit.
-Yeah.

That could be interesting.

If you saw one or two,
you'd be like,
I get all of them.

There's
a few lines in the script
that hint at what this might be,

and then when we begin,
obviously, talking with J.J.,

or we begin sketching ideas out

and coming up with
something that's, you know,

feels like it may be
a desert creature that
doesn't feel misplaced here.

Baby rhinos,
things like elephants,

all these things
are quite good places to,
quite good creatures to look at.

And obviously,
with Michael Kaplan in Costume,

when Michael starts
to engage them,

the shape becomes
a little bit more
understandable.

Each one really
requires a lot of fabric.

And so, it was finding
the correct fabrics.

We had to make a lot of trips
to different countries

just to find
the quantities we needed.

We found a lot of fabrics
in Italy, outside Florence,

in these massive warehouses.

The most amazing thing
about them is just
the sheer volume.

We were given the daunting task
of casting 450 Creatures, Akis.

We were talking about
how could we achieve this.

Obviously
we couldn't fly everybody in
and hotel them.

There wouldn't be enough hotels,
there wouldn't be
enough infrastructure.

So the idea was working
with the Jordanian soldiers

and local Jordanian people
here as well.

The first part of today will be
learning the ritual dance.

Left, right, left.

-Make a noise.
-Ooh.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Again.

They just became so involved.

Five, six. Here we go. One.

They got into it
and all of a sudden
I started to see it,

how it's going to be
in weeks to come,
after the boot camp week.

Again.

And then obviously filming.

Here we go.

Five, six. Here we go. One.

J.J. did come along,
and his feedback was great.

He absolutely loved it.

So, take ten minutes,
get yourself a drink,
have a breather.

We'll all come back.

You know,
talking to the performers,

for a lot of them,
they've never done
this type of work before.

It's the first time for them,

and they're excited.

I felt awesome.
I felt like a real alien.
A real Aki-Aki.

The more I'm in it,
the more fun it becomes.

And I'm having, like,
the best time.

It's really beautiful.

Thank you, thank you.

That's the main thing,
they're excited, they're
into it, and they want to do it.

And that's all I could ask,
so it's great.

And then we're gonna put it
over Rob's head.

And that was another army
of people that were
involved in that,

just to get the creatures ready.

Normally
we're used to one-on-one,

or you have sort of
two or three people to dress.

And, this is sort of
so constant for the two hours

that you've really
got to push them through.

All right, we're just
plugging you in, Calvin.

To get all those aliens
on that set, on time,

and to have them trained,
and be dancing...

- Is that all right?
-You okay? Perfect.

...that was pretty remarkable,
I thought.

We first came here in April,
and there was nothing here.

We scanned this whole area
and ILM helped put together
a virtual version

so that J.J. could walk around
with the headset back in the UK.

Set dec designed all the tents,
and now it's October.

We've been here six weeks,
putting this up.

So then to have the tents here,
and everyone in it,

is quite special and we're
excited to get filming.

We're gonna move you
over this way.

I can't believe
what we're doing.

-I know who you are.

We're basically bringing
the most insane, massive
puppet show to Jordan.

The head shake is amazing.

A little bit more shake, Liam.
On the head shake.

-I hope it works.
-That is so good.

It was a little bit like
putting on a big show event.

It didn't feel like filmmaking,

it felt like something
much more carnival
about the whole thing.

I must say
I'm very proud of all our crowd.

And they're being very patient,
it's a very hot day today.

I've never seen
anything like this.

I've never seen
so few wayfinders.

The enthusiasm and joy
that they have brought to it,

and commitment,
is extraordinary.

Shukran. Shukran.
Amazing. Amazing.

I've got to kind of keep my cool
and stay professional about it,

but working with J.J.
has been amazing.

We also did some little
Aki children as well,

which have a little part
to play,

and that was very sweet,
because they were all
hand puppets

and we literally dug a trench
and put nearly 30 puppeteers
beneath them.

It's a three-person puppet,
each one, and we've got 14.

So there's quite a lot of us
underneath the floor here.

So they do a sweep for scorpions
first thing in the morning

before we get down here
and scare them all away.

We did see some scorpion tracks
in the sand the other day,

so that was quite exciting.

You're actually seeing
a kind of version of the world
of Star War in one area.

What you're seeing is a galaxy
that is worth fighting for.

You got the gun there,
like that, you're training it.

You just literally relax
and let it all go.

I was shot by Chewbacca
in The Force Awakens.

Hey.

And now
you're going to be shot by?

Lando Calrissian,
I've been told.
I don't know if that's true.

-Just imagine
that the second here.
-Yeah.

-Now the lights are out.
-I got it. Yeah.

I hope that that's true.

I sort of gradually work my way
through the entire cast,

maybe everyone can have a go.

Action.

-Pretty good?
-Yeah.

No worries,
I'll be all right.

-That was pretty good.
-Okay, good.

All right.
So if I can just do that--

The stormtroopers
have discovered us,
and we have to run away.

Easier said than done
in my case, of course.

We've got a ton to do.

We had a 20-day schedule.
We decided to make it
a 16-day schedule.

The work hasn't changed
that significantly,
so it's not easier.

You see all different
departments working really hard

in what can be some really
quite challenging conditions.

Well, it's, uh, quite dusty.

Hot, hot, hot.

And then, you know,
you have your occasional dust.

It's quite hard
to work in a desert.

Everything takes
a little bit longer.

That pesky sand and the wind
get in the way.

My name is Ali,
this is my first production.

And I just want
to see Chewbacca, man.
Chewbacca holler at me.

I love you. I love you.

Ladies and gentlemen, Joonas.
Give it up for Joonas.

Chewbacca's my hero.

This is amazing.

Our bad boys
end up going that way.

It's an amazing exercise
to do Second Unit, I gotta say.

Attack it.
Attack it as it changes,
be malleable.

We're doing
a really exciting explosion,
where we have three cameras.

Here we go then, guys.
We're shooting.

You only get one chance
to get it right.

I don't think there's
one person here that would want
to be anywhere else right now.

I'm pretty sure.

And three, two, one. Bang.

We are here to safely
drown the heroes
in sinking sand

without scaring them
or injuring anybody.

We dug out--
You see this huge hole.

Got a crane in,
load in all these containers.

And thanks to the local army,

because they've provided
the digger and the labor
to do that.

So there's
various rigs involved,

one of which we can literally
drag them all the way under

so they're completely covered
in the material.

Or there's a couple of rigs
where Daisy Ridley
in particular,

she can crawl through the beans
to get to Chewbacca.

She stands here,
and she sinks down

through the sand
as she's moving forward.

So, we're using
a combination of materials.

Like, this is one of them.

We're using black beans
in order to simulate black sand,

'cause they're much easier
to push through.

One, two, three, four, five. Ah.

It's easy to find the set
because it's all the black sand
here.

Black beans, no one goes in it.

Okay?
Apart from the effects team,
and the stunt team.

There's very detailed protocols

that Dominic has
for how we look out
for the actors.

- What the hell is this?
-Sinking fields,
try to grab something.

The beans
would just come and cover us up.

And you'd have to kind of hold
your breath for a little bit,
until they said, "Cut,"

and then they would lift them
back up and you'd breathe again.

And that was
a little freaky sometimes.

-Bye, John.

I liked it.

One, two, three, four, five,

six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

-Well done, man.
- Well done.

I get a bit claustrophobic.

I remember coming through
the first time,

and you sort of
have to hold your breath,
and, like, panicking.

I got stuck
in the air bubble.

And we're good. Great work.

I think people were sort of
joking about it, but I really--

It was--

Oh, it was, yeah, awful.

-Rey!

-Look, I never told you--
-What? No. No.

And cut. Beautiful job.

And it looks amazing,
but it was awful.

You go into a sort of quicksand,

but then you end up at
the underside of the quicksand,

which is something J.J.'s
always wanted to do.

What's underneath all that?

This is so good.

This is like the thing
when you're a kid, and you
don't quite know where it goes.

It feels like
it goes on forever.

And then essentially,

as you always are whenever
you do something like that,

you're in the subconscious.

Now you learn things.

What do you learn?
You learn what happened
to her parents.

You learn
about her ability to heal...

even when faced with something
that could be perceived
as threatening.

And you look and
there's a snake. A giant snake,
a huge scary giant snake.

Oh, my God, and it goes up!

-And, Anthony.

There are so many new characters
and situations and effects.

I thought
they would have used them all up
on the first Star Wars.

And you know,
I arrive in the studio

and there's something
quite magical to see
and some new monster.

I saw one today.
A great sort of splodge thing.

And it was great fun
to act with all that,
and it's very stimulating.

I couldn't believe
what the creature department
had come up with.

The most wonderful piece
of engineering and puppetry,

because various members
of the team were coiled
inside the coils

and sort of rolling it
and slithering it.

And at the back somebody's
got this main arm, you know,

and the face is coming at you,
you know?

Swing left. And right.

Being, like,
a big multi-person puppet,

we all have to work
in synchronization
with each other,

and if one of us is out of time,
it kind of throws
the whole thing off

and it can look
a little bit clunky.

So, yeah, we all have
to kind of tune in
to each other,

and really feel it.

This is my favorite part.

We wanted to have something
for the actors to react to.

So they had a pretty impressive
stand-in version
of that creature.

That creates a much more
immediate performance for J.J.
to watch and look at.

And can the snake
in that position
come back any more?

There's some shots where,
you know, you could
still use the puppet,

but for the most part
we basically replaced it
with a CG version of it.

Now, get really low down.
Good.

Really low down.

You can sort of
be like... it's sort of
taking something out of you,

but you're kind of
focused on it.
And then it could do the inhale.

And cut. Good job.

-I'll tell you what, weirdly--
-I felt such a connection
with the snake.

-I'm not joking.
Are you kidding?
-No.

'Cause I totally did
at the end when
you were healing it--

That's amazing.

That's what acting's all about.

You can't sort of go home
and rehearse

your reaction
to a 9-foot ice monster breaking
through a wall, you know?

You just have to go on the day
and see what happens.

But, uh, it's never dull.

What?

I'll be right behind you.

It's fine.

What if your sort of soul mate
in the Force was your enemy?

As she's walking out,
we'll sort of arm out
as we're extending.

Circumstance
pits them against each other,

but the Force bonds
them together.

You'll walk out, basically,
maybe this direction.

-And the saber
is in your hand here.
-Here you go.

So, try the other--
Turn the other way please.

That's actually
probably better.

That way I get the saber
coming across camera,

-you know what I'm saying?
-Yeah.

They understand
each other almost from
a point of view of fate.

And yet fate
has made them enemies.

-And three, two, one, go.

And cut. That's so good.

It would be cool
to do a couple versions,

one that's more determined,
one that's more afraid.

You should explode that much,
like, say--

Like, just for that,
and then just go-to.

-And then I could make--
-You could do a quick step out.
Yeah.

-Shooting.
-Stand by to shoot.

Because of its luscious nature,

there's nothing
like watching film,

seeing
that the exposure's right,
that everything's right.

Three, two, one, go.

I love shooting
things practically.

And cut. Great job.
That was great, Dais.
That's awesome.

There's just a reality
to framing something up
and how the camera moves.

And if she lands here,
we should be good for Carlos.

-And for you.
-Lovely.

Let's get the drone up
in the air. Thank you.

Here we go.
And three, two, one, action.

That's incredible.

Could you play A at 60 frames?

It's tougher emotionally
than I thought it would be.

The stuff with Adam
always has been so emotional,

trying to find that balance
of feeling the light side

but also feeling
the draw to the dark side.

I love my life.
I love my job.

-It looks beautiful.
-I'm so excited.

He learns that,
over the course of the movie,

that they're two halves
of the same thing.

