Beyond the Blast Doors
- May 22, 2019

Vaniety Fair's "Ultimate Preview" of Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker drops, fans numb with joy

Die-hard Star Wars fans and movie-going lovers were given a gift from Vanity Fair on Wednesday morning with the release of the magazine's, "Ultimate preview." This moment completes the page turn that started with the release of The Rise of Skywalker teaser at Star Wars Celebration Chicago last April.

Fans can now fully divert their attention to the final installment of the Skywalker Saga and dive into this story by Lev Grossman coupled with Annie Leibovitz's mastery of photography. It's a glance at the upcoming issue that sheds light on character development, new planets, and wrapping up loose ends left behind in this sequel trilogy and throughout the past 42 years of Star Wars film.

Fans have about seven months (Depending on how you do math) until they can find themselves in their local theater, grasping a diet coke, popcorn, and maybe the hand of a lover or total stranger. No matter what is in their hand, their face and mind will be on the final movie of the sequel trilogy that launched in 2015 with J.J. Abrams, The Force Awakens. Check out this brand new video with J.J. discussing this final film in the "Skywalker Saga."

Here are some new pieces of information we uncover throughout the article:

Keri Russell's character is Zorri Bliss.
Domhnall Gleeson and Richard E. Grant's characters are not related but they do play on the same team. Grant plays Allegiant General Pryde.
The Knights of Ren are in The Rise of Skywalker and Vanity Fair confirmed in its article that they are the victim in the teaser scene where Kylo takes a person down with the blunt end of his saber hilt.
There are two new planets in The Rise of Skywalker. The first is Pasanna, a desert like world that is not Jakku and not Tattooine because it's Pasanna. The scenes for this planet were shot in Jordan's Wadi Rum valley. The natives of this land are called the Aki-Aki. The second planet is the “snow-dusted” Kijimi—home to a shadowy Thieves’ Quarter.
The cover of the magazine makes you think the focus of this final film is about Kylo and Rey, (Please sense the sarcasm.) Grossman teases their "Force-connection will turn out to run even deeper than we thought." Are they the same soul in two bodies? Are they cousins? Are they both created by the force to bind the force? We have absolutely no clue.

The BTBD crew continues to sift through the original, exclusive article on Vanity Fair's website. So before we share new curiosities following this vast amount of new information, we collected the breath taking photos snapped by Annie Leibovitz for you to enjoy in the below slideshow.