The best Easter eggs and cameos in 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker'

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So much has happened away from the world of movies since the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker that it seems a very long time since we were all arguing about how the conclusion of the 40-year saga played out. However, it’s now time to take another look at the movie as The Rise of Skywalker arrives on Disney+ to tie in with Star Wars Day.

Despite its decidedly mixed critical reaction, The Rise of Skywalker is a treasure trove of references and nods to the past of one of cinema’s most iconic franchises.

Some of the nods are obvious, from the return of Emperor Palpatine after his apparent death in Return of the Jedi through to the presence of Carrie Fisher’s General Leia thanks to unused footage filmed for The Force Awakens prior to her passing. Billy Dee Williams has also been widely publicised as returning to the role of Lando Calrissian. However, those were things everyone knew about prior to the film’s release.

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So let’s take a look at some of the more surprising Easter eggs and cameos littered throughout The Rise of Skywalker...

Rey’s parents

In The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren revealed to Rey that her parents were “filthy junk traders” and that she came from “nothing”. That gets a retcon in The Rise of Skywalker, which reveals that Rey is the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine and, as such, is effectively the de facto heir to the Sith throne.

Flashbacks show that Palpatine sent assassins to get to Rey when she was a child and they killed her parents. Those parents are played by Billy Howle — most famous for On Chesil Beach and Outlaw King — and none other than Jodie Comer, aka Killing Eve’s deadly Villanelle.

When, where and how Palpatine found time to father a child, is something we’d rather not contemplate right now.

Returning heroes

Mark Hamill had been announced as a part of the movie prior to its release, so his scene as a “force ghost” appearing to Rey on Ahch-To — complete with Porg cameo — wasn’t a massive surprise. More interestingly, he had a vocal cameo as the doomed alien Boolio, who imparted crucial information to the Resistance early in the movie. He was credited for this under his regular pseudonym Patrick Williams.

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It was something of a shock to see Harrison Ford reprise the role of Han Solo — albeit as some sort of vision, rather than a revival from the dead — in order to convince his wayward son to embrace the Ben Solo moniker and say goodbye to Kylo Ren. There was even a code name for Ford on set to keep his appearance secret.

A small but significant final appearance for one of the most memorable characters in movie history, that had echoes with the Chris Terrio-scripted Batman v Superman moment which saw Clark Kent’s dad return from the grave to offer words of encouragement to his son.

All of the Jedi and Star Wars: Rebels

One of the key driving forces of the third act of The Rise of Skywalker sees Rey at her lowest ebb, weakened as Palpatine uses his force lightning to attack the Resistance fleet. She hears the voices of more than half a dozen Jedi from the history of the franchise, giving her the strength to fight back against the Emperor. These include Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness — through archive sound — as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu, Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker, Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn and Frank Oz as Yoda.

Read more: Possible plots for the Disney+ Kenobi series

Less obviously, the montage of sound also includes some voices from the Star Wars animated shows. Eagle-eared fans will enjoy Freddie Prinze Jr. as Kannan Jarus, Jennifer Hale as Aayla Secura, Olivia D’Abo as Luminara Unduli and Angelique Perrin as Adi Gallia.

Star Wars: Rebels fans should also keep their eyes peeled during the scene when the Resistance first arrives on Exegol. The Ghost ship from Rebels can be glimpsed among the fleet.

Wedge Antilles and Nien Nunb

Wedge was one of the best X-wing pilots in the Rebel Alliance, surviving the attack runs on both Death Stars during the original Star Wars trilogy. He has become one of the favourite supporting characters of Star Wars fans over the last few decades and would’ve been in The Force Awakens, were it not for a scheduling conflict. Actor Denis Lawson (Ewan McGregor’s uncle dontcha know?) makes a brief appearance in The Rise of Skywalker as one of the pilots taking on Palpatine’s fleet in the skies above the planet Exogel, stating that he’s happy to be fighting alongside Lando once again.

There’s also a brief appearance for Nien Nunb, who notably served as Lando’s co-pilot on the Millennium Falcon during the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi. After popping up in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi — original voice actor Kipsang Rotich was tracked down in his native Kenya to reprise the role — he is again part of the clash with the First Order in the final scenes of The Rise of Skywalker. It’s not clear whether he survived the Battle of Exogel though.