I think it just, if anything,
reaffirms what he knows
intuitively,

and has known for a while,

but hasn't been able
to articulate until he can.

No! No!

Chewie!

We did versions
when I'm just looking at it

and versions
when I looked at my hand.

And doing it felt horrific.

And that's really, I think,
obviously when you start
to see

that all is not well.

All right, we're
gonna all clear out in a minute
and let J.J. walk the set,

and then Adam
let rehearse it as well.

When they finally
have this confrontation,

despite it being this battle
seemingly to the death,

he clearly has interest in her
beyond just killing her.

There obviously
have been questions
for three films for Rey

that have culminated in this.

And it feels, having done it,

that it was the only way
she was going to get back
to herself,

is answering those questions
that are, like, lingering,
lingering, lingering.

You're looking down
at the blade,
frame that with her,

and then over her shoulder,
he's standing there.

That was the thing
I said to J.J.,

"I hope Adam and I
have some stuff together."

'Cause it's nice seeing
the differences.

I don't want it to feel like
Episode VIII Rey and Kylo.

So it has to be beyond then.
There has to be rage there.

But also,
there has to be sympathy
and understanding

and an actual connection.

And Adam,
turn clockwise, I guess.

A little bit more,
yeah, like that.

And then Daisy
come to your left
a touch more, please.

So, the Force
connection, which becomes
the fight in his quarters,

took like two or three days,
and it was pretty tough.

I think that was
the first fight we did.

And so in my mind I thought,

"We'll just have pickups
in Kijimi, that will be great.
We'll go to Kijimi."

And then we were shooting
outside.

It was absolutely freezing,

and there were
really technical things
we had to do.

And some of the moves
were really difficult,

and I thought,
oh, I won't have to do these.

And then obviously
I had to do them.

Sorry.

-Sorry.
-No, it's all right.

Back to one.
Twenty-four, Charlie,
take three.

I was nervous about the fight,
because he's enormous.

That was really my main worry.

But then once we got into it
it was pretty cool,

because it was more like
a choreographed dance.

And it felt like it
really paid off,

because I think
we both really knew
what we were doing

and how we were feeling,
and it was great.

They sold you to protect you.

Stop talking.

The set of Kijimi was one
of the wildest I'd ever seen.

It's epically big.
And it's got street
after street.

It's like stairs
leading to stairs.

The walls were easy,
the windows were easy.

The bloody roofs.

Four hundred construction guys,
it's like running an army.

Ta-da!

Where is this
in the script?

Well this is the Kijimi,
the snowy planet.

We wanted to reference
Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress.

The original two guys
in Hidden Fortress

were basically
the initial versions
of Threepio and R2,

two people
in a bigger adventure.

I went to high school in Japan,
and when I walked in,

these looked very familiar
to those roofs.

You know the walls,
the sloped angle
and the giant flagstones,

it's very much based
upon our tribute to Kurosawa.

The idea for Kijimi,
what it looked like,
what it felt like,

was really just,
"Here's a corner of the galaxy
that we should take a peek at

to see what these villages
are like when the First Order
has occupied them."

You guys are like,
"Let's get out of here,"
and you start to walk off.

Yeah,
'cause it's the first slam,
I think, and then--

The whole thing
could be a little mistier.

It's quite cold out here,
isn't it?

Amazingly, Star Wars has
these big beautiful sets,

you're not imagining
that much of it,
because you're actually in them.

I just feel like
I am in the galaxy right now.

I am going to win.

Ready, and background!
Civilians! Troopers!

Three, two, one, go.

We knew that we wanted
to learn more about Poe.

We wanted to learn
more about Finn.

But the challenge was to do
that without stopping the film.

Sometimes it takes
a couple tries, you know?

- A couple tries?
-A couple tries, you gotta--

That wasn't a couple tries,
that was like 29.

Was it? Didn't feel
like that much for me.

They're everywhere.
We gotta find another way.

There's an Arthur Miller quote,

which is that every drama
is a story of the birds
coming home to roost.

And I think that's somewhat true
for everyone in the story.

Poe, and the way
that he left things with Zorii
comes back in the film.

Heard you
were spotted at Monk's Gate.

Thought, "He's not stupid enough
to come back here."

I love that we get to
go back to when he was a young,
scrappy guy.

Poe and Zorii have history.

Okay, well, he had
a little moment in time there

where he was caught up
in the spice ring.

I think they were like
a lot of people in Star Wars,

they were surviving
in the only way that you can.

You were a spice runner?

-You were a stormtrooper?
-Were you a spice runner?

Were you a scavenger?
We could do this all night.

She takes the guy out... Boom.
And then that's the end
of the shot.

She's just really cool.

Bounty for her
just might cover it.

I have three kids.

But there is nothing
I have ever done

that my son
has thought was cool...

until this.

-So, J.J.?
-Yes.

It will be the twirl on one,
and the pull out on action.
Okay.

So, Keri,
the gun goes up on action.

-Two, one, action!

J.J. told me
he wanted it to be

always this kind of alluring,
wondering who she was.

Like, seeing people
and them not seeing you
is very unnerving.

And action.

I've saved up
enough to get out.
I'm going to the Colonies.

Wanna come with me?

When the visor comes up
and you see those eyes,

uh, that ended up being one
of my favorite scenes to shoot,

because it's a real moment
of connection.

And you often don't see
Poe vulnerable.

It's that way that sometimes
these people from your past

that knew you
in a different light,

they say that thing
that reminds you of who you are.

The spectacular Keri Russell.

So, we're
in Babu Frik's droid shop,

and we've made hundreds
of robot parts in the set dec
and props department.

And if you look up,
you'll see various heads,

some of which
have been seen before,

some that are brand new.

Forever banging your head.

Possibly, for anyone who knows
the Ralph McQuarrie concepts,

and that's stuff based on his.

Well, intricacy
is closely interconnected
to a complete mess.

So, we've got one or the other,
I'm not sure which.

Our team is luckily
very well-versed in Star Wars.

"Greebles." Greebles
was a word apparently invented
on the first Star Wars film.

And, uh, there are numerous
pieces of greebly,

which is an English term
for "dressing" on the barge.

Aircraft pieces that are made
to look into a kind of
space configuration.

It's to make something look
more technologically advanced

than it actually is.

And it can be as simple as

just adding
a couple of little buttons
and a little shiny thing.

It can be a verb or a noun.

"We will greeble that."

"Find some greebles."
"We're out of greebles!"

This has taken, I think
it's about two to three months

to get this quantity of stuff.

And that's the team
working every day,
churning stuff out.

And we've also made
a very special gallery

of items to commemorate
the participation
of John Williams.

Here, let's do it.

John Williams was having lunch
with Kathy Kennedy,

and the idea of his being
in the movie came up.

Kathy told me,
and we were both like,
"Well, we have to do this."

I said, "No, I don't want that,
it's too silly,

I wouldn't possibly do that."

And then I mentioned it
to my wife, Samantha,
and she said,

"You have to, that's more
important than doing the score
of the film,

you gotta be in it."

Threepio looks at you,
and you just don't like him
at all,

and you can even
shake your head a bit
and go back to your thing.

And you just--
That's the moment,
and the camera will push in,

-and it'll be fantastic.
-Okay.

Do you mind if I
make a little, small,
embarrassing speech?

Do you mind? Okay.

For anyone
who doesn't know,

and I think everyone does
and is probably giddy
in their own way,

but just to say it
so we're all well aware,

we are in the presence
of a supernatural genius,

someone
who does the impossible,

someone who is now an actor.

Ladies and gentlemen,
the one, the only maestro,
Mr. John Williams.

Forty years, this thing.

So we're gonna play now
the last piece here
which was the first piece then.

In 1976.

In 1976, when I was 12.

-Okay? And it sounds like this.

One, two, three...

When we recorded
the music of the first film,

none of us had any idea
that we'd ever hear the music
again.

It feels very privileged
to have been able to do
all of them to this point.

I don't think
there's anything quite like it
in the history of film.

But we had the opportunity
over decades
to take the same material,

use it again,
and add something to it
and revoice it and rework it.

Each and every time,
there's some amazing theme.

Something that, in three notes,
you know exactly what it is.

The music he writes
is so profoundly good
and impossibly moving,

you just can't believe
it didn't exist
before you hear it.

It's just,
it's very strange,
his superpower.

And equally amazing is just
his nearly insane humility.

Like, he writes something,
and then he'll conduct it,
and you're crying.

And he literally turns around,
he looks at you,
he's like, "Is that good?"

-That's good?
- Yeah.

All right. Let's go on.

All I can do is put notes
on a paper with a pencil,
and it stops there.

And I need an orchestra
to play the music,
and it stops there.

And then you need to have
the third element,
which is the audience,

sending back
what they send back.

And that completes the circle,
and that is what
musical communication is about.

Watching him work is amazing,

and he's such a nice guy.

Rey's scene,
where Daisy-- That's for you.

- Okay. That's huge.
-All right?

-You see here, this is for you.
-I think I'm gonna cry.

Don't get
any fingerprints on it.

- Ah, come on!

That's her first page.

He's had 51 Oscar nominations,

and we thought it would be fun
to do something

as a kind of celebration
of what he's done and who he is.

You are surrounded
by all this apparent junk.

Every single item
has been very purposely chosen

to represent one of the
51 Academy Award nominated
films that you've scored.

So, not only--
There's Hook over there
behind you.

-Oh, my God.
-This is Jaws.

There's ET,

Saving Private Ryan,

Tom Sawyer was a little
interesting to figure out.
We figured corn cob pipe...

That's from The Book Thief.

We've put letters
from the Star Wars
alphabet, Aurebesh, as J-T-W,

which is
John Williams's initials.

Oh, there's the whip
from Indiana Jones.

That's the iron from Home Alone.

-I mean,
literally, isn't it crazy?
-It is unbelievable.

-Isn't it incredible?
Each piece.
-Unbelievable.

This is ridiculous.
-It's great.

To have him in a movie

and just see the man
that we've been listening to
all our lives,

who's been moving us
so profoundly,

it was a blast
to get to work with him
in that way, and he was so...

uh...

he was so lovely and seemed
to have a really good time.

Great energy. Here we go.
Set, three, two, one, action!

Cut!
That was fantastic.

Babu Frik?
Can you help us with this?

Now this is the one
that does the operation
on Threepio's circuitry, right?

Babu Frik is a rod puppet,

which goes back
to the ancient way of puppetry.

So it's, uh...
You have your puppet, and you
just stick rods on the limbs,

and puppeteers will move him,
breathe life into him.

That's great.

So that's
the simplest version of him.

But obviously,
we would mechanize the fingers
and the toes and the face,

and all of those things.

Oh, my gosh. Look at that.

This is particularly small
for an animatronic head,
you know?

I'll bet.

And only in this tiny head,
there's 13 micro servos.

And they're all
individually powering
just so we can mix it up a bit.

You know,
on the original films,

I was never in
my dressing room,
you know?

When I wasn't in a scene,
they always knew I'd be
in Stuart Freeborn's shop.

I remember Stuart
whipping up the green foam

that they were gonna pour
into the Yoda mold.

He said, "Do you wanna
pour some?" I said,
"Yeah! Are you kidding me?"

The most complex one,
the most sophisticated one
is the smallest one.

That is the Yoda.

He's only two foot high,

and, of course,
he has to have all the animation
it's possible to give him,

which is difficult
in such a small creature.

He could even steal the picture.

And that would be great
if he does.

It's just such a small space
to work with.

So, it's just getting
as many expressions
in this little head as possible.

Partly because
it'll be great to have on set,

and partly because I
wanna prove to myself that
I can put a lot in a tiny head.

