It’s all in the props.
In a video for WIRED, wherein Ridley discusses her internet presence and delights at learning a bunch of silly trivia about her digital footprint, the Star Wars actress drops one fascinating tidbit about the filming of The Rise of Skywalker.
She said that, in this film, the lightsaber fights were easier to film, and that they were lighter and faster. The reason for this, she explains, is that the props they were using were themselves lighter.
“It was more like broadsword fighting, which isn’t technically what it’s supposed to be, because lightsabers are supposed to be light by nature,” she explains. “So they actually made them lighter for us. We in this film actually have perhaps one of the most epic fights in Star Wars.”
That’s intriguing to me — a move that, maybe, communicates the growing capabilities of both Rey and Ben, or just perhaps the need to choreograph faster, more visually dense combat. But the weight of the props influencing choreography is something that literally never occurred to me. Neat.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker comes out December 19, 2019.