Kevin Smith

The director of Clerks and Mallrats has appeared in Star Wars before, having played a Stormtrooper in The Force Awakens. However, he also pops up as a local on Kijimi in The Rise of Skywalker, fulfilling a promise made by Abrams that he would put Smith in the movie if he survived the heart attack that had recently left him hospitalised. Once Smith recovered, he was of course willing to appear.

The Holdo Manoeuvre

One of the most divisive moments of The Last Jedi was the scene in which Laura Dern’s Vice Admiral Holdo sacrifices herself by flying at lightspeed directly through Supreme Leader Snoke’s ship, striking a significant blow for the Resistance against the First Order. Fans nitpicked that such a move had never been done before — and the actor behind Admiral Ackbar wasn’t sold on Holdo either — but The Rise of Skywalker does provide something of a reason for that.

During a discussion about potential tactics to take on the First Order, one Resistance fighter suggests trying out some “Holdo Manoeuvres” to cripple the opposing fleet. Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron, however, states that the move is “one in a million”, suggesting that Holdo was rolling the dice and that it could easily have completely failed.

John Williams

If there’s a man behind the scenes as important to the enduring power of Star Wars as George Lucas, then it’s legendary composer John Williams. He has scored all of the movies in the main saga and his work on the franchise stands out as among the most memorable in even his enviable back catalogue.

The 87-year-old legend of cinema gets to appear on screen in The Rise of Skywalker, popping up on the planet Kijimi as the heroes search for droid tinker Babu Frik. He can be seen shaking his head disapprovingly. Even better, his character’s name is Oma Tres — an anagram of “maestro”.

Snoke and Vader

Fans were rather upset by the unceremonious demise of Supreme Leader Snoke in The Last Jedi and were very keen to know where the First Order bad guy came from. Abrams answered those questions in The Rise of Skywalker, revealing that Snoke was one of a number of clones created by Palpatine on Exegol. Several Snoke-like figures can be seen in Palpatine’s lair inside some sort of machine.

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Andy Serkis reprises his role as Snoke for a vocal cameo and there’s also a brief appearance from the iconic voice of James Earl Jones as Darth Vader — cinema’s ultimate Big Bad.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

The creator of Hamilton recently revealed on Twitter that he helped to write some of the music for The Rise of Skywalker, but he also appears in a brief cameo as a Resistance fighter during the final scenes of celebration.

Ewoks

Fairly early on in The Rise of Skywalker, there’s a reference to a location in “the Endor system”, which seems almost certain to see the action return to the forest moon which provided one of the climactic locations for Return of the Jedi. This doesn’t happen, but the film does make it to Endor during the final celebration sequence.

There, we see a pair of Ewoks, including leader Wicket, with Brit star Warwick Davis reprising his Jedi role. Given Davis’ teenage son, Harrison, is listed in the credits as a character called “Pommet Warwick”, it seems like a safe bet that he’s the other Ewok in the scene, making it a lovely family moment.

JJ Abrams

As if he didn’t have enough to do as co-writer and director, Abrams also appears in the movie as the voice of the new, cone-headed droid D-O. He’s a rare example of a droid who speaks with English words, more like C-3PO than BB-8 and R2-D2, despite his size and non-humanoid appearance.

Co-writer Chris Terrio confirmed the cameo to Vanity Fair and said that Abrams’ voice was initially installed temporarily, before they fell in love with it in the edit. Terrio himself shows up to voice Aftab Ackbar — son of Admiral “It’s a trap!” Ackbar.

Ed Sheeran

It had previously been suggested via a behind-the-scenes video that ubiquitous music sensation Ed Sheeran was in there somewhere as a Stormtrooper. Since the movie’s release, however, it has been confirmed by Lucasfilm themselves that Sheeran’s cameo is actually in the form of an unrecognisable alien beastie.

Based on the vitriolic reaction to the chart-topper’s more obvious appearance in Game of Thrones, it was a smart move to hide him underneath a big alien flesh suit.

There are fun Stormtrooper cameos to be found lurking in among the First Order’s ranks, though, as Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich portrays FN-2802. Dhani Harrison — son of Beatles member George Harrison — is credited as FN-0878 and filmmaker J.D. Dillard is listed as FN-1226.

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