The more impossible
it is, and then in the end
you succeed in doing it,

that's when, of course,
it's that much more satisfying.

Keep in mind,
this is the first time
we're seeing him,

so he's gotta be, like, hero.

And maybe
some quicker blinks.

You know what I mean?
Just so that he's, like,
a little more, like, alert.

That helps.
Yeah, that's great.

Is that unusual,
for an actress to be doing that?

Or does she have
puppeteering experience?

Well, it's not common, no.

I met the creature team,
who are amazing,
and they handed me this machine

and said
I've got to learn how to
work the mouth very quickly.

And I didn't know
that was gonna happen,
so it was a bit frightening.

It's just--
Is the mouth working there?
Can you see?

So, if I do this...

Ee, ee!

This is
actually the first time
we've done this.

Where we've had
the talent performing
the mouth

at the same time
as delivering the dialogue,
which is really good fun.

-'Cause she picked it up
really quickly.
-Thank you, Matt. Thank you.

A lot the time we would have
another puppeteer do the voice
on set,

and then they would dub it
in ADR afterwards.

But it's great, 'cause
the character's so strong,

and what Shirley's done
with the character is great.

So it's really good
to have that ability

for the other actors
to bounce off
what she's doing.

And action!

Perfect. Keep doing that.

Good. The looking up is great.

Okay, great. Yeah, uh...

I work on anybody
who needs an accent, but I also
make up new alien languages.

I was doing these things,
and Jill was hearing it,

and she was describing it as if,
like, things are shutting.

Like, things are clasping,
clasping like that.

-Or that kind of thing.
-We sort of, we played around--

And it was the beginning
of this sound to Babu,
trying to find Babu.

It's pretty great,
with the blank-blank,
the bye-bye.

This discovering it as you're--
And feeling it in your body,

but I believe it that way,

and I offered it up,

and then J.J. picks the bits
that he believes.

That's one of my favorite
little plot twists,

Threepio losing his memory.

Rich with comic potential,

because, you know,
he's sort of written
to get on people's nerves,

but he always
had really funny lines.

"I'd forgotten
how much I abhor space travel."

You know?

I'd always picture
Threepio would be much happier
at the opera

serving hors d'oeuvres instead
of rattling through space.

Threepio is, uh, I think,
very like an English butler.

He's the particularly British
sort of person.

Very archaic
and rather out of his time.

And action!

And consequently,
he finds all the things
that happen in Star Wars,

you know, the battles,
the explosions, all the nasty
characters like Darth Vader,

he finds that very worrying.

Tony, look.

Threepio's in some ways
the observer of all things

and the memory of the saga.

So when we were playing
with different plots
for Threepio,

it felt like it was in his DNA
that one of the plots
was "he should lose his memory,"

because he's always the one
who's observing and commenting
on everything.

And if Threepio loses
his memory, it's as though
the crawl would disappear,

because Threepio
is the keeper of the story.

You're gonna have the back
of your head off now in this,

and the wires will be
coming from that.

We make him translate it...

he won't remember... anything?

Droid, remember go blank.

Blank, blank.

If this mission fails,
then it's all been for nothing.

All we've done, all this time.

Often Star Wars characters
sacrifice themselves.

I mean, think of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He went to battle the dark side,
Darth Vader,

and sacrificed himself
for everybody.

And now Threepio's
doing the same thing.

And, you know,
he's not too ready to do it,

because he's going
to be destroyed as himself.

There'll be a spark,
which we'll probably hear.

-Yeah.
-As soon as you hear the

you can just go.

Action,
working, working, working.

Three, two, one, spark.

The fact that Threepio
is willing to sacrifice himself

is because he belongs
to the team.

He loves the team, the humans.

With Threepio, I really,
I think he's one of the more
human characters in the film.

Might I introduce myself.

I am C-3PO,
human-cyborg relations.
And you are?

Okay,
that's gonna be a problem.

Hello. I Babu Frik.

And then, even from right here,
you're going to be like,

-"That's going to be--"
-"That's going to be a problem."

Yeah, there you go.

-Classic.
- You got classic Poe.

And then, we might actually go
from Zorii's line

to the close-up of
Babu saying "Go, go, go."

And action.

Go, go, go!

Go!

-Go!

All right, cut.

Oh, my gosh. It's ridiculous.

Can you imagine we did that?

-The scene ended
with a 20-second "Go!"

Oh, my God.
It's hysterical.

All right. We're good.
Thank you.

-Good morning.
-Hey, good morning.

-How's it going?
-Good.

That should be all right.

It's just the biggest
thing I've ever seen.

It's, like, more people than
I've ever seen concentrating
on one thing at a time.

It would be up there a bit,
just because of the scale of it.

- Yes.
-If you look at it
from a wide shot,

-you'd see an arc.
-Perfect, okay, great.

-Hey, Naomi.
-Hello.

The atmosphere
is just so friendly
and like, welcoming.

It's backwards.
And you look into it.

It is also really lovely to see
the whole cast come together

and to know that
I'm, like, the new girl, but,
like, part of that same team,

part of that same family.

It makes
the bigness of this film
a little bit more personal.

Horse positions, please.

All right. Here we go.

Lens, ready, set,
and go, Jannah, action!

Action, horses.

Rough landing?

- I've seen worse.
-I've seen better.

My first day of Star Wars
was definitely memorable.

It was like
a stimulation overload.

It was just, like,
all of the things.

Like, so many people,
so many animals, so many flies.

All the flying ants
rise up from the ground

and decide that it's their time
to do whatever they've
got to do in the air.

The bugs, man.
It was funny on set, you know?

When stuff like that happens,
we all react in a normal way,

laugh about it
and keep on moving.

They swarm you, then ate you.

They were stuck everywhere.

Buggy planet.

How about that?

They got caught in my 'fro.

Um, it was a lot.

That's filmmaking.

You can't control those things,
but you still get the job done.

Unfortunately,
our stormy planet isn't quite
so stormy at the moment,

so sadly,
we're waiting out the sun.

Just the practicality of
working under those conditions,

there are different issues
that that creates,

challenges
that you have to overcome.

Hey, so we're going to
give up on this shot,

'cause it's never
going to get cloudy

and it's gonna keep getting
more and more front lit.

So we'll bail on this shot.
We'll do it another time.

We should move the shoot
and go down below,
to the low level.

Here we go. Clear frame.
And we are rolling.

Crane, action.

Seven of them
are heading up the hill.

And we see out
into the stormy madness beyond,

and we see the wreck
out that way.

One of the ideas
J.J. brought back to Episode IX

that initially he had thought
of in the early days
of Episode VII,

was going to a crashed piece
of the Death Star.

I was just fascinated
with the question of,

"What is it to live
in the aftermath
of everything that we saw

in the original trilogy?"

So the idea of pieces of things
that we have seen

that had been blown apart...

There was just something
that was kind of haunting
about it and kind of beautiful.

It was one of those things

that felt like an idea
that you have
suddenly finds its purpose.

For a long time,
we knew that there was going
to be a moment in the story

when we're going to see
the Death Star.

First thing we wanted to do
is go up into the archives

and take a look
at the original model
for the Star.

Look at this
weird core thing.

If we could get some of that
into our approach to Rey.

So we went up,
took a bunch of photos.

We wanted to really understand
the curvature that houses
the dish,

and then the texture itself.

The texture of the Death Star
is just as identifiable.

You can see
these kind of banding,

which,
when you get really close,
you understand,

"Oh, my God.
One of those bands is actually
the trench Luke flies down."

We came across
a really big issue in that it is
completely, ridiculously huge,

and found out that it was
about 90 miles across.

It's too deep
to fit in the ocean,

and it's too tall
to fit into the atmosphere.

So we found out
that we could just barely fit
the dish way out on the horizon.

That, we're pretty happy with.
And J.J. looked at it and said,

"It's a little too convenient
that we just happen to
come across the dish."

So we kind of reset.

Maybe it would have
just a piece of the shell,

with a little bit of the dish
left in there

to hopefully recognize it
as what it is.

From the sky, BB-8.

It's a bad place
from an old war.

And then she'll pull out the
blade and watch it widen out.

Even while we were dealing
with these big epic things
in this movie,

we found that
the smallest details
could sink you,

like the way
that the blade interacts with
the next stage of the journey.

Trying to get that right
became a real challenge.

This one here,
we was talking about it
being on leathers, or you know--

So when it was flat,
in the sunlight,

you could literally see
all the way through it.

It could just be much more
of a simple slab or tablet.

To be honest, the scrolls,
it feels like a physical object.

Yeah, right.

I don't know.

Ah, this thing.

You know, this particular item,

it's just been something
we've been kind of,
not struggling with,

I think it's struggling
with the whole idea
of where it leads,

just because
it's such a story point.

If the right idea showed up, it
would actually help the story.

So it's helpful
to look at these,

but I don't know
if any of these
are the right idea.

It would have been--
We're saying it was made
after the...

-After the events... Jedi.
-Second Death Star.

The second Death Star,
to pass on the information

about where the wayfinder
was to other Sith.

Like, would it
have to have been hardier

because it would've had to pass
from hand to hand to hand?

But, like this.

We've all seen knives
that have a shape.

If that cool design happened to
have a function, it was a map.

What are options
for ways that things
could be pulled out from,

or extracted from,
or removed from,
or adjusted on a knife?

I was imagining
sort of something where
it's like if this came down,

-it would be one thing.
-Yeah. One thing.

And I just love the arrow.
So that's where it is.

-That's cool.
-That's good.

The wayfinder's there.

So, for the interior Death Star,

J.J. wanted this to sound
like this creepy haunted house.

Scary winds,
creepy metal creaks,
weird whistling sounds...

And so we just
kind of, by accident,

happened to find this structure
that was made out of
shipping containers.

So, it was a really windy day,

and it was the craziest sound
when we were inside,

all that metal and creak
and banging.

It was like,
"Oh, this is the Death Star.

This is exactly going to work
for the Death Star."

What more fitting place for Rey
and Ren to have their meeting

than literally on the ruins
of the war that came before?

We thought, "Well, surely
the place that they have to meet
is in the throne room,

which involves both
of their grandfathers and
involves their shared history."

Young Skywalker.

You will die.

We are currently
looking at a legacy set
designed by Norman Reynolds,

which is the throne room.

It involved building it
all pristine,

originally, from
the original blueprints,

and then destroying it.

We managed to fish out
of the archives
some of these blueprints,

original drawings
from the original set build.

And from this, I was able
to recreate this in 3-D,

so we created complete models
of the original throne room.

So, this mezzanine level here,

we imagined that it
entirely collapsed through,

so you get this really nice
full view of the window there,
which is all destroyed.

This is the Emperor's throne,

and it's fallen
from the floor above
down into this floor,

which is where
Darth Vader and Luke
fought for a bit.

When you're building
destroyed sets, it's very hard
for it not to look fake,

like it's been cut with a saw.

So Claire drove
over it with a forklift.

I drove over panels
to make it look better, yeah.

Let's try one, please.

And you can see it
in everyone's faces

when they walk on that set,

and the throne,
they're just like,
"Can I sit on it?"

And you're like, "No.
You're not allowed."

What was never
in the original films
is a secret vault room,

accessed through
his throne room.

So we've
taken a bit of liberty and said
actually it was always there,

you just didn't notice it.

The idea that
she's so crazy powerful
with the Force,

you know, so quickly,

for us, we always felt
that there was a connection

between her and something
that would help explain
some of these things.

Obviously, you know,
it needs to feel like
she is really contemplating it.

And that, the need for revenge,
it sort of overtakes
everything else,

which it does for a moment,

and then she's sort of reminded
of what it all means

and what's at stake.

