Flying Stormtroopers Take Center Stage in First Clip from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

“They fly now.”

As originally conceived, the Stormtroopers of Star Wars were designed to do the Empire’s bidding on land, sea, in the air, and even in space, but in the past 40 years we have only ever seen them fighting on land (and in the interiors of assorted space ships and artificial moons). Finally, in the first clip from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, we get to a see a Stormtrooper in the air. The clip, introduced by co-writer (with Chris Terrio) and director J.J. Abrams, features a chase scene on Pasaana, a planet on the outer rim of the galaxy. In it, new First Order vehicles resembling a cross between Batman’s Tumbler and a snowmobile are chasing after Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac) across the desert landscape when they brake hard to do stoppies, launching Stormtroopers equipped with jet packs into the air.

It was also revealed on Good Morning America that Finn himself almost derailed the entire Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker production by negligently circumventing Disney’s Byzantine layers of security surrounding the script for the movie. Boyega apparently left it under his bed and, after being found and exchanging hands several times, the script ended up on eBay. It’s surprising news, but it actually sounds like a pretty Finn thing to do, when you think about it.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was written (with Chris Terrio) and directed by J.J. Abrams. Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Billie Lourd and Joonas Suotamo reprise their roles from The Last Jedi, joining series veterans Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels and Carrie Fisher. Joining the cast are Keri Russell, Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens on December 20th. The run time was recently revealed to be two hours and twenty-one minutes.

Images courtesy of Disney/Lucasfilm