Lucasfilm Confirms Even More Cameos In Rise Of Skywalker
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker made waves when it flew into theaters in December 2019 — not just for being the closing chapter of the Skywalker saga, but also for including a number of unexpected cameos that were peppered throughout the action.
Some of the cameos in The Rise of Skywalker were quite obvious, like the returns Andy Serkis as Supreme Leader Snoke and James Earl Jones as Darth Vader, who lent their voices in flashbacks experienced by Adam Driver's Kylo Ren. Harrison Ford also made a small appearance in the film as Kylo's father, Han Solo, who materialized in front of his son to help him return to his true form of Ben Solo. Other cameos included Warwick Davis as Wicket W. Warrick, seen in a glimpse of the celebrations on the forest moon of Endor that showed the Ewoks rejoicing in the final fall of the First Order, and several Star Wars franchise actors letting themselves be heard when Rey (Daisy Ridley) channeled the voices Jedi of past.
Now, Lucasfilm has confirmed (via StarWars.com) that there are a number of other cameos that occurred during The Rise of Skywalker as well — some of which are of the less obvious variety.
The newest confirmed cameos in The Rise of Skywalker
The final battle in The Rise of Skywalker saw the floundering Resistance fleet struggling against a massive army of Star Destroyers, which Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) somehow managed to secretly accumulate on the Sith planet of Exegol. Fortunately for our Resistance heroes, Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) arrived in the nick of time, bringing with him thousands of ships that ultimately helped to destroy the First Order for good.
Some of those ships, it turns out, are from the animated series Star Wars Resistance, set to end its run on Disney XD in 2020. As Lucasfilm Story Group executive Pablo Hidalgo explained, "One thing we do know is that among the 14,000 ships that arrive with Lando Calrissian over Exegol in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker are the Fireball, Jarek Yeager's racer, and Torra Doza's ship." A number of mining guild freighters from the series also make an appearance in The Rise of Skywalker's epic final fight.
For those unfamiliar with Star Wars Resistance, Jarek is a former Rebel pilot and Galactic Civil War veteran who owns a repair shop on the mobile refueling station known as the Colossus. Being an animated character, he of course isn't seen piloting his signature racer in The Rise of Skywalker. (And in canon, the Fireball is actually controlled by the astromech droid named Bucket, from Jarek's droid socket on the racer.)
As for Torra Doza, she's a scrappy pilot who lives on the Colossus station and has "the combined energy of a hotshot Ace and a 15-year old." Like Jarek, though, Torra wasn't shown in The Rise of Skywalker — only her ship was.
Without the arrival of ships from all over the galaxy, the Resistance would certainly have met its end on Exegol rather than the First Order. Those Star Wars Resistance ships and their operators can count themselves part of history for being there.