Right from Episode VII,

from the scene in which
Rey is interrogated by Ren,

is clear
that they have a connection,
that they understand each other,

that they can literally
read each other's minds.

They're made uncomfortable
by it, and yet they're
both drawn to each other.

Of course, Episode VIII
furthered it by creating
the idea of Force connection,

and I think what we wanted to do
was complicate that and say,

"Actually, their connection
is deeper than that."

We began talking about them
as a mythic concept,

which is in Joseph Campbell,
which is the mythic dyad,

that they're two parts
of the same whole.

And then finally
we began talking about how,

if the dyad ever came together,
its power would be immeasurable.

When we first read the script,

I offered to J.J. that we
could do some wave effects.

And at first he was kind of,
"Yeah, yeah.
Good idea, good idea."

And then we showed him
some tests.

- Wow.
- Wow. Beautiful.

-That's insane.

That is amazing.
That's so cool.

That's 15 cameras there.

I think that we would do,
I mean--

- We can let five go--
- Exactly.

And we'd be filling up
at the same time.

That really is my favorite thing
I've ever seen.

It's like, "Oscar, can you
just come for a meeting?"

-"But I'm not in that--"

"No, I just want you to sit,
sit right there."

"Stand over there."

That's incredible.
That's awesome.

We knew that there
was going to be a central fight,

and we wanted it
to be the saber battle
of all saber battles.

We really started thinking
about making it
as operatic as possible,

and sort of reducing the scene
to just them
and the elements around them,

so that the epic quality
of this duel would be matched
by the surroundings.

Girl, let's go.
Come on. Time to go.

The fight felt so ferocious.

It needed to be
really full of, like,
rage and incomprehension

and all of that.

Rey needs to go on her own,
very individual journey.

That side of things doesn't
involve Finn, doesn't involve
Leia, doesn't involve Poe,

no one else.

Rey!

No!

The thing
that became more challenging is

we were being
doused in water cannons

and it was November in England.

The water would come,
I would be like...

"I can't breathe" kind of cold.

Hot water bottle.

It's freezing.
That was fun.

It was really
physically exhausting,

and we were,
like, wet and soaked
and cold and on wires.

I loved it, you know?

It's like,
how many times are you going to
get a chance to do that?

I did want
to murder Dom, Special Effects,

because there were a few times
where they said,
"No water cannons,"

and when I say mid-scene,
literally a dump of water
on my head.

I remember watching
the top of the water
just starting to come over,

and I watched it
like slow-motion
as it rained down on Daisy.

And the true professional
that she was, she carried on,

but I could see in her body
that she kind of tensed
because it was cold.

And as the water settled
and they said, "Cut,"

she shouted out very loudly,
"Dominic!"

Which I didn't want to be
on the set
at that moment in time.

But then people really thought
I was really tough after that.

And J.J. was like,
"You have so much crew respect."

So it was great.

It was actually my birthday,
one of those days.

I don't know
if that means anything.

It's not like
I wanted to kill her more
because it was my birthday,

but it was really exciting.

Huge water cannons are shooting
how many thousands of gallons.

You're exhausted, you're tired.
It's like-- It's great.

It's what you
kind of hope work is.

Ben.

Kylo's journey really opened
my imagination as an actor.

Things had come to
almost full circle with him.

For the first time, someone
had shown him what I think
maybe he perceived as, uh...

a huge act of generosity
in spite of what he had done.

Someone, like,
kind of reached out when
no one else had for a long time.

I know
what I have to do...

but I don't know
if I have the strength
to do it.

Repeating
the same exact scene from
The Force Awakens line by line,

I thought was a really
beautiful way of showing
"Is he real? Is he not real?"

"Is it a conversation
that he's been having for years
in his head on repeat?"

You do.

It's both ambiguous
and totally clear.

It's not
that I wanted Han Solo to die,

I wanted Han Solo to
be able to lend some significant
emotional weight to the story.

His destiny is resolved

in a, I hope,
a powerful
and effective way.

The theme
of redemption is important,

not just in Star Wars,
but in life.

I mean, no one's perfect.

Jedis make mistakes.

I think it's comforting,

the idea that despite having
done wrong, either intentionally
or unintentionally,

they are able to
right those wrongs
and be forgiven.

It was probably nice for Mark
to be more like the Luke of old.

Which I think J.J. felt like
he really wanted that.

It was nice to feel,
and even in the scene,

to feel really comforted that,
like,
"Luke Skywalker is here."

That's kind of good.

-All right.

I wanted to find a way to show
that Luke, even in death,

was a Jedi Master who
was helping the next generation.

We thought about
Empire Strikes Back

and how the one thing Luke
doesn't manage to do in Empire

is raise his X-wing
out of the swamp in Dagobah.

When we saw in Episode VIII
that the X-wing
was under the water,

we thought,
"Well, maybe this is the way
to bring it full circle."

Looks good.

Proud moment, yes.

I hope that if there is any
lasting legacy of the character,

is the idea that
you can accomplish anything
you want if you are selfless,

and willing to do what's right
for the greater good.

You know,
he was a symbol of optimism,

and I think that's
probably the most satisfying
aspect of the character.

He is every boy or girl
who yearns for adventure,

who thinks this
can't be all there is.

When the Resistance loses Leia,

Poe finds himself inheriting
a Resistance that's
on the brink of collapse.

It's clear that
Leia had been grooming him
for leadership, but what he--

He doesn't know if there's
anything to lead at this point.

That scene
wasn't originally in the film.

And I talked to J.J. about,
"Well, I think that
it'd be great

to just see a moment
that Poe has with Leia.

Even just a moment
for him to say goodbye."

That speaks to J.J.'s ability
to try things.

I'm not ready.

Neither were we.

And so,
out of that moment of goodbye,

Lando shows up and reminds him
about family and about friends,

and about not being alone.

We had each other.

We were friends.

It turned into this
catalyst for, "You know what?
We still have a shot."

Something as large
as Star Wars, which is
a very complicated movie,

it really needs a lot of people,
all working together
to make it happen.

The ending,
the last couple of reels
of this movie...

the number of people
who are involved

in getting those parts
of the story to work,

and to make sense,

and to feel revelatory
and believable--

And-- There are
so many people involved.

We're all in this together,
and it feels like a real team,

like kind of like
the way Star Wars is.

You feel like
you are working on something
bigger than yourself.

You want to respect
what's come before.

Working towards
that blend of legacy and new.

We strive
to have a great balance
of those two things.

The balance
of the Force is never
a permanent, enduring thing,

so the idea that this is
a story of a character

who needs to step up
and bring balance
in her own way.

If you had asked me, you know,
in the middle of doing VII,

"Where would we go with Rey?"

I would say "The headlines
would be exactly the same."

As we needed our Sith throne,

I'd always been very fascinated
by this wonderful sketch
that Ralph McQuarrie did.

It felt like a spiky shadow

emerging from the back
of a conversation
between the Emperor and Vader.

The big question was,
"How do you turn

a black pencil drawing that
is one-and-a-half inches across,

a silhouette,
into a throne
that's its own thing?"

Because it was done in
a two-dimensional pencil sketch,

what if there was
another thing that
came out here even?

Like, it started to feel like
it wasn't completely flat.

Most of these things
are rather hazy.

They just feel right sometimes,
and sometimes they don't.

So you just keep fiddling
until they start to feel right.

What if there is kind of bits
doing that, maybe in
the ground near it and up there.

The throne envelopes around you
to make it feel like
it's grabbing her.

The hope
at the beginning of the film
that Sidious articulates

is that the dyad
would come together
on the dark side,

but the reversal is that
the dyad does come together,

and it is as powerful
as we expected,

but they come together
on the side of the light.

One of the surprises
and delights for me personally,

is seeing Adam
get to play Ben in this film.

The great tragedy
is that we don't have him
for very long in the story,

but when you do,
you know, you just
feel the potential that,

you know, the person
that he could have been.

Before,
either someone who has
the absence of hope,

and the thing
that we started with for
"Who is Ben, then?"

is someone who has hope.

Two, one.

There's no more ambiguity

about what it is
that he has to do.

There's no more seesaw
that's happening.

For the first time, someone
who has never had the answer

now finally knows
his purpose or destiny.

He has to let her know
that they're together.

But I don't know that he
entirely is sure of what's
going to happen from there,

nor do I think he cares.

I think
it's so long as he is with her,
he is on the right path.

Leia's Jedi trial
happens in Episode IX.

The end of her path
as a Jedi is fulfilled when
her son turns back to the light.

We had this crazy idea

about doing
a cavalry ground invasion
on a Star Destroyer's surface.

That's so cool.

So our challenge
is how to make 300 feet
worth of a Star Destroyer

that we can have two armies
fighting on and a cavalry charge
with horses.

Wow, is that amazing.

-That is crazy.

-No, but it's really insane.
-I know.

'Cause we could do a cool thing
where we pull them down,

and have our characters slide,

and then land
on a vertical thing
that's now more horizontal.

At that point they're just
kind of standing on something.

At a certain point
they'll jump off
onto a platform...

- Three, two, one, go!
-...that's meant
to be the Falcon.

Ready, and now!

The idea of having
humans and human-sized creatures

ground-invading a Star Destroyer

was too much fun
an idea not to try.

So, we've been doing a lot
of dynamic movements

on this lovely beast here.

It's like ballet
on top of an orbak.

Boom!

Perfect. Yeah, that's it.

You're just going to
drop that left knee
to the ground.

Yeah, and then go
for a grab on the knee.

I've never gotten shot
before in a movie,
so we'll see how it goes.

Bang!

-More importantly,
after she gets shot...
-I'm not.

-...she screams "Beaumont."
-I go, "Beaumont!"

-"Beaumont!"
-"Beaumont!"

Come on.
Cover me. Cover me.

Come on!

He's been trying
to get his name in the movie.

-It's important!
-I'm trying to get a doll.

-He's trying to get a name.
We'll get it.
-It's important.

- I'll cover you.
- Ready and bang!

I always wanted this to happen.

I always wanted
there to be some form
of a stormtrooper rebellion,

which is something
that I was quite interested in
since VII.

And it felt like J.J.
was going towards that anyway.

-It's gonna be sick.

So it feels good
to finally be here.
To be on the horses.

We've been training for this
for a long time.

I'm on the ground, making sure
I blow everything up.

Poe's in the sky.

Poe, air strike please.

Here we go, here we go.
And action!

All wings, cover that lander!

Watch those two
on your tail!

What really excited me on VII

was the idea
that we would put cameras,
fixed cameras on CG X-wings.

Because if you
really had an X-wing,
what would you do?

You'd mount the camera
possibly on a wing
and you'd fly around,

sort of recreating
a practical way
of photographing something,

but inside the computer.

Incoming TIEs!

Flying along.
Good and good.

Incoming TIEs.

And when I showed it
to some of the guys

that had worked
on the original movies,

they were excited
about what we were doing.

Just keep doing
the controls.

What can we do
against these things?

They were saying that
they were actually trying
to do that

when they were making IV.

Red Two, standing by.

It's so funny
and nice to come back to it.

I was looking for a kind of
sailor's outfit like an admiral.

It's down to
the orange jumpsuit again.

Look at the size of that thing.

- Mr. Denis Lawson.
Legend!
-Thank you.

They didn't have a miniature
that was big enough

because,
obviously with miniatures

you have an issue
with physically,
the size of the camera.

You got two black people
leading the cavalry.

Which is something you don't see
in every single feature film.

-At all.
-So, for me and Naomi,

we are definitely,
we have that in mind.

-And this is
a passionate moment for us.
-Yeah.

Seeing a black man
and a black woman
leading the cavalry of heroes.

- Yeah, to save the day.
-I'm proud.

-Me too.
-I'm proud.

