‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’: Fans Feel This Was the Most Emotional Scene of the Entire Movie
It’s been three weeks since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hit the box office, and the conversations have not stopped. Although critics do not give the movie stellar reviews, fans love the movie, despite the usual controversy. The latest discussion is surrounding what the most emotional moment of the film was.
Fans on Reddit often ask, ‘What moment hit you hardest?’ in ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’
“Chewie’s reaction to Leia killed me,” wrote one user on Reddit. “It was recasting you could tell he was absolutely done. He had lost everyone, Han, Luke and now Leia. We lost them all too, and we were sad, but Chewie, oh man, poor Chewie.”
Although Leia’s (Carrie Fisher) on-screen death hit all of the viewers very hard, seeing it through Chewie’s eyes (Joonas Viljami Suotamo) made it so much worse.
“I cried at Chewie reacting to Leia’s death,” admitted one fan on Reddit who did not expect to cry at all.
Many others agree that it was agony watching the Wookie go through yet another death of a beloved friend.
“I’m glad I’m not the only person who cried,” added another Redditor. “Chewie got me with his reaction, R2 by Leia’s side, her reaching out to Ben, Han. Gah. I love this film.”
The amount of comments regarding Chewie goes on and on. Fans are distraught.
“Chewie breaking down when he heard Leia died,” wrote yet another fan. “That was another moment that was emotional for me.”
After the film, the actor who plays Chewie made fans cry again
It was hard enough for fans to watch the Wookie’s reaction to Leia’s death in the theater, but when they heard about Suotamo’s feelings about it, the tears came again.
“I remember having some issues with my jaw being so sweaty that I had trouble opening the mouth of the Chewbacca mask,” Suotamo describes the moment to The Hollywood Reporter. “So, I was a nervous wreck underneath the mask.”
“Everyone was really tense,” the actor continues. “It was agonizing to deal with that situation because we were essentially living the actual reality of it — that Carrie had passed — and now we were shooting the scene where her character passes. It was a very emotional day, and watching it is still very emotional for me.”
The seven-foot-tall basketball player also cries during his scene. Can it get any more tragic than that?
What made the scene with Leia more difficult for everyone on set and at home?
“When Han died in The Force Awakens, you knew that you were still going to shake Harrison Ford’s hand at the end of the day,” Suotamo adds. “So, yeah, Leia’s scene was definitely more difficult.”
Carrie Fisher died in 2016, but unused footage from The Force Awakens was used to bring her back for The Rise of Skywalker. The on-screen death was a painful one because it was so real to everyone.
The Wookie and Leia are from the original trilogy, so that also has a significant impact on the feelings here. These characters have been around for decades, so the loss of any one of them is tragic. Couple that with the fact that Fisher is not on set at the end of the day, and you need to pull out an entire box of tissues to get through it.
