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SYFY WIRE Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

Star Wars in late night: Daisy Ridley raps the entire saga and J.J. Abrams talks endings

By Matthew Jackson
Daisy Ridley Star Wars rap recap

We're now less than a month away from the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which means the stars of the film are already kicking off a weeks-long press tour that will include plenty of talk show appearances. Monday night saw both star Daisy Ridley and director J.J. Abrams take to late night to promote the film, and their respective appearances included everything from rap recaps to a serious discussions about how hard it is to end the Skywalker Saga. 

Ridley dropped by The Tonight Show on Monday, where she talked about everything from keeping her role as Rey secret when she first got it to the many cameos of the sequel trilogy, from Daniel Craig to Prince Harry. Before she could even take a seat in the interview chair, though, Ridley had something a little more extravagant to take care of: A rap recap of all eight episode of the Skywalker Saga so far. With host Jimmy Fallon backing her up with cue cards and The Roots providing a beat, Ridley rhymed her way through the original trilogy, then flashed back to the prequels, then jumped forward to the new trilogy with lines like "Kylo won't put on a shirt/Kylo is kind of a flirt." Check it out:

By the time she did make it over to Fallon's interview chair, Ridley couldn't say much about Rise of Skywalker itself (though Fallon did try to bait her with a little Dark Rey chatter), but she did wade in to one of the most important debates of our time: Baby Yoda vs. Porgs. 

"I'm not a big fan of the Porgs. We worked for six months on The Last Jedi, and in every interview: 'What about the Porgs?' I was like 'The Porgs were there for a day! I was there every day for six months. We worked hard,'" Ridley said. 

While Ridley was rapping and settling debates over at Fallon's show, The Rise of Skywalker director and co-writer J.J. Abrams was over at The Late Show talking to host and lifelong Star Wars fan Stephen Colbert, who carried on what's become something of a talk show tradition with the sequel trilogy by asking Abrams what the first spoken word in the new film is. Abrams made sure to note that he was not talking about the first word in the opening crawl, but rather the first thing a character says, then hit us all with a bombshell: "At." 

Colbert also asked Abrams, who's now helmed both the launch of the sequel trilogy and its conclusion, which was harder: Reigniting the Skywalker saga in 2015, or ending it now?

"Ending is much harder. Much, much, much harder. It's so hard to end! It's a huge responsibility," Abrams said, and went on to describe the responsible of ending not just one trilogy, but three. Colbert followed up by asking if Abrams ever had a moment where he thought "I can't do this."

"I think every day there was a moment of 'Oh, God,' you know," Abrams said. "But the truth is as challenging as it was, this has by far been the most rewarding and exciting experience that I've ever had professionally." 

For more from Abrams, including the strange way in which the late Carrie Fisher somehow predicted he would return for another Star Wars film, check out his interview. 

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is in theaters December 20, which means we can expect more talk show shenanigans from the film's cast over the next few weeks.