Hell yeah. Hell yeah!

We've done a lot of work,
isn't it?

Hey! Hey.

It's been
a joy working with her.

We always have a good time.
Always good conversation.

Probably singing and dancing
half of the time.

You know, chilling,
talking about chicken and chips,

and the next second
you're saving the world.

It's definitely the underdogs,
the little guys...

and certainly a different thing
than the Ewoks on Endor.

We've got
our new stormtroopers in red.

This is the first time
that I'm actually seeing them,
which is really, really cool.

The idea
that people of human scale

can undo a machine
of impossible scale

definitely feels
like it's a theme of the series.

Each character on Exegol
is really facing
their greatest challenge.

Teamwork.
Teamwork is a big thing
with this.

And so it takes
great courage for Rey
even to enter that place.

Similarly,
it takes great courage

for Poe to face off
against the most dizzying array
of Star Destroyers.

And great courage for Finn
to go off that troop carrier
and charge,

you know, onto the surface
of a Star Destroyer.

Watch this.

This is gonna trip you out,
I'm telling you.

- Okay, here we go.

This set is absolutely amazing.

I'm glad that at nights
I can come on
and see the environment,

be in the environment,
and interact with it.

It just makes this very,
very real.

-Just running away
from an explosion.

Just a little run,
with an explosion behind us.

Ooh! It's almost like
as soon as the explosion
happens...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Through to the finish.
Through to the finish.

You know what it is?

It's 'cause we've got
all the extras there
who are really going for it.

It's looking great.
It's looking great.

Once the crew kind of disappears
and then, kind of,
the shot starts,

-you feel like
you're just there.
-You just go for it.

-John Williams music.
- Proper Star Wars.

I felt that.

-I felt it.
-You gotta see this.

This is unbelievable. No, no.

You have to look at this.
It's so good.

Just watch this.
This is nuts.

So, look, I mean,
the whole thing is crazy.

-You see that?
-Yes.

-Come on!
-Come on, yeah!

-The take
we'd just done before--
-Yeah.

We stopped and we
were just like, "Whoo!"

Let's go again.

It's always a funny thing,
working with people

who you like as much
as these people.

The day is done.

It is a bit
like being in a family.

But it's really a bit
like being a parent.

Seriously.

You ideally love
the people that you're with...
and then your kids go away.

Thanks for an amazing job.
All of you...

J.J. and I were having a lot of
trouble with the end of the film

at one point in the process.

And Rick Carter said to us,

"I think it's because you two
don't want Star Wars
to be over."

You don't want
the Skywalker saga to be over,

so you don't
really want to write it.

And I think there was
a lot of truth in that.

You run in
and you're like, "Chewie!"

Put her down.
And then we do a group hug.

Yes!

I'm a little bit in shock
that we're about to wrap.

I feel so grateful and lucky
that we've gotten this far,

that our crew
is so extraordinary,

and to see what
they've been able to achieve.

And it's just getting sad
to think about parting ways
and saying goodbye.

-Background.
-Action.

Chewie!

I had
the day off work, so I came
to visit my friend J.J. Abrams,

and now we've won
a rebellion.

The fact
that we are getting to the end
definitely is bittersweet.

And cut. Very nice.

Not getting to work
with these people
day after day,

that will hurt.

But I feel lucky
that I've gotten to come back
to work on this again at all.

I mean, every day I've been here

has been a professional
and personal gift of a lifetime.

To feel like
I am a real part of this long,
beautiful lineage,

and a part of concluding
that story,

has been surprising
and completely fulfilling
and so profound.

I got to do a scene
with Kelly just right now
at the end of the movie

where it's kind of like my life.

Like, things have kind of
fallen apart a little bit,

but we're still here.

And it's still important
that we're here,

even though we miss
our loved ones.

And it's kind of like
a perfect scene for me to do.

That's nice.

We're having a full moment.

This was so magical.
I love Kelly so much,
and it was such--

-Oh, my God, that was so weird!
-What up!

Did you just cue her?

Dude, I literally was like,
"I love Kelly."

-They said,
"What's the best moment?"
-Aw, shut up.

And I was like,
"It's this moment right now."

-That's so sweet.

It really does feel
like the culmination

of six years of my life, just--

It's weird.

And then you stop
and you see her
and then you--

And when Finn sees,
you go like this, and then
you guys head off, you know?

You guys come together--

I was
going through it thinking,

"Could I have done
anything differently?"

But I know I've put the work in.

Like, I could not
have worked harder.

I don't think I could have
enjoyed it any more either.

Roll camera.

Sound speed.

Here we go, here we go.

Set and...

Everybody, celebration!
Background!

The most heartwarming thing

is the collaboration
within these studios
and these sets and the crew.

You make friends
who become family.

And that's something for me
that's just a big major thing
to let go.

'Cause, you know,
it doesn't just represent
the story,

it also does put an end
to a kind of season
in our lives.

Thank you so much
for all of your work
and your patience

and your focus
and your dedication and
the honesty and the camaraderie.

I mean, all of it means, like,
you are this family.

I cannot thank you enough,
from the bottom of my heart.

So, cheers. Thank you.

That's a wrap!
Thank you very much!

The analogy to me
is graduation, you know?

It's like
being in your senior year,

you're glad
that you're finishing

but savoring every moment
because you know it is the last.

It's been a really fun project

to bring Luke Skywalker's home
back to life here
in Pinewood Studios.

J.J. was really keen
to be faithful to the originals

and to have nice callbacks
to them.

There's a famous shot of Luke
sort of leaning over
and talking to his aunt,

and we want to try
and get that same callback

with Rey looking in
over the shoulder.

I don't like this.

- You're gonna love it.
-I don't like it, Eunice.

I'm not naturally
a hugely adventurous person.

I defeated the Dark Lord,
isn't that enough?

It takes me a long time
to get over things in general.

Fear, in general.

-I really don't like it.
- You'll be
all right.

I can't do it.

I really don't like it.

- That's it.
-With everything you just did
on that set,

you're scared of that?

Behind the scenes,
don't never show
that bit!

Never show that!

This is horrible.

Eunice came up and made a point,

which is, this is how
we met Rey. On a sled.

Obviously,
I'd thought about it, but
not really the cyclical thing

of starting and ending
a story in the same way.

You know, it's genuinely
amazing to see this,

it didn't have a blaster hole
in it the first time.

This was the first set
I ever saw, out in Tunisia,

and now here we are
at the end of it all.

And I gotta say, mmm,
kinda, a little bit,
uh, not sad, wistful, I suppose.

We thought
we'd finish off Star Wars

exactly as it's supposed to be.

Miniatures.
Tatooine. The whole thing.

- They look back.

-Brought focus back to the--
- Copy, yeah. Understood.

Okay, guys. Go on again.
When you're ready.

The giant track
and the Jawas next to it.

Everything is summed up
in those moments.

And it's part of this bookending
what started so long ago.

You wanna
make sure you're ending
the Skywalker saga

in a way that feels fitting
and emotional
and gratifying, you know?

The end of this saga has to feel
surprising, but also inevitable.

When you look through it again,
you think "Of course
that's how it had to end."

"Of course that's where
these characters had to go."

"Of course that's how
we had to leave this galaxy."

It is incredibly surreal to work
on a Star Wars movie at all.

To work on a Star Wars movie

where you're
recreating the homestead
where Luke was raised

and, you know,
on Tatooine is obviously
as surreal as anything.

It's going right to Luke's--

Yeah, but also look. Double.
See the other one.

It's crazy, isn't it?

The idea that Rey is there,

it feels like,
despite everything
that we've seen her go through

and all we've done,

there is something about that,
that feels primal and
inevitable and really lovely.

I think Star Wars,
uniquely in its mythology,

is about cycles of life
and teachers, mentors,
parents, children.

It's got that
generational aspect to it.

There is this idea
of the handing on of sabers

and the handing on
of a Jedi legacy.

And so we have that, I think,

as a generation that
has inherited the characters
and the stories.

Just like in Star Wars,
it's a privilege
and it's a responsibility.

Take your saber.
Look at it.

Doing it felt really emotional.

'Cause it's, like, a lovely,
emotional thing anyway.

And it's uplifting
and it's a proper end.

Like, it is a story end.

It's not
"tune in for the next episode"
sort of thing.

Rey Skywalker.

Cut.

That was great, Dais. Beautiful.

God.

Come on.

I think everybody recognizes
that there are giants

whose shoulders
they're standing on,

and a story that's informing
who these characters are.

My young Jedi.

I like these films,
I like that I was there.

We all realized
that it would take
more of these films

to bring the story full circle.

To see, not just my character,
but every last character

that you're been introduced to
since the very beginning

find their destiny.

It's exactly how it had to be.

It just goes by
so quickly once they're in

and getting the shots and stuff.

Then it's all still again
afterwards.

Which is sad.

Yeah.

Yeah it's kind of sad
that we have to tear it down.

That's the thing about movies,
I'm always like,

"Really, we built
this amazing thing and now
we have to tear it down."

Well, the last time. Ever.

No, this is the last shot.

Last shot for Threepio.
Last shot for me.

So ends 44 years.

When the actors came in,
we would measure their heights.

So they would stand by the door,
and we would put a little--

And then put their initials.

There's Daisy, Alden from Solo.

So I don't know
who gets this door
now that we're going to be--

Here is Donald Glover--

Uh...

I'm looking for...
Carrie Fisher.

Pretty amazing door.

Who doesn't love speeder chase?
It is part of
the Star Wa movies.

I immediately went back
to the speeders
in Return of the Jedi.

We did so much twisting
and turning.

We're all trying
to be magicians.

Every trick in the book
is being used.

We wanted to be traveling
at a hundred miles an hour.

How would you photograph it?

Just to kind of
open the conversation

about what her speeder
could be as well.

This is supposed to be
the same color as the one
we used in VII,

but, on this monitor,
it doesn't look the same.

We had to come up
with the character for
the speeders to begin with.

These speeders
are sort of, you know,
pieces of junk really.

They're very sort of derelict.

- That blue one
is very cool.
- The front of it is...

- Yeah, really great.
- These are all
super '70s.

It does feel
like the most '70s to me.

Let's just, for a second,
let's go with that one.

Let's say it's "B" for now.
Let's look at the other ones.

I've wanted a speeder bike
ever since I was a kid.

I've spent my entire life
working on bikes.

Be careful what you ask for.

Thankfully, I've just
gotta make sure it looks good
and bits don't fall off.

Today
we're building a motion base,
they call it the "X-Y rig",

and we went along to Pinewood,
checked it out to see
what it was capable of.

This motion base will drive
the motion of the speeder.

So we're trying to test it,
before we have to ship it off
to Jordan.

Reset.

I take the animation that
has been given to us by ILM,

place it on the technical rig
and start evaluating

whether it will run
in the real rig.

I make the adjustments necessary
to make it slow enough

for the machine to achieve it

and then export that data
to special effects.

We can guarantee
that we're going to get
the same motion back

when we get the actual footage

and add all our little
CG bits in the background.

Rig is safe.

We will be able to put
the speeders on a chassis

and be able to drive them
around.

We're basically trying to test
the vehicles

in certain situations
where they're gonna be used
exactly the same in Jordan.

Every day is a good day
in the office. You can't
complain driving these.

-It's good fun.
-Should we take it apart?

No, let's not take it apart.

-Oi, Oi! Come on.
Let's take this apart.

Can't see much,
but it's all right.

We'll let the bikes
have another run-through.

They are snowmobiles
converted to run

on the opposite conditions
they're supposed to.

Just need to get these vehicles
tested the best we can

'cause they've
got to get packed up,

and it's gonna take
four to six weeks
to get them to Jordan.

We did a bit of a test of it
flying through a CG environment.

J.J. was thinking,
"This is great, but how actually
are we gonna shoot this?"

Thought it'd be
a good idea to go through
these speeder chase boards

and any other Jordan questions
you may have before
our Jordan friends head out.

Art Department were happy
with the vistas. We can find
nice stuff in the background.

-You seemed quite happy with it
as well.
- It's good. Good run.

When we were out there
there was so much curvature
and personality,

so the thing for me
is we pick one place that
the dunes can do something cool.

It only needs to be 50 feet.
Whatever you guys
call 50 feet.

Before we do shots like this,
we'll get a helicopter pilot in,

all of us guys
in a group together
off the radios--

Not just guys, Stewart.

"Guys," well, you know.
"Guys" is plural,
it's both genders in this job.

We're building a track.
We're building two, in fact.

One's a camera track,
and one's a vehicle track.

We've got a six-axis rig
with six degrees of movement.

So, we've got a rotate,
an up and a down, and this one
also goes side to side.

It's a very powerful machine
because it's hydraulics,

but because it's hydraulics,
also, it's not like
an electrical system

where it's very precise
on what you want it to do

'cause you run out of oil,
you run out of pressure.

It can be quite difficult.

We built ourselves a kind of
green screen stage here

in the Jordan desert
in one of the wadis here.

So, we get five shooting days
here, Tuesday through Saturday,

on the X-Y rig
for all the actors' coverage
of the speeder chase.

Daisy on the speed.

-Rey?
-Daisy hookin' in.

Rey.

It's Rey or nothing.

And so, a couple of days in,
I remember walking over to J.J.

and saying, "Hey, J.J.
So, I notice that, you know,
we're doing green screen."

And he's like, "So why are--
why the hell are we
in the desert?"

And I'm like, "Yeah!"

I know it does seem nuts

to be in this location
and be shooting
against green screen.

Why would you build
a green screen in the desert?

And the reason we're here,
we're trying to make this
as realistically as possible.

And it's really difficult
to recreate a fabulous
sunny day in Jordan.

And we're flying. Here we go.

Correct lighting
is the foundation
of good visual effects.

You can color correct all day.

You can do
every sort of digital trick
in the book,

but the reality is
if it's in front of you
and it's there,

you know what you're getting.
It integrates better.

Obviously, the more you shoot
in the same environment,

the better it will look
in the end when they comp
everything together,

so that's why they shot it
on location there.

Gotta go faster!

These kind of gimbaly things
that rocked the ship around

in quite a violent way,
you know.

Eunice, the stunt coordinator,
she said,
"We'll be tying you on."

And I go, "No, I don't want
to be tied on."

You know,
there's no messing with Eunice.
I was tied on.

It has been very hard work.

I was in the foulest,
foulest mood.

'Cause I had no idea
how difficult it would be,
but, now, everything's settled,

and it's a bit cooler,
and we're all feeling great.

We lose them.
It's like, you know,
"It looks like it,"

and then you look back,
and then boom, boom, boom.

It's like,
"Nope, didn't lose them.
Still there."

Always like
going on location. It gives
real gravity to the scene.

I understand it more. I feel
like I'm in the environment,
wearing costumes.

Loads of explosions, stunts.

Explosion, explosion.
All of that. All of that.

This is the Star Wars version
of the ultimate car chase.

J.J., his brain works
200 miles an hour,
so you've gotta keep up.

So, I'm sitting there,
literally going, "Okay.
Yeah, yeah. And then a close-up,

and then she looks back,
and then we pull here."

And he's like ten shots
ahead of me.

I drew this myself
while I was waiting for you
guys to film the movie.

I always love
making discoveries, planning
things as much as we can.

And then, of course,
you storyboard
and you shot list.

But the truth is when
you're on the set, you discover
things that you know you need

that you never would have known.

-He's driving along, right?
Makes a turn.
-I spin.

I'm looking at him
from the left.

When he's here, the thing hits.

That's behind him.

You're looking back
over your left shoulder.

-Over left shoulder. Yeah.
-Yeah?

Boom.

I look at that?
No, I missed this part.

And then the whole thing
comes around like that.

-Twice?
-Well, we're doing
just the second half.

Just the second half.

-You still see it.
-Yeah, the shot is the woo-hoo.

-Woo-hoo!
- Exactly.
It's so normal.

So interestingly,
we need to turn
the whole speeder around.

Well--

It was really exhilarating.
For me, it was the most fun
I've had.

But it's a bit challenging
'cause they'd have fans as well.

And so you just have
all this sand
getting into your eyes and...

I'd go home after some days
and tons of sand
would be pouring out of my hair.

Right, right,
right, right, right.
And you see Rey and you wave.

She knows your ship.
Here comes the jetpack.

Shoot. Three, two, one. Boom!

A little man
will be right up in here,
sort of towards the edge,

further in,
minding his business.

The shot's here.
We don't know
what he's looking at.

And then it just goes like that.

We got these vehicles
for discussing all the moves.

The bad guys don't do that.
The bad guys just boom,
right away make a decision.

-No one ever knew
how useful they'd be.

So many variables, you know.
We got helicopter work here.
Drones.

Ground vehicles, ground cameras.
A set to build and dress here.

There's so many
different factors.

We are currently
in the vaporator dust farm.

They are legacy items
from the original films.

Visual effects have done studies
on the computer

to have the correct distance,
so the vaporators,

for the speed of each car,
so you can see them nicely
when the cars drive through.

Claire and her unit
were kind enough

to not only make the first
and last vaporators movable,

they're all moveable.
Unbelievably kind.

Make your mark and then shoot.

What's fun about second unit
is, you know, we go in first.

We get to explore it
in its raw state.
We would do tests.

It's not really a secret by now,
but most of the crew knows

that I was a kid who rode BMXs
off of docks into the water.

And I learned how
to ride a bike by a bike that
didn't have tires and brakes.

And I rode down the hill
'cause I needed speed.

And I used the fence
to stop myself.

My elbows, my face,
my knees busted, but I knew how
to ride a bike.

So, part of why I was excited
to come when J.J. called

was that most of the stuff
we're doing is stunts.

There were things
I could play with it. I felt
like that's my special sauce.

Right there at the bike.

- Oh, come on.
- Why?

-That was really,
really damn good.

First day, there's a beat
where we're on flat land,

and the red and blue
hero speeder were flying
at the speed of light.

And it was just
this incredible shot.

It was one of those feelings
where we all stopped
and just thought,

"Oh, this is Star Wars. "

That's great, right?
They come up on you
faster than you think.

Our stunt team really took
those speeders to the limit.

There's a great reference
to see, "What would they do
in a situation like that?"

And also be able to capture
some of those moments on camera,

and then digitally transform
them into the floating speeders

that we all know in this movie.

Bad guys are on these kind of
weird motorcycle Ski-Doo things.

That's pretty good, mate.
It's swirly in places. Off-road.

The trick, I think, is always to
find some new interesting angle.

Certainly ours was the idea
that these guys had jetpacks.

Action!

When we tested it in England,
we did it 50 times.

And then we came here
and did it another ten,
15 times.

And then we did it
twice in costume.

And then today
we're doing it for real.

Where the guys fly in the sky
came out really, really good.

Eunice and her team
took a long time,

and then Luke and Dom
and those guys are doing
the explosions.

You want to almost like spin.

Yeah,
just a bit more violent.

On a lot of stunt action,
your wire teams don't get
the credit that they deserve,

as well as your performers do

'cause they're the ones
that are rubbing the bruises
the next day.

"Oh, I did a big gig
on Star Wars,"
and all laugh.

And your wire guy's there,
and he's like--

Like the one
that the pressure's on.

Manipulating and making them
look great,

and no one
ever understands that as well.

The film industry's
all about unsung heroes.

There's a lot of work
that goes on behind the scenes

that people
just don't appreciate.

-It's a great team effort
for everyone.

If you
ask Dominic, he will always say
"It's a team effort, Vic."

Every time I see him,
"It's a team effort, Vic."
Everything.

Three, two, one, action.

We're like this close
to locking the speeder chase.

Every shot in this
is a visual effect,

so we will be well ahead
of the game if we can
get this to ILM.

When you start to see
the plates coming back

and you realize
that all the work was worth it,

you know, the setup work,
we got some really
super dynamic close-up shots.

And then they
start giving us post-viz,
which puts the backgrounds in.

And then we refine it,
start putting sound and music.

And it'll really come to life.

Instead of me and J.J.
just sitting here going,

"And then he goes,
woo, woo, woo, woo,

and then falls down
or there's an explosion."

There's tons more work to do,
but it's so amazing
when you start to see it work.

The job I think that we all have
is to make it invisible,

so the design of it
and the construction of it
and the stunts of it

and, obviously, the special
effects work is incredible
and the visual effects work.

If everyone does their job
right, including the actors,
including myself,

no one thinks
that any of this took place.

Obviously,
there's been a track record
of deserts being used

in the Star Wars movies to date.

And I think it's a lovely
sort of hearkening
back to that history.

So scene 54
is the reveal of the festival,

and then we find our friends,
there's a CG Falcon behind them,

and we come around the corner
with our friends walking,
come around here,

and we reveal
half a million Aki-Akis
in the big festival there.

J.J. really wanted
to set a world

for our character Rey
to really see,

for the first time,
a world full of laughter
and life and celebration.

So Jordan provided that feeling
of a planet worth saving,

of a life
that was enjoyable to live.

One of the things that
first attracted us to Jordan

was the kind of
otherworldly quality
of the landscape here.

The rock formations
set in vast tracks of desert
give you enormous scale.

Wadi Rum is magical.
There's no competition to that.

It even still blows our mind,
even as locals, to come here.

I've been
coming down to Wadi Rum
since I was a kid.

We'd have birthday parties here,
ride camels.

It encapsulates a lot
of what I love about Jordan.

It's a place like nowhere else
on earth.

Joey, come in.

We've had to bring everything
with us.

We've had to basically build
a small town in support
of the filmmakers.

And it's been almost
a civil engineering project
for us really.

We've had to bring in water.
We've had to bring in plumbing,

places for people
to go to the loo, have a shower,
all of our catering.

There's a bit
over 600 UK crew here

and a bit
over 200 Jordanian crew.

But on certain days,
we were feeding
about 1,500 people.

Every single bottle,
knife, fork, spoon
to do with the catering

will all leave
when we finish up.

We have
67 Portakabin offices here,

which were built and supplied
locally, as well as
over 100 shipping containers...

55 of which
we brought from the UK
with over 550 tons of equipment.

We have UK nurses arriving.

We have Jordanian medics
and doctors working with us.

And we were able to build
praying tents

for the local crew
to be able to carry out
their daily practice.

We also involved
the Bedouin community.

They've been able to detour some
of the normal tourist routes

to give ourselves
a nice filming perimeter.

And we've had
the most fantastic help
from the Jordanian Army.

They're very proud
of their country,

they're very proud
of what they do here.

They have a lot of big films
come out here to this desert,

so they know
exactly what they're doing.

They've given us access
to their Ambulance Service,
the Fire Service,

and loaned us
their Logistics Corps
to help us to build roads.

We've got like 15 locations
in total, spread
all over the areas.

The first thing
we were thinking is how
are we going to stop people

from getting lost in this desert
when they need to access
a location.

So, we came up with
what is the ski route system,
we're calling it now.

So basically, every single road
which leads to a location
is color-coded.

So if you want to get
to the Ship Rock location,

you look on the map
and it's a blue road.

And we basically put blue posts
all the way down,

and all of the signage
corresponding to that
is all blue.

It also helps
with the environment side of it.

One of our key things
is site management
and stopping people

just driving recklessly
through the desert 'cause
there's plants, there's animals,

and we have to just be
very respectful of that.

We don't
have any alien materials that
we're building the road with.

It's all natural materials
from close by.

It's well-protected because,
you know,
it's a UNESCO Heritage Site.

And then their Army
will remain with us

whilst we remove the roads
that we've put in,

and just returning
it to the state
that we found it in essentially.

And all that support
has come directly from the
Royal Jordanian Film Commission.

One of the unique things about
filming in Jordan is the role

that the Film Commission plays.
It's like a one-stop shop
for filmmakers.

His Majesty, the King,
has been always supportive

and believed in this industry.

Not only do we function
as a Film Commission,

but we also function
in many ways
as a second production office.

They really took on board
what we needed from day one,

and we wouldn't have been able
to do what we're doing here
today without them.

We're so proud
to have Star Wars.
We're all such big fans,

and to have it here now
is such an amazing experience
for us.

It's an exciting period
at the moment.

I think we're going to start
having a few longer days
and sleepless nights,

but it's a little bit
like being the advance party

for the circus pulling
into town.

I'm glad
that Main Unit's almost here.

We can finally start
work proper.

What do you mean?

- Been out here
for two weeks.

We're ready for Main Unit.

Come on, Main Unit.
Bring it on.

We're here in Jordan!

You look around the insanity
of what's been done here

to provide us
the ability to shoot three,
four units at the same time,

Main Unit, Second Unit,
Aero Unit, Visual Effects Unit,
has been phenomenal.

They've never had anything
as big as us here,

and they've met
that challenge full-on.
Nothing is impossible.

And three, two, one. Action!

This is Ochi's freighter.

It's a bit of a visual
effects reference. I'm using
this as a foreground model.

Put the camera
at a certain distance from it,

and, hopefully, it will look
like it's sitting on the rock.

We cannot possibly fly
in that old wreck.

Ochi of Bestoon's ship is,
of course,

something that Rey first saw
in Episode VII.

Although, at the time,
we didn't realize that
it was Ochi of Bestoon's ship.

I've seen that ship before.

No!

The day my parents left,
they were on that ship.

Ochi was a Jedi hunter

who was loyal to the Emperor
ever since the days
of the Empire.

He's an evil character
who essentially functions
as the assassin.

He was going to Exegol
with Ochi of Bestoon.

Why was Ochi going there?

To bring a little girl
he was supposed to take
from Jakku

to the Emperor.

And so,
in the course of the film,

Rey ends up aboard the very ship
where her parents were killed.

We've been talking about
how to make it feel

like it's 30 years
of abandonment.

I would do a pass where we lose
as much of the Imperial stuff

and just put in weapons
and that kind of stuff.

And the idea being, that it's
of the era of the Falcon.

So it's got a very,
very retro feel to it, but
I was very deliberately wanting

to make sure
that you never thought
you were in the Falcon.

This is great.

So I was looking a lot
at the original Eagle lander
from NASA,

and I found this lovely picture
that had yellows and teals,

strange colors from the kitchen
in my house in 1975

from where my mom was cooking.

Watch out for the ramp opening.

Our heroes will come in,
Poe will sit in the front,

and as he turns everything on,
the louvers will open up,

and the light
will flood into the ship.

We very clearly--

The very Star Wars ship
will hopefully look very new
to everybody.

Track four to one.

Track two to one.

A Mark.

B Mark.

And three, two, one. Action!

Ochi's ship
hasn't been turned on
in 30 years.

The source for that
was a late '60s Camaro.

Cut. Beautiful. Playback.

- Yeah.
- That was great,
I thought.

Hello, hello.

-Hello.
- No, thank you.

Looks like someone
treated him badly.

It's all right.
You're with us now.

J.J. loved this idea
of the wheel. He loved
this shape, this pointy shape.

It's a simple, simple shape.

Obviously,
it needs to have a color,
and that'll be a lot of it.

It's always
about simple silhouettes,

that's what works beautifully
in Star Wars.

Just as much as BB-8,

you can distill down
to a hemisphere and a sphere,

this droid can be distilled down
to a triangle and a circle.

-Wait, what? Cone-face?
-D-O.

In the scene on Ochi's freighter
where BB-8 finds D-O

and brings him back
to functionality,

you've got challenges, well,
because it was just pure
puppetry.

It was just we had
to get in there
and hit the marks

and introduce this new character
into Star Wars.

Like a duckling,
he sort of latches onto

the first sort of thing he sees.

He's a very sort of fun,
constantly moving,

inquisitive child,
more of a child than BB-8.

Hello.

No, thank you.
No, thank you.

We started on some
D-O sound design
for his vocals,

and that went through
a dozen different iterations

before we landed on
where it is now.

Hey, don't touch that.
That's my friend's.

So sorry.
She is gone?

Yeah, she's gone.

I don't know where.

I miss her.

That's J.J. He kept telling me
what kind of voice he wanted.

He kept telling me
what kind of actor
he wanted and different traits

of what that droid was like.

And, in the back of my head,
I was like,
"That actually sounds like J.J."

There was a scene I had to do
with just D-O.

We're in Babu Frik's workshop

and C-3PO,
for all we know, is gone.

Oh, boo!

Like, it's horrifying.
So I have to walk away,

and I had to sit there,

but D-O just goes
squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak.

And J.J. was laughing so much,
I thought we were never
going to get through it.

And then we come this way,
I'm doing three ahead.

And he's just kind of, like--
He's like, "Do you notice me?"

Let's go. Oh, my God.
I don't know why
it's so funny to me.

One of the things
that J.J. found hilarious

is that I've clearly
never oiled anything

'cause he said
that I was oiling D-O like this.

BB-8 has been there
for two films.
We love him, and he just said,

"I don't want Rey to be as warm
to D-O just yet."

And it's so--
It was sweet doing it.

Squeaky wheel.
I have a squeaky wheel.

Squeak eliminated.
Thank you.

D-O was just left in neglect
on the ship by Ochi of Bestoon,

and Rey says to him,
essentially,
you might have had a bad past,

but you're with friends now.

And that,
sort of, is the feeling
of the whole film,

that Poe didn't have
such a great past,

Finn didn't have
such a great past, Rey
didn't have such a great past,

and nor did BB-8.

But now that they're together,
they're friends,

and they're going to look out
for each other.

Who are you,
and what do you want?

I'm Warwick, and I want a job.

Cut it out.

Well, it's fun really.
Yeah, it's great fun.

But there is a lot
of waiting around,
you know.

See? If you do one--
If you three work together.
If you do...

And stretch!

Back in 1981,
my grandmother heard
a radio commercial,

in which they were looking
for short people to be
in the new Star Wars movie,

and so she told my mom,
who then phoned up the studios.

And they said,
"Well, we've got everyone
we need. We had so many calls."

Mom then said that I
was a big fan of the films

and that I was only 11.
And they started to think,

"Actually maybe we could have
some sort of younger Ewoks."

I need a spear.

All we have to do
is just go down that pass.

-Oh, that doesn't matter.

Are we going to be
fighting at all,
do you know?

-What?
We just run away and that's it?
-Right, that's it.

-Yeah.
-It's just one scene.

-Oh, that's easy to remember.
-Oh, yeah.

Obviously, I never thought
I would see the day

where I'd be stepping back
into these feet and performing
Wicket once again.

See?

-I do this
for your entertainment.

Putting this Wicket costume
back together is going to be
a major undertaking

for quite a lot of people.

It needs to feel
the same for you.

I think,
at the minute, these are going
to definitely have to move up

onto the top of my head
a bit more.

Ah, some spear auditions.

- Yeah, spear or staff.
-That's good. I like that one.

-This is like an old wise man.
- Yeah,
that's like Gandalf.

Yeah.

Then the fur is on.

That's whether
you see whether it,

kind of, the shape
and everything,
is working or not.

Looking over and seeing my son,
Harrison, there--

Oh, it's fantastic.
It's really--
it makes you very proud

and evokes a lot of memories
of when I was first
having fittings.

I was excited,
but also I didn't really know
what I was getting into,

whereas Harrison kind of
has a better understanding

of what he's going into here
and the, kind of,
the scale of the whole thing.

Warwick's happy.
Our actual Ewok is happy
with our new Ewok.

You've got to be pleased
with that.

Team Wicket.

Come on.
How cool is this?

Is this crazy?

You haven't got long to,
kind of,
sell it to the audience.

So, little subtle clues
in the costume, the look of that
and also the set,

will allow us
to do that very quickly.

I guess
we're calling him Wicket's son.

You know, I think, in reality,
he's my son,
but also within the Ewok tribe,

Wicket has indeed produced
an offspring.

He's older and wiser,
and he has a little scamp
to handle now.

So you can imagine the scale
of what we're seeing.

- Yeah.

more like plummeting down.

Today, we were blessed

with two performances
from two fine actors.

One is a Star Wars vet,
and one is a new Star Wars vet.

I'm immensely proud of Harrison
and what he's achieved today.

Look,
it's not easy in this, you know.

It's difficult to move.
It's extremely hot.

You can't see,
you can't breathe,
and he did a sterling job.

I cannot tell you
how wonderful this is.
Thank you both for doing it.

-So, how was that?
-It--

-Pretty good, huh?
-Yeah.

I managed to sort of wrangle
my way into Episode I.

I actually had to drop
a lot of hints

to George all the time,
be sort of pestering him
basically.

Uh, I used to send faxes
back then saying,

"Well, I hear you're making
a new film soon.

Just remember to, kind of,
write a short character
in for me."

Only it was as blatant
as that.

I got a message
from Lucasfilm like,

"Hi, we're using
a lot of fax paper
at the moment."

-Congratulations,
you're liberated! Scoot.

Yeah, I never
take it for granted either

'cause they don't have to ask me
to do these things.

And they don't realize,
I don't think, how much pleasure
I get from doing it.

Playing a droid

or an alien character
or what have you...

I love it.
I mean, I can't...

It makes me smile
when I think about Star Wars.

Come on.

This character's
very special to me

because he gave me the career
in acting I have, you know.

Without having performed Wicket,

I don't think any of the things
would have happened to me
in my life.

It kind of fulfilled
a childhood dream
to be in Star Wars,

and then to go on to, kind of,
meet my heroes in the flesh,

you know, in the shape
of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker
and Princess Leia.

I mean, it was
the most amazing thing
in the world.

Well, I like
putting the costume on.

And that's--
When I've got it on,
it feels good.

And it's just nice to feel
that you're in Star Wars.

And so when you see it
in the cinema,
you'll say, that's me!

And, yeah, it'll be good.

Well, Warwick, it wasn't easy,
but we couldn't have done it
without you.

That's all right.

-Thanks a lot.
You worked really hard.
-Yeah.

-Bye-bye.
-Bye.

See you.

-Bye.
- We'll miss you.

Give my love to the Ewoks.

- Okay.
- Sure will.

What George created
with Star Wars
was utterly unique.

It's not a science fiction film.

It's not science fantasy.

It's not this.
It's not that. It's Star Wars.

-Give us a bit more there, Pete.

-Okay, yeah.

In Star Wars,
creatures definitely
feel like a theme of the series.

This amazing puppetry
and animatronics is awesome.

There's a believability
in Star Wars.

So, when we're approaching
a design, we reference animals
and familiar things

that help that alien to look
like you've, sort of,
maybe seen him before somewhere.

The head shake is amazing.

A little bit more shake, Liam,
on the head shake.

That is so good.

Jim Henson, the man who
I owe so much to, in the fact
that he gave me my start

in the film industry,
always said, to him,
performance was everything.

And so, to me,
when we've created a character,

whether it be a droid
or whether one makes a puppet

or whether or not it's
a character that takes 10,
15 puppeteers to bring to life,

that is the point
in which they bring their skills
and their artistry to it.

Oh, I'm lovely.

You guys!

They are all actors
in their own way,

and they all have
their own personalities.

Oh, are you doing my teeth?
This is good stuff. Look!

By the way, you know
that's not tasty at all.

Here he comes.

Together, we work as a team

and try and make it look
as realistic as we can.

When you've got the head on,
of course, you can feel
a little bit isolated.

It's really great 'cause I've
got Mike in my ear, sort of,
essentially guiding me,

making sure I'm safe.
So, it's really
quite nice to have him there.

We can, you know--
He keeps me company.

Looking amazing, guys.
Who's inside today?

Tom Wilton.

Hello, Tom.
Tommy's here. Well done, Tom.

Thanks, Tommy.

I do pity the guy
inside though, Tom.

He's putting up with a lot
of discomfort, a lot of heat
and a lot of weight.

And walk backwards.
Keep going--

It's quite a heavy thing,
so it takes a bit of muscle,

and it's quite uncomfortable,
but it's all for the love
of the movie.

- He walks backwards?
- Yeah,
he walk backwards.

He's got a little camera here
and a monitor.

- That's how you do it.
- Yeah, he's got you.
Thank you.

-Well done, Liam.
- Thanks.

I'll give you a race.

Still quite sweet.

The great thing
about all these characters,

they have such a different type
of personality.

- Hey.
- Oh, yeah.

We talk about what kind
of character these aliens are,

if they're a villain or good

or you don't trust him,
or if he's a pirate alien.

We are
a manufacturing process
ultimately.

Everything we make has to go
through a series of processes

in order to be realized
as a Star Wars character.

They're all pretty much
a bit of collaboration.

Each one gets weirder
and more wonderful creatures.

- Yeah.

This is Klaud.

It's a nice process to see
from beginning to end.

You get your performer in it,
and they bring it to life.

Neal loves a good show-and-tell.
Doesn't he, Fiona?

He does.
It's very exciting,
very enthusiastic.

Let's go, Paul!

...two, one, scream.

Okay, cool.

Hug him, Oscar.

Great job, sir. Thank you.
- Well done.

I love the creatures.

I actually treat them
like they're creatures,
like, for real.

Look straight.
Yeah, that's it.

What I love about Star Wars

is that you're dealing with
a healthy use of practical
effects,

which is brilliant.

And so, this is an opportunity
for us, as actors,

to react off of real stuff.

Practical effects

is what Star Wars
was all about originally.

You know,
things like the Rancor,
the Tauntaun, the stop-motion.

This time around,
we're trying to do
as much as we can practically.

Maz, for instance,
is a character that we all know
from Force Awakens.

Maz, up to this point,
was computer generated

and with
the animatronic version,

we had one person
in a motion-capture suit
doing the upper body.

When I puppeteer her,
she picks up all of my breath.

If I move my head slightly,
it really follows.

And we had a person
lip-synch live
and perform the mouth,

which is a bit like puppeteering
a sock puppet

but actually doing it
through two mechanical gloves.

- Ooh! Ha ha.

Do you want to take a photo?
-I would love to, if I can.

It's extra money for a photo.

I love the stand-up Maz.

Just put a brick wall
behind her, really.

I'm here all week.
Try the veal. It's very good.

This is for you.

There's many expressions
we got in here.

Sometimes they need
that specific expression
that maybe our mechanics lack.

Then CG comes in,
which I'm totally fine with

because,
especially on this film,

it's
been an amazing collaboration
where we help each other out.

We rely so heavily on all
the brilliant people at ILM.

I can say to Roger Guyett, who's
the visual effects supervisor,

"Ah, there's a puppeteer on here
with a rod.

Do you mind
getting rid of him later?"

And he's like,
"No, no. We'll get rid of that."

So that relationship is one
that is very, very close,

obviously creatively
and economically,
that has ramifications.

Our other native people,
we could have on ordinary
naked horses,

and Roger could help us out
later on.

- Copy that.
-Okay. It's 1:35.

We've got Orbaks, which
are these horse-like creatures.

And in creating
what these Orbaks are, we
actually used real live horses.

We took our horse team that
worked with creature effects

to be able to dress them,
give them extra hair
and costumes.

So the boot Velcros on and then
the suit Velcros on top of that.

We all had to think
about horse temperature,

got to make sure
they don't overheat.

So this suit
is specifically for Benz.
He is the hero horse for Naomi.

He's the most decorated
'cause she's the leader.

We tried to make
the mask originally,
but we couldn't do the mask

because the practicality
of the horse running
and how much he could see...

It was too difficult.
It was too limitating.
We couldn't do it practically.

Should we do some designs
forgetting the actual geometry
of the horse head?

I'd say, what would the thing
look like ideally?

Our team here had to study

what kind of characteristics
they had in the hair

and also add all the details
that we would see
on the real live animal,

like twigs,
mud and blades of grass

so that they feel
like living, breathing animals.

The best thing?
I think the ears.

The animators
and VFX sups were obsessed
over the animation of the ears.

I think it came out
quite successfully.

It looks like twitchy ears.

I guess the best thing
about the Orbaks is the sound

because we have no idea
what sound it makes.

-Something like--
No, I'm not doing that.

Orbaks are noisy eaters.

What sound do they make?
Um, I think...

No, thank you.
No, thank you.

Star Wars invites you
into a galactic world
that you can be part of.

I don't know of any other
film genre that does that
as successfully as Star Wars.

- Shukran. Shukran.

Amazing! Amazing!

Welcome to Star Wars IX.

Good morning, everyone.

We're starting our new
Star Wars event for today,
you probably have noticed.

When Kathy Kennedy
called and said, "Would you
work on Episode IX?",

literally
one of the first things
that crossed my mind

was that I would get
to work with John again.

It's one of the things
I thought, "Oh, my God.
I cannot not do this."

So, we're going to play now
the first piece
then, 1976, when I was 12.

-Okay?

And it sounds like this.

Getting to watch him conduct,

hearing the music
that he has written,

being part of, at all,
his remarkable body of work,

was just an opportunity
I could not possibly say no to.

To go back to the beginning,
the first day we did Star Wars

was the first day
that a trumpeter,
called Maurice Murphy

had been admitted as a member to
the London Symphony Orchestra.

So, the first service he did was
Star Wars Recording Number One,

and he came into the stage
and blew that Top C,

which, sort of,
blew the world's head off.

I've had the good fortune
of working with John
for most of my career.

He's been actively involved
in all the Star Wars movies,

and he consistently finds
these incredible themes,

and you sit there saying,
"How in the world
does he do this?"

Hey, hey, listen to me, Chewie!

-Chewy.

This is marvelous.
This is very touching here,
I think.

-Well, it's a combination of--
-I need you to protect her,

-all of that. I love that.
-Yeah.

I don't like to read scripts.

Reading anything,
we form our own, sort of,
vision of what things look like.

I'd rather look at a film
and be surprised
at what's happening

and remember those moments
that are revelatory.

I love you.

I know.

What are you going to say?

-Yeah.
-I love you too?

Violins.

The process for me is,
I have to go to the piano
and start to work.

I can't do it thinking about it
or walking around the room
or walking in the trees.

I have to go to the piano,
start to write something
that isn't very good,

look at it the next day
or a week later
and try to make it better.

I will take scene by scene,
I will write a few bars

and then go look
at what I've done
on screen and rework it.

He writes
and then he goes to the piano
every once in a while

and makes sure
that he's still in the same key,
and he comes back,

and he writes some more.
Great composers all wrote
that way.

He still writes by hand.
He doesn't compose
at a computer.

Technology
can change the picture,
but John's thematics,

it's the same brilliance
that it was for the first one.

It's hard to believe
that it's been 40 years
since we began this.

This is a unique opportunity

where a composer
can keep working
on the same body of work,

and continue to add to it.

What a privilege is that!

Play one over. Up, down, up.

One, two. One, two.

What if it's just reversed?

One of the challenges has been,
should it be so new
that it doesn't fit the body?

Can you play Rey's theme
alongside of Leia's theme

and have them be
same part of the family,
even though I'm 40 years older?

So far, they all
seem to want to live together.

With Rey, writing a theme
for her, she was a little more
than a child in number VII.

Her metamorphosis, if you like,
from VII to IX,

she's an adult now.
She's become
a magnificent woman.

I can treat it in the orchestra
so it's in a more grown-up way,

so you'll hear it,
but it's not quite
as simply presented.

The changes of Rey,
they are part and parcel
and in tandem with the changes

of Adam Driver's character,
to something heroic.

I could turn Ren's theme around,
not upside down,
but reharmonize it,

which was actually J.J.'s idea.
He said to me,

"Well, can you make the trip
from Ren to Ben
on the same theme?"

It's the same theme exactly,
just a few little differences.

No, I,
however you do it.

But that idea of, you know,
he's trying his hardest now
to be the best he can be,

as opposed to
he's trying his hardest
to be as bad as he can be,

which he's
already been doing.

"Can you change the theme,
turn it upside down
or something?"

I think I initially said,
"Well, no, I've never done that,
and how do you do it?"

But it worked out
where his evil theme
morphs brilliantly

into a kind of a hero theme
by a change of harmonic support
and so on.

The Emperor's theme,
which is a little motif really,

meaning a sort of short theme,

the presentations
of it in this film
are more numerous.

It always made me
smile a little bit.

It's supposed to be very nasty.

I think it's very powerful,
these challenges of Force
against Force

that our heroes bring up
against the all-powerful one.

I am all the Sith.

This is so historic, John.
My God.

What do you say, Uncle Luke?

I was just mistaken
for Steven Spielberg
at the gate.

Seriously. He said,
"Do you have an ID?"
And I said, "I left it at home."

I said,
"Any chance you recognize me?"

And he said,
"Oh, you're Steven Spielberg."

I wish I'd said yes.

I missed that opportunity.
I came this close.

How many scenes
have we scored
with this guy in it?

Yoda lifts it
in The Empire Strikes Back.

Ramiro Belgardt,
the music editor,

he said, "Oh, it should be
exactly the music
that we had for Yoda."

Actually, J.J. questioned it,
he said, "Well, is that,
are we doing that right?"

And everybody said,
"Oh yes, it has to be. You know,
the fans will all know."

So, we went back
to the score of
Empire Strikes Back

to get those bars
exactly out of them,

that actual little central piece
of taking the ship up

is exactly as we had it before.

It's an exception,
the use of something literal
from an earlier film.

We were visiting
specific themes, you know.
I'm happy to do it.

It's great to see
these characters revisited here.

It brings us to Carrie,
of course.
We see her in the film.

Rey.

And we hear her theme
referred to.

And I feel very good about it.

It's nice,
that she's still with us,
anyway, in part of it.

I just think the last couple
of words of the film
are so completely magical.

We have to have 40 years
of preparation for that,

to get the full feeling

of what that means.

I felt so satisfied
and so complete in a way.

Who are you?

I'm Rey.

Nine episodes in a great tale,

beautifully done
over many, many years.

And that means that
it's not an ending,

that it's here with us
and will stay there

and makes our lives
part of that story.

Rey Skywalker.

The last day of recording
on films like this is
always a little bit emotional.

There's a sense of satisfaction,
coming to the end
of the musical journey of it.

But there's also
a little sense of feeling sorry

that we won't be meeting
again next week to record
some more Star Wars music.

I would be quite happy
to have it go on indefinitely.

I feel like we've been together
for a very, very long time.

I really will miss seeing you.

I wish we had more to play,

but I cannot thank you enough
for this opportunity
to be with you.

Bravo. Thank you
for your artistry and for
your obvious love of music.

Thanks so much.